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When the facts get in the way of a story
Author(s) -
Goldacre Ben
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
significance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1740-9713
pISSN - 1740-9705
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-9713.2007.00235.x
Subject(s) - guardian , parliament , theme (computing) , competition (biology) , column (typography) , simple (philosophy) , field (mathematics) , media studies , computer science , history , law , sociology , telecommunications , political science , mathematics , epistemology , world wide web , politics , philosophy , ecology , frame (networking) , biology , pure mathematics
Earlier this year the Royal Statistical Society announced the results of its first‐ever competition for journalists. Rules were simple: the written or broadcast piece had to be on a statistical theme, aimed at the general public, and it had to have appeared during 2006. From a field of nearly 50 entries, the winner, judged by a panel of statisticians, Members of Parliament and others, was this piece by Guardian writer Ben Goldacre . It first appeared in his “Bad Science” column in The Guardian on April 1st, 2006. Significance , part of whose role is also to spread knowledge of statistics to a wider audience, is proud to reproduce it here.