This is a fascinating book into the world of research and statistics. Goldacre looks at topics including Homeopathy, MMR Vaccines and Drug Companies and investigates the flawed medical trials and the problems with media interpretation. For teachers, there is also a section on the folly of Brain Gym.
As a Maths teacher, the book is extremely useful becuase it provides great insight in to modern techniques and how to correctly carry out Medical trials and Research, by often highlighting misleading methods and statistics. It looks in details at topics such as blind testing, regression to the mean, placebo effects, etc. This book would be particularly useful to run with the new Core maths qualification at post 16.
I would highly recommend this book to not just maths and science teachers, but to everyone within education. It highlights the need for a solid research base in education and the need for greater knowledge in this area. Fads, like Brain Gym, not only damage the education of our students but are a huge waste of money and resources.
See more at badscience.net and section for teachers.
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