June 27, 2007
You may have noticed that I haven't commented much on Michael Behe's recent book, The Edge of Evolution, other than to bemoan its presence in the Evolution section of the University of Chicago Barnes & Noble. I have, however, read with some amusement some of the reviews. The most recent is one…
June 27, 2007
It was with sadness that I saw fellow medical blogger Dr. Charles' announcement that he is taking a break ("perhaps a long break," as he puts it) from blogging. He points out that he's been at it for almost three years.
My first thought was that I was sad to see him go and hope that he eventually…
June 27, 2007
Please take a moment to head over to Majikthise and pay your respects to Lindsay, whose father, Barry L. Beyerstein, died yesterday.
Dr. Beyerstein was a prominent skeptic and very active in the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He also served as chair of the Society of B. C. Skeptics, not to…
June 27, 2007
J. B. Handley never ceases to amaze me how much he is willing to torture me with his abuses of science, never mind his childish attempts to annoy me by cybersquatting domain names that he thinks I want. So there I was, all set to blog about a rather amusing homeopath that I've come across, when…
June 26, 2007
If you're not into the ins and outs of applying for NIH funding, this one may be a bit too wonky for you. I'm linking, however, to a rather interesting discussion of how to go about getting funding from the NIH in this presently hostile funding climate. One spot-on point is this in reference to…
June 26, 2007
The Autism Omnibus trial continued last week, which was devoted primarily to the government's case. Consequently, there were a variety of real experts, as opposed to the pseudoexperts called by the prosecution last week. With only the occasional hiccup, they are taking serious bites out of the…
June 25, 2007
Finally, there's a word for a feeling that many people have no doubt experienced many times:
Some call it "phantom vibration syndrome." Others prefer "vibranxiety" -- the feeling when you answer your vibrating cellphone, only to find it never vibrated at all.
"It started happening about three years…
June 25, 2007
Longtime readers of this blog may recall Pat Sullivan, Jr. He first popped up as a commenter here two years ago, when I first dove into applying skepticism and critical thinking to the pseudoscientific contention that vaccines in general or the thimerosal preservatives in vaccines cause autism. He'…
June 24, 2007
I can't argue with this:
An embodiment of the mystery, danger and freedom of the music itself, the crotch has occupied a central role in a stirring rock performance.
Of course, the crotch today remains a valuable weapon in the rock arsenal, as exemplified by the current wave of tight pants bands…
June 24, 2007
This story's being sent about as an example of stupid criminals, Ã la News of the Weird, but I just view it as a sign of the times:
Bellacino's Pizzeria closes at 9 p.m. That's when one of the employees left work out a back door, where his car was parked. He was approached by two teens armed with…
June 24, 2007
From The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, specifically the chapter The Shadow of the Past, in which Gandalf responds to Frodo's statement that Gollum is an enemy who deserves death:
Deserves it? I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to…
June 24, 2007
Ever think you have the worst job?
Take a gander at these worst jobs in science.
A couple of examples:
Job #10: Whale feces researcher.
Job #5: Coursework carcass preparer.
Maybe it's just me, but several of these jobs don't sound that bad.
Except the whale feces researcher.
June 23, 2007
After attending the ASCO Meeting in Chicago over two weeks ago, I can't believe I forgot to post about this. More than two years ago, back in my favorite city (Chicago), a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared. It appeared, oddly enough, as such visions are wont to do, in a rather mundane spot.…
June 23, 2007
This one's been floating around ScienceBlogs and the blogosphere in general; so I thought, what the hell? (Oh, wait, did my use of the word "hell" affect my rating?) In any case, this sounds about right:
Mingle2 - Online Dating
You'll be happy to know that I don't really plan on trying to "evolve…
June 23, 2007
There are lots of medical discoveries today that are breathlessly hyped far beyond what their actual benefits are likely to be. This, apparently, is not a new phenomenon, as this story shows.
(Click on the pictures above for larger images of all four pages of the article, which appeared in…
June 22, 2007
The Cheerful Oncologist, noting my recent post about the relapse of Abraham Cherrix's lymphoma in the lung, has done an analysis from--of course!--an oncologist's viewpoint. Given that I don't treat lymphoma, other than doing the occasional lymph node biopsy to diagnose it, his viewpoint is well…
June 22, 2007
In my rigid, Western, scientific way of thinking, things generally have a beginning, a middle, and and end, the arrow of time marching relentlessly onward. However, it occurs to me that this is the very last edition of Your Friday Dose of Woo of its first year. Last June, when I started this,…
June 21, 2007
I've written extensively before about Starchild Abraham Cherrix, the (now) 17-year-old who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease when he was 15 and who, after one course of chemotherapy, refused any further evidence-based medicine in favor of the quackery known as Hoxsey therapy. His refusal led to…
June 21, 2007
Has it really been two years?
Amazingly, it has indeed. On June 16, 2005, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. deposited the biggest, steamingest, drippiest (not to mention stinkiest) turd I had as yet seen in my then young blogging career, specifically an article published simultaneously by both Salon.com and…
June 21, 2007
Here, on this summer solstice, a traditional time of great importance for woo, I bet you need a shot of skepticism, don't you? Fortunately, mcsquared over at Relatively Science has your back with the 63 Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. As he puts it: ..."if you are in the Northern hemisphere this…
June 20, 2007
I've done my fair share of ranting about Scientology, be it about Tom Cruise's aggressive and arrogant antipsychiatry nuttiness a couple of years ago or the very recent piece I wrote about the disturbing and idiotically conceived anti-psychiatry museum run by the Church of Scientology. The Church…
June 20, 2007
Having exhausted myself for the time being on two things that irritate me a lot (namely creationist neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor and the antivaccination pseudoscience being presented as "evidence" that vaccines cause autism at the Autism Omnibus), it's time for a change of pace. For all my…
June 19, 2007
Lest I forget my medblogging duties, let me just post a brief plug for this week's edition of Grand Rounds, hosted this time by Code Blog: Tales of a Nurse.
I'm such an idiot; I forgot to submit some of my work to the carnival!
June 19, 2007
While I'm back on the topic of vaccines and autism after a long hiatus, thanks to the Atuism Omnibus, don't know how I missed this article by Sharyl Attkisson, entitled Autism: Why the Debate Rages. I can't recall the last time I saw so many logical fallacies and doggerel packed into an article on…
June 19, 2007
If you leave aside the problem with the Autism Omnibus trial, which has just entered its second week, that annoys me the most, namely a hypothesis so poorly supported by science and so badly argued by a panoply of nonexperts could make it so far in our legal system and possibly even endanger the…
June 18, 2007
Thanks, archy and PZ.
You just ruined my day.
Really. If you thought that Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church was bad, you really ain't seen nothin' yet until you've checked out Paul Hill Days. The Phelpses may be evil in the way that they torment people in their moment of grief with their…
June 18, 2007
In blogging, there are some topics that I know that I really shouldn't bother with; yet, somehow they suck me in. A number of things can cause that. Perhaps it's a topic that just gets under my skin to the point where I can't hold back a commentary, even when I know that it might be wiser to remain…
June 17, 2007
The latest Pediatric Grand Rounds has been posted over at Med Journal Watch. There's lots of good stuff, including some posts about the Autism Omnibus trial.
June 17, 2007
I've seen ads like this before in issues of LIFE Magazine from the 1940s that I inherited from my uncle, but they never cease to make me cringe when I see them:
(Click for a larger image and to read the text of the ad more clearly.)
Get a load of the text:
Family physicians, surgeons,…
June 17, 2007
If Irn-Bru can do this, maybe I should try some the next time I manage to make it to the U.K.:
(Via Attuworld.)