Reading list · 8 books

How to read science news

Eight books that teach the questions a good editor asks of a new study before believing it.

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Bad Science (opens Bookshop.org)

Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks

Ben Goldacre · 2008

Physician Ben Goldacre dissects misleading health stories, dubious trials and pseudoscience from his Guardian column, and shows how to check a claim against the evidence.
Calling Bullshit (opens Bookshop.org)

The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World

Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West · 2020

Two University of Washington professors, from a course they teach, explain how misleading statistics, charts and machine learning claims work and how to spot them.
How to Lie with Statistics (opens Bookshop.org)

Darrell Huff · 1954

Darrell Huff's short 1954 classic shows how truncated axes, cherry-picked averages and samples that are too small can make numbers say what the writer wants.
The Data Detective (opens Bookshop.org)

Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics

Tim Harford · 2021

Financial Times economist Tim Harford offers ten rules for reading statistics in news stories, illustrated with cases such as Richard Doll's smoking research.
Science Fictions (opens Bookshop.org)

How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth

Stuart Ritchie · 2020

Psychologist Stuart Ritchie documents the replication crisis, fraud and publication bias, so readers can judge how far to trust a single new study.
Risk Savvy (opens Bookshop.org)

How to Make Good Decisions

Gerd Gigerenzer · 2014

Psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer teaches how to read medical risk figures, such as screening statistics and relative versus absolute risk, using natural frequencies.
The Art of Statistics (opens Bookshop.org)

How to Learn from Data

David Spiegelhalter · 2019

Cambridge statistician David Spiegelhalter uses cases like Harold Shipman and cancer screening to show how data become conclusions and where they mislead.
The Demon-Haunted World (opens Bookshop.org)

Science as a Candle in the Dark

Carl Sagan · 1995

Carl Sagan describes a baloney detection kit of skeptical tools for judging claims about UFOs, faith healing and pseudoscience, and defends the scientific method.