pseudoscience
Respectful Insolence
Tag archives for pseudoscience
H1N1 vaccine and miscarriages: More dumpster diving in the VAERS database
Posted by Orac on November 28, 2012 Antivaccinationists just love the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting (VAERS) database. As in love it to death. As in “can’t get enough of it.” The reason, of course, is that VAERS is a lot like an unmoderated discussion forum or, at best, a minimally moderated forum. Anyone can say anything they like. The reason is that…
Does all this blogging about quackery really accomplish anything?
Posted by Orac on September 7, 2012 Believe it or not, after nearly eight years blogging and around five years before that cutting my skeptical teeth on that vast and wild (and now mostly deserted and fallow) wilderness that was Usenet, I have occasionally wondered whether what I’m doing is worthwhile. Sometime around 1998, after I first discovered Holocaust denial on Usenet,…
Depopulation by vaccines?
Posted by Orac on July 23, 2012 After all the years that I’ve been writing about vaccines, the science behind vaccines, and how antivaccinationists twist that science to turn what are arguably the greatest medical achievement of medicine and have saved arguably more lives than any other medical intervention devised by human minds into toxic cesspits of horrific chemical corruption that cause…
More on “integrating” pseudoscience with science
Posted by Orac on June 15, 2012 Naturopathy is at least 99% woo. That has to be said at the outset. Naturopaths might brag about all the science they take in naturopathy school, claiming that it’s as much as MDs take. Even if that were true, the question is not how many hours of basic science naturopaths take, but rather what’s taught…
A misguided “chalkboard talk”
Posted by Orac on June 8, 2012 Sometimes I feel like Dug, the talking dog in the movie Up, in that when it comes to blogging I’m often easily distracted. The reason I say this is because there’s been a “viral” (if you can call it that) video floating around the antivaccine quackery blogosphere that antivaccinationists are passing around as though it’s…
Quoth Vox Day: Vaccines are killing babies! Retorts Orac: Vox’s arguments are killing neurons!
Posted by Orac on June 6, 2012 Remember Vox Day? Newer converts to the glory that is Orac (or at least to the ego that is Orac) might not know who Vox is because it’s been a while since I’ve discussed his antiscience attitudes. By and large, this is probably a good thing, given that Vox denies evolution, has been antivaccine from…
The 129th Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle has arrived
Posted by Orac on January 28, 2010 Faster than a blink of an eye (well, not really, but it sure seems that way sometimes) another fortnight has flown by, meaning that it’s time yet again for another meeting of that venerable blog carnival of critical thinking, the Skeptics’ Circle. This time around, we have our first ever veterinarian hosting. I could make…
Shorty Awards “fraud”: The evil Illuminati-Mason-Pharma-Vaccine axis of evil succeeds in its conspiracy!
Posted by Orac on January 23, 2010 Oh, yes, my brothers and sisters, we have done it! My pharma paymasters are very, very pleased indeed with me and all of their other blogging and Twittering minions. Very, very pleased indeed. In fact, they are cackling with glee over the discomfiture of one of their greatest enemies, Mike Adams, a.k.a. The Health Ranger!…
Hero of the antivaccine movement Andrew Wakefield strikes back
Posted by Orac on March 16, 2009 The antivaccine counterattack against Brian Deer continues. As you recall, about a month ago British reporter Brian Deer published an exposé, a tour de force of investigative journalism that led him to discover that Andre Wakefield had not only had incredibly blatant undisclosed conflicts of interest (his having been in the pocket of trial lawyers…
Stupid cubed: David Kirby, RFK, Jr., and Generation Rescue use the Bailey Banks case to tag team the antivaccine counterattack against the MMR
Posted by Orac on February 26, 2009 “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.” At least, that’s what Michael Corleone said in The Godfather, Part 3, and even though I’m not a mafia don, I can sort of relate to where he’s coming from, if you know what I mean. It seems that whenever I try to…
“We support Dr. Andrew Wakefield”?
Posted by Orac on February 24, 2009 Alright, I know that, after yesterday’s epic post (which was long even by Orac-ian standards), I said that I was going to try to get away from vaccine blogging for a while. I lied. Well, not really. At that time I really did mean it. But then I came across something that I just couldn’t…
Keith Olbermann: Played for a fool by the antivaccine movement
Posted by Orac on February 12, 2009 Stick a fork in Keith Olbermann. He’s done. He has now officially degenerated into a liberal version of Rush Limbaugh, except that Rush Limbaugh is occasionally funny. Maybe he’s more like Sean Hannity, particularly in his apparent dedication to the truth, or, rather, lack thereof. Hannity detests liberals and will immediately attack on the slightest…