Respectful Insolence

About Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski. That Orac has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 30 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

Respectful Insolence™ is a repository for the ramblings of the aforementioned surgeon/scientist concerning medicine and quackery, science and pseudoscience, history and pseudohistory, politics, and anything else that interests him (or pushes his buttons). Orac's motto is: "A statement of fact cannot be insolent." (OK, maybe it can be just a little bit insolent. Sometimes. OK, fairly often. Orac tries to keep his insolence respectful most of the time, but readily admits that he sometimes fails in cases of obvious quackery and pseudoscience, responding to personal attacks on him, examining poor critical thinking skills, bigotry or racism, and just general plain stupidity. When the stupidity to which Orac is responding reaches a certain very high level, he just can't help it and makes no apologies. You will know this is happening when Orac uses the phrase "the stupid, it burns" or some variant thereof.

Disclaimer

This is a personal web log, reflecting the sometimes prickly opinions of its author. Statements on this blog do not represent the opinions of anyone other than the author. They most definitely do not represent the opinions or position of the author's hospital, university, cancer institute, surgical practice, partners, or research colleagues. The information on this blog is intended for discussion and entertainment purposes only and not as recommendations about how to diagnose or treat illnesses. Any personal medical issues the reader may have should be referred to the reader's physician. If the reader freely chooses to follow the opinion of a pseudonymous blogger like the author (who has also not done a proper history or physical examination and whose credentials cannot be verified) over that of his or her own personal physician, it is the reader's decision alone, for which the reader must bear full responsibility.

In addition, Orac has been funded over the last decade by institutional funds, the Department of Defense, the National Cancer Institute, and various cancer charities. For the first time ever, in 2011 Orac received a little bit of pharmaceutical money in the form of a seed grant. Unfortunately, it's not enough money for his lab to live on and will soon be gone. What that means, though, is that for the next several months Orac will no longer be able to use his favorite joke before talks, namely that no pharmaceutical company is interested enough in his research to want to give him any money. Even with that little bit of pharma lucre, like most biomedical scientists in academia, Orac must still beg the NIH and other granting agencies for the money to keep his lab going. Being a "pharma shill" doesn't seem to pay as much as supporters of alt-med think it does.

Also note that any blog-related e-mail sent to Orac's work e-mail address will be ignored. Work is work; the blog is the blog; and never the twain should meet. The orac@scienceblogs.com address exists for a reason, and a major part of that reason is to keep work and blgo separate. So don't e-mail Orac at his job. You most likely won't get an answer.