Ben Goldacre

About Dr Ben Goldacre

ben goldacre Bad Science site

Ben is a [coughs] award winning writer, broadcaster, and medical doctor who has written the weekly Bad Science column in the Guardian since 2003.

He appears regularly on Radio 4 and TV, and has written for the Guardian, Time Out, New Statesman, and the British Medical Journal as well as various book chapters.

“Bad Science” the book (4th Estate) is out now, it’s sold out in many bookstores but the publishers have ordered an emergency second print run which will appear in two days.

He has won numerous awards, including “Best Freelancer” at the Medical Journalists Awards 2006, the Healthwatch Award in 2006, “Best Feature” at the British Science Writers Awards twice, for 2003 and 2005, and the Royal Statistical Society’s first Award For Statistical Excellence in Journalism (£250 and an engraved crystal paperweight!).

I do not present myself as a “leading expert”, and I rarely even mention being a doctor, on the grounds that “arguing from authority” is one of the biggest problems in the way that science is misrepresented by the media. However, if you were to ask my mother, she would tell you that Ben studied Medicine at Magdalen College Oxford where he also edited Isis, the Oxford University Magazine. He left in 1995 with a First: before going on to clinical medicine at UCL, he was a visiting researcher in cognitive neurosciences at the University of Milan, working on fMRI brain scans of language and executive function, worked at Liberty the human rights organisation, and was also funded by the British Academy to do a Masters degree in Philosophy at King’s.

ben goldacre