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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

November 30, 2007
I haven't said much about Gillian Gibbons, the unfortunate schoolteacher from Britain who fell afoul of religious fundamentalism in Sudan when she did a class exercise in which her class picked a name for a Teddy Bear. Unfortunately, the name the children picked was Mohammed. Because of Islamic…
November 30, 2007
Sometimes I have a hard time not concluding that we are.
November 29, 2007
It looks as though the Jehovah's Witnesses have claimed another life. This time, though, it wasn't an adult, as it was recently. This time, though, through the indoctrination inherent in the Jehovah's Witness religion and, incredibly and inexcusably, the acquiescence of our legal system to their…
November 29, 2007
Heard on the radio this morning, a commenter responding to a radio talk show host's pointing out to him that Mike Huckabee doesn't accept evolution as valid. This is as close as I can remember what he said, but the gist is correct: We disagree on that. But not believing in evolution is something I…
November 29, 2007
...for reaching a milestone in blogging. One thing that's always puzzled me is why Abel's traffic isn't much higher (and mine lower, to be honest). True, I post much more frequently than he does, but that alone doesn't explain it. (Maybe it's EneMan.) Whatever the case, Abel deserves a much larger…
November 29, 2007
We've had one example this week of people with minds so open that their brains fell out at the Oxford Union, which invited Holocaust denier and British National Party leader Nick Griffin to "discuss free speech." Now, sadly, I see another, this time it's the United States government, which has…
November 28, 2007
Max Hastings apparently disagrees with the disgust that I and many others expressed over Holocaust denier David Irving's recent appearance at the Oxford Union. I'd almost agree with him, except that (1) I highly doubt, from reading the accounts, that any real "debate" occurred and (2) I don't think…
November 28, 2007
You've probably heard the oft-repeated charge of "alternative" medicine advocates. If you get into a debate or conversation with one, you can almost count on seeing or hearing it before too long. Indeed, we heard a variant of this very claim yesterday coming from über-woomeister supreme Deepak…
November 27, 2007
If you've been a regular reader here, one thing you know about me is just how much I detest Holocaust denial. What I detest even more, however, is when a Holocaust denier wraps his Nazi apologia and anti-Semitism in the cloak of free speech, particularly when he tries to claim martyr status while…
November 27, 2007
I was originally planning to do a real science post today. Indeed, there are at least two or three interesting studies that have been released in the last month or two that I've been meaning to write up, you know, to lose the snark and make this a real Science Blog. True, having a little fun…
November 26, 2007
Fellow ScienceBlogger Abel Pharmboy over at Terra Sig pointed me in the direction of a rather fascinating and disturbing article about physicians being recruited as "thought leaders" by pharmaceutical companies. Abel's discussion is well worth reading for yourself, but I thought I'd chime in my two…
November 26, 2007
While contemplating the burning stupidity that is Jenny McCarthy over the weekend as she mindlessly parroted some of the worst misinformation of the antivaccine movement and assured an interviewer that she would , all the while solemnly proclaiming that, were she to have another child she ""wouldn'…
November 25, 2007
As usual, The Onion gets it right, particularly the part about all acupuncture being "fake" acupuncture. By the way, this is the study the article is referring to. Meanwhile, Mark Crislip weighs in on this study and some other recent acupuncture studies. Hmmm. Why should Dr. Crislip have all the…
November 25, 2007
I've been very remiss in featuring what has become, from a very early point in this blog's history, its de facto mascot. Maybe it's because he's just been so busy being BEOC (Big Enema on Campus), or maybe it's a bit of laziness on my part. Or maybe having a giant walking Fleet's enema bottle…
November 24, 2007
This video's so good that I'm half tempted to try this method for myself, just to see if it actually works... Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog. MacGyver would love this.
November 24, 2007
I've never been able to understand advocates of homeopathy. I just have difficulty understanding how otherwise intelligent people can fall for the bad science, the logical fallacies, and the magical thinking necessary to believe that homeopathy is anything other than glorified water, an elaborate,…
November 23, 2007
I know, I know. Picking on Jenny McCarthy over her now frequent idiotic statements about autism and her parroting of the myth that vaccines cause autism is like shooting fish in a barrel, boxing a one-armed opponent, playing tennis with a blind man (like the infamous Saturday Night Live sketch from…
November 23, 2007
Ah, the day after Thanksgiving. I had wondered whether I would have the wherewithal to actually come up with yet another installment of this blog's usual Friday feature. After all, too much food can lead to a decrement in brain function that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to come up…
November 22, 2007
While I'm making a huge indentation in the couch cushions and digesting my repast, here's some good blog carnival reading for you all to peruse: Grand Rounds, vol. 4, no. 9 (from Mexico) Tangled Bank #93 Until tomorrow...
November 22, 2007
...from EneMan. Here's wishing everyone who celebrates it a Happy Thanksgiving. As you might expect, our blog mascot is joining in the fun, preparing the turkey, and loading up on tryptophan! Believe it or not, given my usual prolific nature, I'm taking the day off from blogging to engage in the…
November 21, 2007
It's that time again. Oh, it's a day early because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but it's here nonetheless. It's time for the 74th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, this time hosted over at Med Journal Watch. I can't figure out why Christian is being heckled by skeptics, though, as he gives his…
November 21, 2007
I once blogged about an article attempting to address the very question in the title of this post, and I've also discussed in depth how messy the process of evidence-based medicine can be and why that provides an opening for purveyors of "alternative medicine" (my preferred term to describe it…
November 21, 2007
He's baaack. Yes, that radio voice of the mercury militia, the shock jock Don Imus, who was so ignominiously booted from his nationwide syndicated radio show last spring is coming back to the airwaves on December 3 on WABC radio in New York, with plans to syndicate him again nationwide. Personally…
November 20, 2007
In the past, I've characterized chiropractors, at least the ones who claim to be able to treat anything other than back pain, as "physical therapists with delusions of grandeur who don't know their limitations." It appears that Panda Bear, MD agrees with me, and he's particularly disturbed about…
November 20, 2007
I'm not sure what to think of Michael Siegel. I'm really not. Even now, I remain of two minds on him. Dr. Siegel first came to my attention back in July, around the time I was getting into online tussles with a certain opponent of indoor smoking bans, before which I had never heard of him. He's a…
November 19, 2007
...apparently, that's what the Discovery Institute thinks, as William Dembski proudly announces, for reasons that escape me: Michael Medved, nationally syndicated talk radio host and bestselling author, has joined the Discovery Institute in the role of senior fellow. The position cements a…
November 19, 2007
There's a rather interesting bit of vaccine politics going on in Prince George's County, Maryland being reported by the AP and The Baltimore Sun: Scores of grumbling parents facing a threat of jail lined up at a courthouse today to either prove that their school-age kids already had their required…
November 18, 2007
So busy was I last week blogging about other things, somehow I missed an amazingly, jaw-droppingly idiotic defense of homeopathy Jeanette Winterson published in The Guardian earlier this week. As you might imagine, it was just begging for a heapin' helpin' of not-so-Respectful Insolenceâ¢. I mean,…
November 18, 2007
Note: The Aggregator was updated on May 18, 2008. Last week, almost on a whim, I decided to try to figure out just how much woo has infiltrated academic medicine by trying to come up with an estimate of just how many academic medical centers offer woo of some form or another in the form of centers…
November 17, 2007
Ever since I started blogging about a story about a youth named Chad Jessop who, it was claimed, developed melanoma and cured himself of it with "natural" remedies, with the result that his mother was supposedly brought before the Orange County Superior Court and his mother thrown in maximum…