"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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August 31, 2007
Category: Science fiction/fantasy
Sadly, I won't be in London for 10 more days. Consequently, I'll be missing something really cool that'll be happening a mere couple of blocks down the street where I'm staying now: I did, however, purchase a nice cast metal...
Posted by Orac at 3:26 PM • 9 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Friday Woo • Medicine • Skepticism/critical thinking
...is still on vacation in London. It will return next week. I will mention, however, that I managed to find time to take a stroll by the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital the other day. No, the fabric of space-time was...
Posted by Orac at 10:00 AM • 14 Comments
Somehow I didn't find out about this story about a football coach who resigned because the school district ordered him not to lead his team in prayer at dinners before each game until several days after it had happened.
Posted by Orac at 7:06 AM • 3 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Antivaccination lunacy • Autism • Medicine • Quackery
Today in Washington, there will be a march, called (with unintentional irony) the Power of Truth march. Its organizers claim that it will be to "protest the use of mercury in vaccines" (never mind that the mercury was taken out of nearly all vaccines in the U.S. by early 2003 and in Denmark and Canada in the 1990's) and about raising awareness of the claimed link between mercury in childhood vaccines and autism. (In actuality, I suspect the real purpose of this march is to try to get legislation passed to allow lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies by parents of "mercury-damaged" children, but that's just my suspicion.)
Posted by Orac at 12:03 AM • 6 Comments
August 30, 2007
Category: Blog carnivals • Skepticism/critical thinking • Skeptics' Circle
From deep in the heart of London, even here on vacation, I couldn't forget to mention that the 68th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has been posted by Martin over at Aardvarchaeology. This carnival is remarkable for two things: First...
Posted by Orac at 8:10 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Anti-Semitism • History • Holocaust • Holocaust denial • World War II
It had to happen sooner or later. I'm only surprised that it's taken so long. What is it? Well, finally, Orac has attracted a Holoaust denier in the comments of his last post on David Irving, Holocaust denier extraordinaire
Posted by Orac at 4:01 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Biology
Alright, after being castigated for being a stereotypical American tourist complaining about the service in restaurants in London, here's an off-the-wall observation that my wife and I have made: Why is it that there seem to be no squirrels in...
Posted by Orac at 8:01 AM • 34 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Medicine • Quackery
Since the very beginning of this blog, I've said that I'd love to see "alternative" medicine treated on equal footing with conventional medicine. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean what alties think it does. When I say "equal footing," I don't necessarily mean that alt-med should be treated with equal respect, although that might be the effect in some cases. No, what I mean is that it should be subject to the same standards with regards to efficacy and safety as that conventional medicines must meet before being approved for use and widely used by physicians. To my mind, if alt-med practitioners want to be treated with the same level of respect as conventional physicians and have their methods used more widely, it is only fair that they should have to jump through the same hoops and meet the same standards that conventional physicians and conventional medicines do.
Posted by Orac at 12:09 AM • 10 Comments
August 29, 2007
Category: Biology • Evolution • Intelligent design/creationism • Pseudoscience • Science • Skepticism/critical thinking
One of the criticisms of "intelligent design" (ID) creationism is that it doesn't really offer any new theory or even hypothesis to replace the theory of evolution, which it seeks to supplant (at least in the public schools). It merely exaggerates perceived weaknesses in evolutionary theory and misrepresents disagreements between scientists on the mechanisms by which evolution occurs as "proof" that the theory of evolution is "hopelessly flawed." So, how does one ID advocate answer the question of what she would replace the theory of evolution with? With intellectual curiosity at its finest, of course!
Posted by Orac at 4:03 PM • 4 Comments
Category: Personal
Here's another random observation that hit us quite rapidly upon our arrival in London and is reinforced almost every time we decide to dine out: Why is restaurant service here so crappy? We've been to several restaurants now, and only...
Posted by Orac at 10:12 AM • 46 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Antivaccination lunacy • Autism • Bioethics • Medicine • Quackery
Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first...
Posted by Orac at 12:07 AM • 1 Comments
August 28, 2007
Category: Personal
Now that I've been in London for three full days, I've noticed a few more things. Here's one. Although my experience is anecdotal over the course of a weekend, I've still been wondering: Why are the British so darned...
Posted by Orac at 10:01 AM • 29 Comments
Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on...
Posted by Orac at 8:04 AM • 3 Comments
Category: Medicine • News of the Weird
But EneMan is by no means the only strange pharmaceutical company promotional product. No, not at all. In fact, I found one that may be just as strange, albeit in a very different way:
Posted by Orac at 12:10 AM • 6 Comments
August 27, 2007
Category: Alternative medicine • Antivaccination lunacy • Autism • Medicine • Quackery
When you blog about a certain topic long enough and post strong opinions about it often enough, you start to gain a reputation as one of the go-to bloggers on that particular topic, whether you originally intended it that way or not. Consequently, I wasn't too suprised when a reader sent me a piece by another blogger regarding vaccines and autism asking my opinion about it. What did surprise me (but, in retrospect, shouldn't have) is the identity of the blogger posting more nonsense about vaccines and autism.
Posted by Orac at 4:02 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Antivaccination lunacy • Autism • Medicine • Quackery
Even when I'm on vacation, lots of other great bloggers aren't. The lack of writing on my part makes it even easier for me to point you in the direction of posts likely to be of interest to my readers....
Posted by Orac at 10:08 AM • 1 Comments
