I know people who can’t get through a sentence, let alone a paragraph, of Will Self. Unfortunately, the usual definition people use for “bad writing” is “something I find difficult.”
There is plenty of bad writing out there, but when it comes to science and science policy the main problem is the difficulty of the ideas to be explained. My limited experience of editing of science writing suggests that the more the material is edited for easy reading, the more the author’s meaning is lost.
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[quote=“ActionAbe, post:2, topic:50277”]
they all have had run-ins with people who will insist that things are not so complicated as these experts make it out to be.
[/quote]I think you may very much enjoy what I consider to be a classic, great example of someone properly responding to this type of over-simplistic challenge.
Libertarian says he can build an intersection “for a quarter the price, twice as fast, with a high profit margin”. Finds out building roads is a bit harder than he thought.
link (also a shout-out to my favorite subreddit)
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Wasn’t this an episode of Top Gear?
I’ve never seen Top Gear, but that sounds cool. Could you find a link to the episode?
I was being fatuous (and I hadn’t read your link then - I have now 
), but there was an episode where they decided that road repairs took too long, and tried to do it quicker (with much heavily scripted ‘hilarity’). Nothing to do with electronics though, just the roadwork.
Appears to be Top Gear S09E01. I’m sure you’d be able to find a link somewhere 
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Yeah, I quickly edited that CSS in my browser to freeze it. Another way to freeze gifs like that is to use extensions or use keyboard shortcuts:
Escape key will pause animations it in some browsers like Firefox, and pressing and holding Escape key in Safari should also freeze it, otherwise there’s this:
Safari: https://github.com/matsadler/deanimator
Chrome: http://lifehacker.com/5925084/paused-stops-animated-gifs-in-their-tracks
I find Ben Goldacre’s persona too annoying, so that’s my prejudice.
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Agreed.
Also, thanks for the reference to Will Self. Never heard of him - but I’m reading some of his pieces on the guardian this morning.
I loved the one on the Tate Modern.
This quote in particular -
“The special commissions for the Turbine Hall, and the location itself, which offers a frothy coffee stopover for those shuffling around the stations of London’s cultural cross, are what ensure a roaring cataract of punters.”
That’s clever. He skates right on the line of being a little too clever at times, but in a good way… 
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Did you see this today?
I love Will Self.
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Ha! No, I hadn’t refreshed the front page yet since that was posted…
Oh. My. God. He really doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up. It’s… it’s so beautiful and ugly at the same time.
[quote=“ActionAbe, post:31, topic:50277”]
He really doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up …[/quote]
When I first read this, I thought you were referring to me. Which would have been equally true, in my opinion.
I think he’s pretty great. Before I went into research I actually taught him for a couple of years. He was a difficult pupil but we all knew he was extremely bright. His use of English isn’t some kind of showing off; that’s just Will.
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It makes the book look like something from ZoneChefs, but with more heft than dry ice. I contain multitude pinch-zoom sliders of several kinds!
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