The Burnett method is to combine a chatty style with hundreds of academic endnotes, interviews with “experts” (including Charlotte Church on fame and Rhod Gilbert on comedy) and personal anecdotes, and on the whole it is very effective. So how does a responsible scientist condense all of the relevant research and make it accessible? In one newspaper, the following headlines all purported to reveal the latest scientific truth about how to be happy: “Forget cash – how sex and sleep are the key to happiness” “Key to happiness? Start with £50k a year salary” “Why the secret to happiness is having 37 things to wear”… Readers would be forgiven for thinking that it’s all nonsense. Early in this book he expresses his frustration with the way that the media often sensationalise research to sell a story. A s a neuroscientist, comedian and Guardian science blogger, Dean Burnett knows that science communication is both important and hard to get right.
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