"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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February 29, 2008
Category: Alternative medicine • Antivaccination lunacy • Medicine
Earlier today I was perusing incoming links. (Yes, most bloggers do that because we like to know who's linking to us; any blogger who doesn't do this from time to time is atypical or lying about it.) What to my...
Posted by Orac at 3:45 PM • 6 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Friday Woo • Medicine • Quackery • Skepticism/critical thinking
Orac observes a late night colon-cleansing smackdown involving a John Waters look-alike.
Posted by Orac at 9:00 AM • 22 Comments
February 28, 2008
Category: Blog carnivals • Skepticism/critical thinking • Skeptics' Circle
This year's a Leap Year, as it so happens, and it turns out that Leap Day is tomorrow. Unfortunately for "alternative medicine" mavens, conspiracy theorists, and lovers of woo everywhere, that means that the Skeptical Conspiracy to Suppress All Dissent--I...
Posted by Orac at 3:41 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Medicine • Politics • Surgery
In the two days since I first mentioned an attempted home invasion of a researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) by bandana-masked animal rights terrorists, there have been new developments worth posting an update here. First, last...
Posted by Orac at 12:31 PM • 8 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Antivaccination lunacy • Autism • Medicine • Surgery
Vaccines go from the cause of an "autism tsunami" to an aggravating factor in a single child with a rare mitochondrial disorder. Maybe. And those who believe that vaccines cause autism think this vindicates them?
Posted by Orac at 8:46 AM • 37 Comments
February 27, 2008
Category: Antivaccination lunacy • Autism • Medicine
In case you haven't heard it enough on this blog and elsewhere: Antivaccination lunacy has consquences. In the UK, measles cases have jumped to a record high: The number of measles cases in England and Wales jumped more than 30%...
Posted by Orac at 3:01 PM • 10 Comments
Category: Computers • News of the Weird
...two words: Killer robots! Clearly, we're all doomed. Skynet, here we come!...
Posted by Orac at 12:00 PM • 7 Comments
Category: Clinical trials • Medicine
Should men watch out for the dreaded cell phone if they want to have children?
Posted by Orac at 8:30 AM • 10 Comments
February 26, 2008
Category: Biology • Medicine • Politics • Science • Surgery
...and this time it's a home invasion. Thank heaven that this time the activists were once again the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Posted by Orac at 11:00 AM • 23 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Cancer • Medicine • Quackery
I've come to hate the word "holistic." In its original usage, it may have had a real meaning, but the woo-meisters have twisted and deformed it to the point where, whenever you see the word "holistic" being applied to a medical issue or treatment, nine times out of ten you'll get the true correct meaning by substituting the word "quackery."
Posted by Orac at 8:40 AM • 23 Comments
February 25, 2008
Category: Antivaccination lunacy • Medicine • Quackery
One way that pseudoscience tries to maintain a patina of respectability to the outside world, a patina that sometimes even manages to take in researchers unacquainted with its methods, is through the "research conference" that has all the trappings of...
Posted by Orac at 2:31 PM • 32 Comments
Category: Clinical trials • Medicine • Politics • Surgery
When common sense collides with government regulations about human subjects research, guess which will win?
Posted by Orac at 8:05 AM • 10 Comments
February 24, 2008
Category: Alternative medicine • Antivaccination lunacy • Entertainment/culture • Medicine • Quackery • Television
More germ theory denialism by Bill Maher. And this guy calls himself a skeptic?
Posted by Orac at 12:00 PM • 83 Comments
Category: Entertainment/culture • Music • Religion
One of XTC's best songs: I actually heard this on the radio the other night, hence my looking for it on YouTube. I hadn't heard the song in several years, and I don't recall ever hearing it on the radio....
Posted by Orac at 7:00 AM • 19 Comments
February 23, 2008
Category: Alternative medicine • Computers • Medicine • Quackery
Le Canard Noir's back, and there's gonna be trouble! Plus: "Alternative Medicine Topdog" howls!
Posted by Orac at 2:00 PM • 21 Comments
Category: Alternative medicine • Medicine • Quackery
When homeopaths take advantage of impoverished people in Third World countries.
Posted by Orac at 10:46 AM • 25 Comments
