Science Fictions

A desperately important book, Science Fictions brilliantly exposes the fragility of the science on which lives, livelihoods and our whole society depend ... Required reading for everyone

ADAM RUTHERFORD, author of How to Argue With a Racist

Gripping tales of increasing recent villainy and bias in the laboratory, which should worry those of us who love science

MATT RIDLEY, author of How Innovation Works

An engagingly accessible set of cautionary tales to show how science and scientists can be led astray, in some instances with fatal consequences ... clear-eyed and chillingly accurate ... should be compulsory reading for anyone involved in the communication of science to policy makers and to the public

GINA RIPPON, author of The Gendered Brain

Ritchie's engaging tour of the dark side of research [...] has rumbled science's guilty secret ... the tragedy is that the current system does not just overlook our foibles, it amplifies them ... he's entertaining company ... an illuminating and thoughtful guide. Ultimately, he comes to praise science, not to bury it

ROGER HIGHFIELD, Literary Review

Fascinating and often shocking

Sunday Times, Best Paperbacks of 2021

Thrilling ... Ritchie reminds us that another world is possible

The Times

Excellent ... we need better science. That's why books like this are so important

Evening Standard

The most important science story of our times ... evocative and engaging ... sometimes funny, sometimes shocking

Unherd

All the replication-failure and scientific-misconduct stories you've ever heard are here - along with more that you haven't ... This comprehensive collection of mishaps, misdeeds and tales of caution is the great strength of Ritchie's offering ... Ritchie's four themes carve complex, interconnected issues at natural joints, and allow his case studies to shine

Fiona Fidler, Nature

Entertaining ... revelatory ... brilliantly highlights the problems in current practices and sets out a path towards new ones

Daily Mail

He has come to praise science, not to bury it; nevertheless, his analyses of science's current ethical ills - fraud, hype, negligence and so on - are devastating

Simon Ings, Telegraph

Science Fictions... is a useful account of ten years or more of debate, mostly in specialist circles, about reproducibility

John Whitfield, London Review of Books