Does anyone remember a few months ago, when I wrote about Ben Stein? No? Here, then, I'll jog your memory. Ben Stein and his involvment in that piece of cinematic excrement Expelled! "inspired" me to--if you'll excuse the term--resurrect a certain recurring character from the very early days of this blog. Yes, I'm talking about the ever-dreaded Hitler Zombie, who returned after more than a year's absence to take a huge chomp out of Ben Stein's brain. Now we're seeing the results of that chomp, and I'm not just talking about the ridiculous claims in Expelled! that "Darwinism" leads inevitably…

Good news! In the wake of having his fishing expedition of a subpoena against autism blogger Kathleen Seidel quashed, it would appear that lawyer to the mercury militia Clifford Shoemaker and his clients Seth and Lisa Sykes have decided to voluntarily dismiss their lawsuit against Bayer and no longer pursue it. Of course, that brings up the question of just what the heck Shoemaker's attempts to dragoon unrelated parties such as Kathleen Seidel and Dr. Marie McCormick into the proceedings with dubious subpoenas was supposed to accomplish. Were such actions a sign of increasing desperation, a…

Over the last few years, depressingly, we've witnessed a rise in antivaccinationist activism. Beginning with the highly unethical activities of Andrew Wakefield and his bogus study in 1998 that set off a scare over the MMR vaccine supposedly causing autism that led to declining vaccination rates and skyrocketing measles and mumps rates in the U.K., it metastasized to the U.S. with hyped up concerns that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal used in most vaccines until 2001 was a cause of autism. Over the last year or so, it's been helped along by useful celebrity idiots like Jenny…

As I approach the second anniversary of Your Friday Dose of Woo (now only a mere two months away), it occurs to me: What sort(s) of woo, if any, have I neglected? Is there a kind of woo that is commonplace but has somehow slipped under Orac's radar? Hard as it may be to believe, there have now been over 100 installments of my weekly bit of vanity. Looking back over it, I see all manner of woo. Quantum homeopathy? Check? Sound healing? Of course! DNA Activation? That was definitely a fun one! Detoxification footpads? Not once, but twice! 9/11 Truther conspiracy theories? Yes, I've even…

It's late, and I'm working on tomorrow's installment of Your Friday Dose of Woo; so I don't have the time to give this particularly dumb guest editorial Think twice before you vaccinate your child in the Winona Daily News, which is packed full of antivaccinationist lies and pseudoscience, a proper dose of the not-so-Respectful Insolence that it deserves. Suffice it to say that, while denying that they are antivaccination (as all antivaccinationists do), writers Jim and Laurie Jenkinson then go on to prove exactly the opposite by spewing an amazing collection of idiocy, including citing Robert…

Yet another dubious study has been making the rounds of mercury militia websites and discussion forums. The study is being played up and touted by certain very excitable and scientifically not-too-bright militia members and woo-meisters like Mike Adams as some sort of vindication of the scientifically discredited hypothesis that mercury in vaccines somehow causes autism. It doesn't. It is, however, somewhat interesting in that their embrace of this bit of questionable research shows how desperate the mercury militia is to grasp to any bit of peer-reviewed published research that they can spin…

...because Paul Offit's written a book: AUTISM'S FALSE PROPHETS Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure Paul Offit, MD Columbia University Press September 2008 Genre: Non-Fiction/Medicine Format: Hardcover AUTISM'S FALSE PROPHETS will show the reader the incredible history of how greedy lawyers, doctors, and unknowing parents have helped prevent the search for the real cause of autism. As these forces conspire to blame vaccines or the preservatives used in vaccines for causing autism, the search for a real cure is hampered while millions of dollars go chasing after the wrong…

I may have joked a bit about certain surgeons whom, because they say such dumb, pseudoscientific things with alarming regularity, I consider embarrassments to the noble profession that is surgery. Usually, it's been surgeons who reveal an astonishing ignorance of the science of evolution as they parrot long discredited and debunked canards about evolution while spouting creationist nonsense. You know about whom I speak: surgeons like neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor and general surgeon Dr. Henry Jordan. But, as mind-numbingly dumb as some of the things that, for example, Dr. Egnor has said…

Oh, glorious day! As hard as it is to believe, it's here once again, and freedom lovers everywhere should rejoice! Yes, indeed, it's the day that everyone who detests fascism should celebrate: Fuehrerstodestag! (Otherwise known as "Dead Hitler Day.") Sixty-three years ago today, Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Reich, finally cornered in his rathole, his nation and glorious capital of what he thought would be a "thousand year Reich" in ruins, rather than face his enemies, decided instead to blow his brains out in his bunker as the Red Army was relentlessly advancing on him. After over 12 years…

About a month ago, I wrote about an unbelievably sad story of a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin who died of untreated diabetic ketoacidosis because she had been unfortunate enough to have been born into a family in which the parents believed in prayer rather than medicine. I say "unbelievably" because I find it truly difficult to believe that anyone in this day and age would willingly eschew effective medicine for their suffering child in favor of wishful thinking. Tragically and not surprisingly, prayer didn't work, and their child died. One of the unresolved issues at the time of the incident…

I'm a day late on this, but welcome ERV (a.k.a. endogenous retrovirus) to the Collective. A graduate student studying the molecular biology and evolution of HIV, her joining the Collective was forced to be earlier than she had intended because of an unfortunate incident resulting in the temporary removal of her old blog by Google. However her entrance into the Seed mothership, we're glad she's here now...

One of the most contentious and difficult aspects of trying to improve medical care in this country is enforcing a minimal "standard of care." Optimally, this standard of care should be based on science- and evidence-based medicine and act swiftly when a practitioner practices medicine that doesn't meet even a minimal requirement for scientific studies and clinical trials to support it. At the same time, going too far in the other direction risks stifling innovation and the ability to individualize treatments to a patient's unique situation--or even to use treatments that have only scientific…

It's that time again: The 20th edition of the only blog carnival (that I know of, at least) for blogging about surgical topics has landed over at Surgeonsblog. Yes, Sid Schwab takes on the 20th SurgeXperiences, with limericks, even! Head on over!

Over the weekend there was a very good article in the Concord Monitor about Kathleen Seidel and her legal battle with Clifford Shoemaker, whose intrusive "fishing expedition" subpoena recently drew condemnation even from prominent antivaccination activists such as David Kirby and Dan Olmsted and was ultimately quashed with the possibility of sanctions. What this article does a good job for those new to the debate is to put things in some perspective in a relatively brief treatment; I encourage you to read the whole thing, and I will focus mostly on a couple of interesting tidbits in the…

You didn't think I wouldn't take notice of this bit of news, did you? Even if I had, I would have had little choice, as readers deluged me with various news reports about this. Yes, it would appear that there might very well be a new Blakes 7 series. Of course, I'll believe it when I see it. Only two scripts have been ordered, and there isn't even a cast and crew assembled yet. There have been attempts to resurrect this series before, and they have all fallen through. We'll see. I suspect that most of my non-U.K. readers have no clue where the inspiration for the name of this blog or the…

Yesterday, I wrote about what I thought to be a fairly amusing story. It was the story of one hapless candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress in a district in northwest Indiana whose excuses for giving a talk to the American National Socialist Workers Party's Chicago celebration of Adolf Hitler's 119th birthday last weekend can only be characterized as what in LOL Cat lingo one would call "EPIC FAIL" (he claimed he didn't think people there were of a "Nazi mindset"). I've also written more than I now wish I had about the inherent dishonesty of Ben Stein's claim in the movie…

Ah, a lazy Saturday morning. So here I am in the late morning, perusing my e-mail (including e-mail notifications of blog posts) after purposely not having checked them at all last night (and, in fact, even having gone to see a movie for the first time in many months), and what should a reader send me but a bit of very good news: RALEIGH --A panel of the N.C. Medical Board recommended Thursday that Huntersville's Dr. Rashid Buttar be prohibited from treating children or patients with cancer because his alternative medicine practice is below accepted medical standards in North Carolina. The…

Ed happened to beat me to this one, which I saw on Orcinus. If you want a lesson on what not to do to get elected, here it is, courtesy of Tony Zirkle, candidate for the Republican nomination to run for a seat in his House district in northwest Indiana: Don't show up at a white supremacist commemoration of Hitler's birthday. Don't give a speech about white women being taken into sexual slavery in Israel to a white supremacist commemoration of Hitler's birthday while standing under a large portrait of Adolf Hitler. Don't talk about sexually transmitted diseases supposedly being encouraged…

There's a new woo in town. Unfortunately, it's the same as the old woo. I first noticed it around Christmas. Inexplicably, I started getting a greatly increased amount of traffic to an old Your Friday Dose of Woo post of mine. The post to which I'm referring is one that I did a year and a half ago about some fabulously silly woo that claimed to remove toxins through the soles of your feet through a special foot pad, which inspired me to entitle the post These boots were made for detoxifyin'. This product in question was called "Miracle Patches" and, it was claimed, can remove all manner of…

Better a little late than never, I'm happy to say that the 85th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has arrived at Andrea's Buzzing About:. What is it about Andrea anyway? And what is this obsession about looking under rocks? What will be found under all those rocks? There's only one way to find out! Next up to host is The Skepbitch. Now if there's a name for a blog that is better for a host of the Skeptics' Circle, I can't think of it right now. In a mere two weeks, the Circle will once again meet, this time on Thursday, May 8. Start sharpening your skeptical pen to produce searing bits of…