From The TelegraphPublic understanding of science is worse now than it was fifty years ago, says Ben Goldacre, scourge of science frauds everywhere. He spoke to Kate Stein about MMR, the "two cultures" of science and the humanities, and Brazil nuts. Additional reporting by Tom Chivers.Ben Goldacre, the quackbusting doctor behind
badscience.net, cannot be described as self-effacing. Indeed he is probably the ideal subject for an interview: frighteningly articulate, full of witty observations, and prepared to talk and talk. His subject today is what he feels is a wilful culture of scientific illiteracy in Britain generally, and the British media in particular.
He harks back to the famous lecture, given in 1959 by C P Snow, on the existence of "two cultures" in British society - science and the humanities, and how the two exist almost in contempt of each other. Goldacre believes things have only got worse since then. "At least in Snow's era, science was just ignored - now people feel entitled to wade in and pass comment. It seems that science is being deliberately misrepresented and undermined."
He admits that making science sexy is not an easy feat. "Science makes a very bad news subject. It doesn't move ahead by sudden, single experimental results, it progresses by emerging themes and theories supported by a raft of evidence that has accumulated over time."
He feels there is a mismatch between the portrayal of science as being certain, and the reality of academic research: "From the 1930s to 1970s, we were living through a golden age of medicine where the low-hanging fruit of scientific research was being harvested - think antibiotics, imaging, intensive care.
"Now things progress by small incremental changes which in the long term mean that, in the last 30 years, your chances of dying in middle age as a man has halved. This isn't because of any single, news-breaking breakthrough, but because of an accumulation of small advantages and changes."
The headline-hungry media, though, are frequently unwilling to reflect that slow progress, seeking instead sensational soundbites in the form of miracle cures and terrifying dangers. Goldacre has spoken before of The Daily Mail's "ontological campaign" to divide the world into things that either cause or cure cancer, and he feels this impatience with science is leading to some fundamental misunderstandings about health and science.
A regular theme of his is the myth, as he sees it, that "pills can cure complex social problems", most recently seen in the Durham fish oil "trials" on schoolchildren. He feels this is an extension of the craze for nutritionism that has become so popular in recent years, rallying behind its high priestess, the "awful poo lady", "Dr" Gillian McKeith "PhD".
"I live in Kentish Town where the average white male life expectancy is 70", he says. "A mile up the road, where Gillian lives, average male life expectancy is 80. That's not because they're eating a handful of Brazil nuts everyday and therefore not deficient in selenium. It's because of a complex nexus of social and environmental factors which include things like stronger social support, better jobs - maybe more salad, but also more exercise."
Despite all this seemingly deliberate idiocy in the humanities-based media, then, does he feel that there is hope for the British public in general? This almost brings him to his feet with the vehemence of his response.
"People are not stupid - it's the thing that I find most offensive of all, the notion that the general public are stupid... You see a conveyor belt of human experience in medicine that's unlike any other and you have very serious and important conversations with people from every single walk of life. If you sit down and explain something in plain language, people understand it. A university degree is a risk factor for being intelligent, it's not by any means a guarantee." While he aims the bulk of his criticism at the media for the parlous state of the country's scientific understanding, he acknowledges that the scientific community are far from blameless. Publication bias is a particular bugbear of his: "Positive findings are much more likely to be published whilst negative findings tend to rot in desk drawers."
His most famous battle has, of course, been with the anti-vaccine campaigners over the MMR "controversy" of recent years.
"If you look at what's been covered, trivial and often completely unpublished alleged laboratory findings suggesting that MMR may cause autism or bowel problems have been given blanket media coverage," he sighs.
This lack of correlation between the reliability of scientific findings and their trumpeting in the media is also at the heart of his latest bugbear, "electrosensitivity". He notes that over thirty studies have shown that there is no link between the (entirely real) symptoms of sufferers and the electromagnetic waves they believe cause them. There must be a cause, but it seems to be elsewhere. However, this research is rarely noted in the newspapers - "apart from by me to point out that nobody has written about it."
He has made enemies in his fearless - even reckless - pursuit of what he sees as charlatanism. He once received a text message from a company he had investigated saying "Sleep well tonight and think about how and why you tried to f**k us over and practice keeping one eye open." However, he says he is driven not by a desire to be a crusader or a watchdog, but because he enjoys it. "I do it because I think it's funny and that's my primary motivation," he says.
More than anything else, though, one gets a sense that his real drive comes from sheer exasperation with the proudly illiterate relationship Britons have with science.
"There's nothing more pathetic than people who come along with "homeopathy works better than placebo because thalidomide is bad" kind of argument," he says. "It drives me insane, hearing people make these appallingly stupid weak arguments, looking really pleased with themselves and receiving public applause."
It's not quite a one-man battle against the dark forces of witlessness, but you feel that Goldacre would still be up for it if it was. What's surprising is that you might not want to bet against him.
