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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

December 13, 2007
Oh, no, not again. Respectful Insolence⢠has been invaded over the last few days by a particularly idiotic and clueless homeopath named Sunil Sharma, who's infested the comments of a post about how U.K. homeopaths are complaining about all of us mean skeptics who have the temerity to point out the…
December 12, 2007
It's times like these that I wonder if I've been at this blogging thing a bit too long. I ask that question because I've done it again. I've done the same thing in 2007 that I did a year ago in 2006. I missed my own blogiversary. Yes, believe it or not, yesterday was the third anniversary of a…
December 12, 2007
Let's see, the ScienceBlogs collective started out in English. Earlier this week, our German partner Hubert Burda Media soft-launched ScienceBlogs.de, a German version of the ScienceBlogging collective that you've come to know and love (or, in some cases, hate). Now, our benevolent (well, most of…
December 12, 2007
Readers may have noticed (or maybe they haven't) that I haven't commented at all on the Guillermo Gonzalez case. As you may recall, Gonzalez is an astronomer at Iowa State University, as well as advocate of "intelligent design" creationism. In May 2007, ISU denied tenure to Gonzalez. Not…
December 11, 2007
How could I have been so remiss? I totally forgot to plug a new blog carnival that I really should be plugging, given my area of scientific interest. Yes, indeed, it's a new edition of the Cancer Research Blog Carnival, with lots of scientific bloggy goodness to enjoy. Worse, I forgot to submit…
December 11, 2007
It's been a while since I've visited the cesspool that is Uncommon Descent, a.k.a. Bill Dembski's home for wandering sycophants, toadies, and lackeys. There's a good reason for this; I just get tired of the sheer stupidity that routinely assaults my brain every time I make the mistake of taking a…
December 10, 2007
...here's an example where the conspiracy obviously failed and failed miserably. And if you like their Chanukah specials, you'll love their Ramadan lunch specials. You'd think they'd know better in New York City, though.
December 10, 2007
If you've hung out in forums where Holocaust deniers, 9/11 Truthers, and other conspiracy theorists hang out, as I have done, one thing you'll notice is that these particular purveyors of dubious conspiracy-mongering seem to have a particular love of demonizing Jews (or, as the smarter ones tend to…
December 10, 2007
Dr. Rashid Buttar is a quack. There, I've said it. It's my opinion, and there's lots of evidence to support that opinion. As you know, I seldom actually invoke the "q-word." Indeed, for the longest time after I started blogging I tended to go out of my way to avoid using it, even to the point of…
December 9, 2007
Andrew Wakefield is an incompetent "scientist." Of that, there is no longer any doubt whatsoever, given how poorly he and his collaborators did the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) studies that he did looking for measles RNA sequences in colon biopsy specimens taken from autistic children, studies…
December 8, 2007
See what happens when I actually manage to keep myself from checking my blog for nearly 24 whole hours? The trolls take over. Well, they're not exactly trolls. Trolls often don't believe in what they post; they merely post it to get a reaction, for example, like rabid Hillary Clinton opponents…
December 8, 2007
Sorry, but I can't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude over this. Chelationist extraordinaire Dr. Rashid Buttar is, it would appear, in a bit of trouble: A Huntersville doctor is facing charges of unprofessional conduct. Dr. Rashid Buttar's alternative medicine clinic treats autism patients from…
December 7, 2007
A few weeks ago, Martin over at Aardvarchaelogy, Steve Novella, and I speculated about how alternative medicine modalities might evolve and what the selection pressures on them might be. We all agreed that, to some degree, there is definite selection pressure for remedies that do no harm but that…
December 7, 2007
After last week's Your Friday Dose of Woo, which featured an amazingly extravagant bit of woo that took up 10,000 webpages of some of most densely-packed woo language that I've ever seen, I feel the need for a change of pace. It's time to simplify this week. After all, if I were to do nothing but…
December 6, 2007
This video would argue that the answer to the question in the title is no: "I don't think anything predated Christians"? What about Judaism? You know, the Old Testament, the book in which, Christians say, many prophecies of Jesus' coming were made? I'd try to reassure myself that she's just more…
December 6, 2007
...because, via Skeptico and DC's Improbably Science, I've learned something that could only warm the coldest cockles of my evil scientific and skeptical heart. It's something that tells us that, maybe, just maybe, what we bloggers do in favor of evidence-based medicine may actually be having an…
December 6, 2007
It's hard to believe that two weeks have flown by once again. It's even harder to believe that the Skeptics' Circle has been around long enough to reach its 75th edition, which this time around comes straight out of Denmark, courtesy of longtime Respectful Insolence commenter and now blogger…
December 5, 2007
Lest I forget to mention this one, Randy Cohen, a.k.a. The Ethicist, answers a question. Here's the question: I work at a hospital where several nurses practice therapies like healing touch and therapeutic touch, said to adjust a patient's energy field and thereby decrease pain and improve healing…
December 5, 2007
The other village quack of the Chicago Tribune has decided to enter the breast cancer fray again. No, I'm not talking about the main village quack of the Chicago Tribune. That would be Julie Deardorff. Rather, I'm talking about the Chicago Tribune's newly minted breast cancer crank, Dennis Byrne.…
December 4, 2007
Fortunately, I've never had this happen when I've placed a central venous catheter: See that bright line with the "J" at the end of it? That's the guidewire over which a central venous catheter is threaded. It's a very bad thing when you push it in so far that you lose it. Worse, is not…
December 4, 2007
Remember how I speculated that appointing die-hard antivaccinationists to the new federal panel on autism research and policy would be a propaganda boon to the antivaccination movement and the mercury militia? Surprise, surprise! It's already happening. Even less of a surprise, first off the mark…
December 3, 2007
Depressing. One of the fakest faith-healers of all, Peter Popoff, who was so memorably exposed for a fraud by James Randi back in the 1980s when Randi caught him using a small radio receiver to be fed information on people he was "healing" from his wife, who was reading them off of prayer cards, is…
December 3, 2007
I've been spending a bit of time discussing the sad case of Dennis Lindberg, a 14-year-old youth with leukemia who died because of his refusal to accept a blood transfusion when his hematocrit fell to life-threateningly low levels apparently during chemotherapy. My position is that, while competent…
December 2, 2007
I'm always loathe to criticize a fellow ScienceBlogger, but, as the resident World War II buff and tireless debunker of Holocaust denial, I couldn't let this one pass. While perusing the Last 24 Hours feed yesterday, I came across a most curious statement in a slapdown by Greg Laden of an attempt…
December 2, 2007
Apparently Jack Dempsey was his generation's Chuck Norris, who, as we know, doesn't read books but stares them down until he gets the information that he wants. Here he is in a 1934 Modern Mechanix article boasting how he can "whip any mechanical robot": Of course, I still think it would hurt…
December 2, 2007
There are certain bloggers who can reliably be counted on to deliver the stupid. We've met several of them over the time this blog's been in existence. One such blogger, the born again Christian named LaShawn Barber, has been particularly good at it, although we've only met her a couple of times…
December 1, 2007
Yesterday, I wrote about the overwhelmingly sad case of Dennis Lindberg, the 14-year old Jehovah's Witness who died because of his misguided adherence to the twisted interpretation of a 3,000 year old Biblical text and the court's acquiescence to this lunacy. So did P. Z. Myers. In response to the…
December 1, 2007
The Buckeye Surgeon educates us with a case. In brief, it's the case of an elderly woman with a clinical picture, including right upper quadrant pain and an elevated white blood cell count consistent with rip-roaring cholecystitis who was admitted to the medical service for her right upper quadrant…
November 30, 2007
I would be remiss in my duties as organizer of the Skeptics' Circle if I were to forget to remind you that it won't be long before the next Skeptics' Circle comes around the pike. Indeed, the next meeting of the Skeptics' Circle will appear on Thursday, December 6 and will be hosted by Pro-Science…
November 30, 2007
I don't know what it is about woo-meisters and vibration. I know I've said this before, but it seems to come up so often that I can't help but repeat it. Everything is vibration. Everything. And if it' not vibration, it's waves, be they energy waves, sound waves, or, as I like to describe them…