"A statement of fact cannot be insolent." The miscellaneous ramblings of a surgeon/scientist on medicine,
quackery, science, pseudoscience, history, and pseudohistory (and anything else that interests him)
Orac is the nom de blog of a humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. (Continued here, along with a DISCLAIMER that you should read before reading any medical discussions here.)
Orac's old Blog is archived at Archived Insolence.
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March 31, 2006
Category: Blog housekeeping
This is just to announce briefly that comment spam has once again reared its ugly head. Some spam comments are actually making it through the filters to be published here. I delete them as soon as I see them, but...
Posted by Orac at 4:21 PM • 7 Comments
Category: Science
Congrats are in order to fellow blogger Phil Plait (a.k.a. The Bad Astronomer) whose blog Bad Astronomy (a misnomer if ever there was one, given the amount of good astronomy he regularly writes about) garnered a favorable mention in the...
Posted by Orac at 1:41 PM • 2 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Category: Skepticism/critical thinking
The 2005 Pigasus Awards have been announced by The Amazing Randi himself. The categories: Category #1, to the scientist who said or did the silliest thing related to the supernatural, paranormal or occult. Category #2, to the funding organization that...
Posted by Orac at 11:23 AM • 2 Comments
Category: Politics
Maybe you're like me, tired of a government that does not seem to respect one of the founding documents of our nation, namely the Bill of Rights. Maybe you're tired of Christian fundamentalists who do not see the placement of...
Posted by Orac at 8:26 AM • 15 Comments
March 30, 2006
Category: Music
Why? Because I feel like it. So here goes... It's on America's tortured brow That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow And now the workers have struck for fame 'Cause Lennon's on sale again See the mice in...
Posted by Orac at 4:22 PM • 6 Comments
Category: Skeptics' Circle
Yes, it's that time again, time for the most dedicated skeptics of the blogosphere to gather once again to try to apply critical thinking in an environment where credulity is usually the order of the day, and dubious stories can...
Posted by Orac at 11:24 AM • 0 Comments
Category: Evolution • Medicine
Earlier this week, I wrote about how the principles of population evolution can be applied to premalignant lesions in order to predict which lesions would progress to cancer. This time around, I'd like to discuss how using evolutionary principles can...
Posted by Orac at 8:16 AM • 6 Comments
Category: Tangled Bank
Another great edition of Tangled Bank has been posted at The Island of Doubt. (It's hard to believe that Tangled Bank has been around now for nearly two years. Time flies.) What are you waiting for?...
Posted by Orac at 12:06 AM • 0 Comments
March 29, 2006
Category: Alternative medicine • Humor
Leave it to The Onion: Alternative-Medicine Practitioner Refuses Alternative Method Of Payment....
Posted by Orac at 1:03 PM • 5 Comments
Category: Blogging
I don't normally read the Financial Times. "What?" you say. "I thought that all doctors read the FT." Ah, but you forget that I'm an academic physician. Don't get me wrong; I make a comfortable living, more money than I've...
Posted by Orac at 8:31 AM • 27 Comments
Category: Medicine
A week ago, I wrote about my wife and my visiting Body Worlds at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Well, it looks as though another physician Dr. Charles has visited it as well and has some ideas comments about the...
Posted by Orac at 3:19 AM • 1 Comments
Category: Entertainment/culture
It looks like everyone at ScienceBlogs is trying this quiz. Now that I have been completely assimilated into the collective, I cannot resist. So... You Are 22% Evil A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it...
Posted by Orac at 12:47 AM • 19 Comments
March 28, 2006
Category: Evolution • Intelligent design/creationism
Duck, everyone! Matt (a.k.a. The Pooflinger) has found a PDF file containing a brand new FAQ about Kansas's new science standards, the ones that purport to "teach the controversy" about evolution. While I'm on a roll about evolution (and, yes,...
Posted by Orac at 3:22 PM • 5 Comments
Category: Evolution
Via Red State Rabble, I've become aware of an incredibly depressing story about science teachers in Arkansas explicitly censoring themselves when it comes to teaching evolution (the "e-word," as they call it) or in geology class teaching that the earth...
Posted by Orac at 7:33 AM • 14 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Category: Humor
Heh. More people should do this to Jack Chick tracts. Click the image to see Jack's own tricks turned against him. Here is the original cartoon by Jack Chick....
Posted by Orac at 4:07 AM • 12 Comments • 2 TrackBacks
March 27, 2006
Category: Skeptics' Circle
It's that time again. In less than three days, the latest Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle will be posted at Terra Sigillata (who, by the way, wrote an excellent post while I was away at my meeting on why we...
Posted by Orac at 2:03 PM • 0 Comments
