Children can be disgusting, and often they can develop extraordinary talents, but I’m yet to meet any child who can stimulate his carotid arteries inside his ribcage.

This process of professionalising the obvious fosters a sense of mystery around science, and health advice, which is unnecessary and destructive. More than anything, more than the unnecessary ownership of the obvious, it is disempowering.

In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.

I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.

In the past, [medicalization]has been portrayed as something that doctors inflict on a passive and un-suspecting world – an expansion of the Medical Empire. But in reality, it seems that these reductionist bio-medical stories can...

…the real threat from cranks is not that their customers might die — there is the odd case, although it seems crass to harp on about them – but that they systematically the public’s understanding...

You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.

You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.

And if, by the end [of this book], you reckon you might still disagree with me, then I offer you this: you’ll still be wrong, but you’ll be wrong with a lot more panache and...

Homeopathy pills are, after all, empty little sugar pills which seem to work, and so they embody [..] how we can be misled into thinking that any intervention is more effective than it really is.