Dear Ben Goldacre, or, How Tired I Am Of Arts-Bashing

I love Bad Science. I truly do. In all honesty, it’s probably one of my favourite books of the year. I also love what you’re trying to achieve and agree with almost all of the sentiments behind your book, especially regarding the emancipation of the public regarding their healthcare and the drive to inform people about hacks and quack and charlatans. I love that, really.

However, there was just one teeny tiny part of your book that I didn’t agree with. In the chapter about some media journalists and their complete misuse and misunderstanding of science, medicine and how to present this information responsibly, you often a) assumed all bad journalists were/are humanities graduates, and b) a large number of humanities graduates are, frankly, rubbish at understanding or even trying to understand ‘science’. I found this part a little bit mean. I myself am a ‘humanities graduate’. I know a large number of ‘humanities graduates’, or at least people who will soon be ‘humanities graduates’. A lot of these wordy, gullible and slow ex-students who apparently mystify, distort and misunderstand the facts and theories pumped out by more worthy ‘science graduates’ are very interested in the world of science and medicine, are very self-aware, very knowledgable, and – most importantly – very willing to discover more, learn more and are in possession of curious and critical minds not just limited to med students. In actual fact, a ‘humanities graduate’ bought this book for me, another ‘humanities graduate’. Some of the people I know who are most interested in debunking myths of science created by the scare-mongerers are ‘humanities graduates’, and some of the most gullible and easily led by tales of cancer cures and sure deaths and amazing breakthroughs and Gillian McKeiths are, surprisingly, ‘science graduates’. Being a ‘humanities student’ or a ‘humanities graduate’ does not mean that we are all automatically going to slip into shoddy journalism, belief in ‘words’ over ‘statistics’ and subsequent gullibility, nor does being a ‘science graduate’ mean that you automatically have a sharp, inquiring and inquisitive mind capable of seeing past media science scams. People are people, it doesn’t matter what degree they have done, but instead how their personality reflects how critical they are about the world around them and the information presented to them by alleged authorities.

Also, please stop using the terms journalist and humanities graduate interchangeably.

Lucy Mason

P.S. Despite this I really am not in the humanities vs. science, BA vs BSc rivalry camp. I think both types of degrees should be thought of as equally important, equally useful and completely stripped of their respective stereotypes. I have great friends and admire a large number of people from both sections. I also can’t express how much I actually did love your book. It’s very refreshing to finally have meat to flesh out the bones of my ‘MMR and autism really can’t be linked…’ suspicion. Thanks for this, at least.

P.P.S. When you challenged the reader to find someone in the room who knew the difference between mean, mode and median it was me. And I was right. So much for a humanities graduate, hey? (And they don’t teach us that in Art History lectures, promise).

P.P.P.S. Please forgive me if I’ve misunderstood anything. It’s very possible I have!

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