"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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October 31, 2007
Category: Entertainment/culture • Movies • Science fiction/fantasy
...we need a little something as night approaches. I know just the thing: Brain-eating zombies. Given that this is the blog that conceived of the misbegotten literary (if you can call it that) device known as the Hitler Zombie, how...
Posted by Orac at 3:05 PM • 6 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Antivaccination lunacy • Autism • Cancer • Clinical trials • Medicine • Quackery • Skepticism/critical thinking
Having gotten into the whole idea of blogging about peer-reviewed research yesterday and even using a spiffy new icon to denote that that's what I'm doing, originally I had planned on looking up another interesting article or pulling one from...
Posted by Orac at 8:56 AM • 19 Comments
October 30, 2007
Category: Cancer • Medicine • Politics • Pseudoscience • Skepticism/critical thinking
...at least, that was my first reaction when I first read this reaction by the Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer to posts by Mark Chu-Carroll and myself pointing out the numerous flaws in the latest "study" being...
Posted by Orac at 2:04 PM • 5 Comments
Category: Clinical trials • Medicine • Surgery
Dave Munger and others have been spearheading an effort to promote the acceptance of a specific logo that science bloggers (ScienceBloggers, included) can use to let the reader know that the topic of a blog post is a discussion of...
Posted by Orac at 8:00 AM • 10 Comments
October 29, 2007
Category: Blogging • Personal • Skepticism/critical thinking
Every so often, as a blogger, I get e-mail. Well, actually, I get a lot of e-mail, much of which I just don't have time to answer (nothing personal when it happens), but every so often an e-mail makes me...
Posted by Orac at 2:35 PM • 27 Comments
Category: Biology • Evolution • Intelligent design/creationism • Science • Skepticism/critical thinking
I was half-tempted to e-mail this one to P. Z. or Larry Moran, but my inherently merciful nature got the better of me. Because it was so idiotic, I was afraid that, after P. Z. and his regular readers got...
Posted by Orac at 9:01 AM • 63 Comments
October 28, 2007
Category: Entertainment/culture • Medicine • Popular culture • Television
These days, pretty much everyone, smokers included, knows that smoking is bad for you. It promotes lung cancer (and several other varieties of cancer as well), heart disease, emphysema, and a number of other health problems. If you ask most...
Posted by Orac at 10:58 AM • 34 Comments
Category: Paranormal • Pseudoscience • Skepticism/critical thinking
...I am as appalled as my fellow ScienceBlogger Mark over this horrifically credulous article on ghosts on This Old House at CNN.com. Here's a small taste, which comes after a long discussion of how to choose a "good" ghost inspector:...
Posted by Orac at 12:00 AM • 14 Comments
October 27, 2007
Category: Medicine • News of the Weird • Surgery
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a favorite topic for amusement among general surgeons, rectal foreign bodies, particularly the strange things people like to stick up their bottoms for whatever reason. I pointed out at the time that...
Posted by Orac at 9:30 AM • 11 Comments
October 26, 2007
Category: Alternative medicine • Humor • Medicine • Quackery
As usual, Cectic nails it (click on comic for the full-size version): Although I find it odd that the "mark" in the above comic would be calling for his checkbook rather than his credit card, it never ceases to amaze...
Posted by Orac at 2:16 PM • 16 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Friday Woo • Medicine • Quackery • Skepticism/critical thinking
Some woo is very, very complicated. The reason, of course, is that the often self-contradicting complexity of this sort of woo serves to make it harder for people without specialized training to figure out easily that it makes no sense...
Posted by Orac at 8:43 AM • 14 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Announcements • Blog carnivals • Medicine • Quackery • Skepticism/critical thinking • Skeptics' Circle
This has been a bad week at skeptics' school. Apparently, skeptical bloggers have been misbehaving left and right. Apparently we as the skeptical blogosphere have been very, very naughty indeed. Worse, the essays that we've handed in are apparently not...
Posted by Orac at 12:01 AM • 2 Comments
October 25, 2007
Category: Computers
As a longtime Mac head, I'm always rather amused by just how emotionally invested people become over a mere tool like an operating system for a computer. A reminder of this popped up over at Pharyngula today, when in the...
Posted by Orac at 2:55 PM • 22 Comments
Category: Bioethics • Cancer • Clinical trials • Medicine • Politics • Religion
I approach this topic with a bit of trepidation. I say this not because I'm unsure that I'm correct in my assessment of the article that I'm about to apply some Respectful Insolence™ to. Rather, it's because the last time...
Posted by Orac at 9:07 AM • 19 Comments
October 24, 2007
Category: Alternative medicine • Medicine • Quackery
Wow, after my post about Le Canard Noir's being threatened with legal action for criticizing the Society of Homeopaths, I'm glad to know that I won't be being sued for having reposted his criticism. Whines the Society of Homeopaths: The...
Posted by Orac at 2:18 PM • 17 Comments
I've always wondered, as I'm sure many of my readers have, whether human beings have it in them to delay their own death, even briefly. Very early in the history of this blog, a mere 11 days after I started...
Posted by Orac at 8:44 AM • 11 Comments
