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David Gorski

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.)

DISCLAIMER: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: oracknows@gmail.com

Posts by this author

June 29, 2008
Lest I forget my obligations here, I have to post a reminder that the 90th Edition of the Skeptics' Circle is fast approaching and will be here on Thursday, July 3. In fact, because it's being hosted by prominent Australian skeptic Peter Bowditch at the Millenium Project, it may well be earlier…
June 29, 2008
I have some bad news for the medical blogosphere. Well, actually Sid Schwab does. Apparently, he's decided to drop out of the blogosphere, at least for now. Sid's grown enormously as a blogger since he first started hawking his book a couple of years ago in the comments here. He got on my nerves at…
June 28, 2008
Apparently there's a chiropracter named Billy Sticker running for President. His platform: My platform: To increase your patient count by 200% during my first term To increase your income by 200% Pass legislation designating Chiropractic the Official Health Care of America Reduce our…
June 27, 2008
...or maybe Sunday morning, as I don't know how long it will take to get this by BitTorrent, the penultimate episode of series 4 of Doctor Who (if you're a Doctor Who fan and haven't seen the last couple of episodes before this Saturday's episode The Stolen Earth, beware the spoilers--don't start…
June 27, 2008
I realize that I've been mighty hard on Jenny McCarthy these last several months. I've made fun of her for her idiocy, her arrogance of ignorance, and her antivaccination lunacy, not to mention her utter ignorance of science, and, yes, I've been rather vicious at times. However, she richly deserved…
June 26, 2008
A few months ago, I wrote a post lamenting how science- and evidence-based medicine has lost the linguistic high ground to the woo peddlers, those who have "rebranded" quackery first into "alternative" medicine, then into "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), and more recently into "…
June 26, 2008
Sigh. He's baaack. Yes, that dualism-loving Energizer Bunny of antievolution nonsense, that "intelligent design" apologist neurosurgeon whose nonsense has driven me time and time again to contemplate hiding my head in a paper bag or even a Doctor Doom mask because of the shame of knowing that he…
June 25, 2008
It's rare that the mainstream media gets it right about vaccines and autism, and when they do I feel obligated to point it out. Such is the case with Sam Wang's article The Autism Myth Lives On. It's well worth reading, even though it's a couple of months old. (How I missed it when it first…
June 25, 2008
...from one of Michigan State University Professor Richard Lenski's E. coli cultures. Lenski's second response to the clueless "request" of the creationist idiot Andrew Schlafly to provide his raw data to him for "independent review" supporting a recent PNAS paper (more here) by him that is yet…
June 25, 2008
I was perusing the feeds of my fellow ScienceBloggers the other night when I came across a post by ERV that really resonated with me. In it, she expounds on the benefits of doing things "old school" in the lab, specifically with respect to having hard evidence to defend oneself if ever accused of…
June 24, 2008
Remember the case of Clifford Shoemaker, lawyer for the antivaccinationist mercury militia who tried to subpoena Kathleen Seidel under incredibly dubious legal reasoning in order to harass and intimidate her? Remember how the subpoena was quashed? One word: Sanctioned! Woo-hoo! Quoth Judge James R…
June 24, 2008
If there's one thing I've learned in my years of delving into pseudoscience, quackery, and alternative medicine is that conspiracy theories are just like Lays potato chips; cranks can't eat just one. No, they have to stick their hand in the bag and pull out a huge, heaping handful and snarf it all…
June 23, 2008
If you happen to be a blogger, has there ever been anything that you meant to blog about, but it totally slipped your mind? This is just such an item for me. Yes, multiple people e-mailed me about this on Friday, and for some reason in my amusement at David Kirby's antics over the weekend…
June 23, 2008
If there's one thing that lay people (and, indeed, many physicians) don't understand about screening for cancer is that it is anything but a simple matter. Intuitively, it seems that earlier detection should always be better, and it can be. However, as I explained in two lengthy posts last year,…
June 22, 2008
I could resist a brief mention of this. Remember yesterday's post, when I discussed how EpiWonk had deconstructed and demolished David Kirby's latest mangling of epidemiology and willful misreading of government reports? Apparently it had an effect. It would appear that Mr. Kirby may actually have…
June 21, 2008
At this stage of the game, I almost feel sorry for David Kirby. Think about it. He's made his name and what little fame he has (which isn't much outside of the tinhat crowd that thinks the guv'mint is intentionally poisoning their children with vaccines to make them all autistic) almost entirely on…
June 20, 2008
...Orac might be in trouble: (Click for the full comic.) I wonder if I should hire a guard. Actually, I think reading Respectful Insolence⢠might do Jenny McCarthy some good, especially this post (or maybe this post, too). Unfortunately, she's too deluded and arrogant to realize how…
June 20, 2008
I know I like to say that woo is eternal, and it is. That doesn't, however, mean that individual examples of woo are necessarily eternal. Some, it seems, are. Does anyone doubt, for example, that homeopathy, which has been around for over two hundred years now, will still be around 200 years from…
June 19, 2008
Better late than never, they always say. Michael Meadon may have been a few hours later than the usual edition of the Skeptics' Circle, but when he finally delivered the 89th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle it was well worth the wait. He even showed me a promising new blogger: Redonkulous…
June 19, 2008
...and his name is Edzard Ernst. And here's the reason why. Anyone who can rile up homeopaths that much is my kind of guy.
June 19, 2008
I'm a cancer surgeon, and if there's one thing that drives me straight to the liquor cabinet it has to be quack cancer "cures." Very early in the history of this blog, I discussed one of the biggest quacks of all time, a woman who thinks that all cancer is caused by a liver fluke (but only if the…
June 19, 2008
I just shook my head as I perused this item on Pharyngula earlier this morning. What else can you do? The irrationality and lunacy is beyond belief as I read a story about a mother named Colleen Leduc called into school because a report of sexual abuse was made about her autistic daughter Victoria…
June 18, 2008
Color me unimpressed. As I mentioned last week, that opportunist who has apparently become a paid shill for the hardcore antivaccination movement (namely Generation Rescue, Autism Research Institute, National Autism Association, Coalition for SAFE MINDS, and Talk About Curing Autism, all of whom…
June 18, 2008
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Health at Yale University is not happy. No, he is not happy at all. Specifically, he is not happy with the skeptical blogosphere. He apparently feels that we nasty, close-minded skeptics have been so very unfair in our…
June 17, 2008
I consider myself very fortunate that I don't work in business. As a physician and a scientist, I just don't think I would fit in the culture that well. Oh, I'm sure I'd adapt if ever the killer opportunity in big pharma or surgical device manufacturing ever came around to which I couldn't say "no…
June 17, 2008
She was thin, white skin stretched over bones like worn parchment over old sticks being rhythmically blown in the wind as her chest rose and fell, each time with what seemed like a major effort. Incongruous with the rest of her body, her abdomen was distended, a balloon that looked dangerously…
June 16, 2008
The other day, in response to several e-mails asking me about the latest bit of bad science and epidemiology purporting to support the idea that mercury in the thimerosal preservative that used to be in many childhood vaccines is a major cause of autism, I posted links to EpiWonk's thee-part (so…
June 16, 2008
On Friday, I made an announcement about the Skeptics' Circle scheduled for July 31 in the light of having learned some very bad news, namely that the planned host, Jeff of Blue Collar Scientist, had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer. I wanted to verify that Jeff wasn't going to host (as I…
June 16, 2008
...is one of my favorite surgeon-bloggers Sid Schwab when he discusses what happens when naturopaths actually subject their "healing art" to scientific examination. In the wake of the rather--shall we say--vigorous discussion that ensued after my post last week about the recently passed law in the…
June 15, 2008
John Le Sainte apparently has a rather inflated view of himself. You see, he seems to think that he's the heir to Nostradamus. Ever worth a giggle on a Sunday afternoon (or any other time, for that matter), he seems to think that, channeling Nostradamus in some fashion, he's predicted what will be…