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Rigor Mortis
How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions
An essential book to understanding whether the new miracle cure is good science or simply too good to be true
American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research, but over half of these studies can’t be replicated due to poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn’t just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence for terminal patients. In Rigor Mortis, Richard Harris explores these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system — before it’s too late.
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American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research, but over half of these studies can’t be replicated due to poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn’t just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence for terminal patients. In Rigor Mortis, Richard Harris explores these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system — before it’s too late.
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Reader Reviews
Praise
Named by Amazon as one of their "Best Nonfiction Books of the Month"
Named one of PRI/SCIENCE FRIDAY's "Best Science Books of 2017"
"Rigor Mortis provides an excellent summation of the case for fixing science."—SLATE
"Harris makes a strong case that the biomedical research culture is seriously in need of repair."—Nature
"Rigor Mortis effectively illustrates what can happen when a convergence of social, cultural, and scientific forces...conspires to create a real crisis of confidence in the research process."—Science
"A rewarding read for anyone who wants to know the unvarnished truth about how science really gets done."
—Financial Times
"Rigor Mortis effectively illustrates what can happen when a convergence of social, cultural, and scientific forces, as well as basic human motivation, conspires to create a real crisis of confidence in the research process."—SCIENCE
"Harris makes a strong case that the biomedical research culture is seriously in need of repair."—Nature
"Rigor Mortis is rife with examples of things that go awry in medical studies, how they happen, and how they can be avoided and fixed. For the most part, academic biomedical scientists are not evil, malicious, or liars at heart."—Ars Technica
"An alarming and highly readable summation of what has been called the 'reproducibility crisis' in science--the growing realization that large swathes of the biomedical literature may be wrong."—Spectrum Magazine
"This engaging book will inform and challenge readers who care about the public image of science, the state of peer review, and US funding for science."—Physics Today
"This behind-the-scenes look at biomedical research will appeal to students and academics. A larger audience of impacted patients and taxpayers will also find this critical review fascinating and alarming. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries."—Library Journal
"[An] easy-reading but hard-hitting exposé..."
—Kirkus
"Just as 'post-truth' was selected as the word of the year in 2016 for its political connotations, Richard Harris masterfully shows how this pertains to science, too. Rigor Mortis is a compelling, sobering, and important account of bad biomedical research, and the pressing need to fix a broken culture."
—Eric Topol, Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and author of The Patient Will See You Now
—Eric Topol, Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and author of The Patient Will See You Now
"Science remains the best way to build knowledge and improve health, but as Richard Harris reminds us in Rigor Mortis, it is also carried out by humans subject to 'publish or perish' and other perverse incentives. Tapping into these tensions, Harris deftly weaves gripping tales of sleuthing with possible paths out of what some call a crisis. Read this book if you want to see how biomedical research is reviving itself."—Ivan Oransky, Co-Founder of Retraction Watch and Distinguished Writer In Residence at New York University
"Richard Harris's elegant and compelling dissection of scientific research is must-reading for anyone seeking to understand today's troubled research enterprise-and how to save it."
—Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT
—Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT
"Richard Harris has written an essential guide to how scientific research may arrive at the wrong conclusions. From the 235 ways that scientists can fool themselves to the misuse of statistics and the persistence of unsound research methods, Harris outlines the problems underlying the so-called 'reproducibility crisis' in biomedical research and introduces readers to the people working on solutions."—Christie Aschwanden, lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight and health columnist for the Washington Post
