Tooth Fairy science
oracknows | November 23, 2016Back in the day, Deepak Chopra used to be a frequent topic of this blog. He still pops up from time to time, such as when irony meters everywhere immediately self-destructed after Chopra criticized Donald Trump for being insufficiently evidence-based or when, after I wrote a post asking why medical conferences keep inviting Chopra to speak, Chopra was so displeased that he actually posted a video attacking me (and other skeptics who’ve criticized his pseudoscience). Unfortunately, Chopra truly is one of the most influential people in “integrative medicine” today. To be honest, I’ve never…
oracknows | October 26, 2016Although I did not coin it, I frequently use the term “quackademic medicine” because, unfortunately, there’s a lot of quackademic medicine around. Although regular readers know what the term means, i always feel obligated to briefly explain what quackademic medicine is, for the benefit of any newbie who might happen upon this blog. Basically, it is a term used to describe an increasingly common and alarming phenomenon, the infiltration of rank quackery and pseudoscience into medical academia. You might think it impossible or unbelievable, but it’s anything but. Beginning around a quarter of a…
oracknows | February 13, 2014I must confess, I had a rather rough time yesterday. Actually, it's been a rough winter, at least as far as my car is concerned. Record amounts of snow and a January much colder than usual have wreaked havoc on the roads around where I live, producing craters that make our roads and freeways look more like the surface of the moon than anything you'd want to go speeding along on in an automobile. So it was that about a month ago on my way to work I couldn't avoid a particularly nasty crater, and immediately after I hit it I knew something was wrong. My tire pressure light went on, and the car…