oracknows

Profile picture for user oracknows
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

May 16, 2007
One of the favorite targets of pseudoscientists is the peer review system. After all, it's the system through which scientists submit their manuscripts describing their scientific findings or their grant proposals to their peers for an evaluation to determine whether they are scientifically…
May 15, 2007
The latest Grand Rounds has been posted at the Medical Humanities Blog. Time for your fix of the week's best medical blogging.
May 15, 2007
Good God Almighty....(From Sir David Attenborough's "Life in the Undergrowth") Add to: Slashdot del.icio.usredditnewsvineY! MyWeb
May 15, 2007
The winners of the Alliance for Science essay contest that I mentioned a couple of months ago, where high school students were asked to write an essay of 1,000 words or less about the topic Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?, have been announced. My only question is why the…
May 15, 2007
A while back, I coined a term for woo so irrational, woo so desperate to masquerade as reason and science, that it could be spewed forth into books, the Internet, and the blogosophere by only one man. The man is Deepak Chopra, and the term is Chopra-woo, examples of which can be found here and here…
May 14, 2007
While trolling the deepest, darkest, most vile racist parts of the Internet, as I am wont to do looking around for new Holocaust denial idiocy to take down, I came across something unexpected, so unexpected that it made me curious. Basically, Bill White, Commander of the American National Socialist…
May 14, 2007
Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it. I say this in light of a commenter, who decided to show up in one of my old posts to claim "positive results" from dichloroacetate (DCA), the small molecule experimental cancer drug that has shown promising activity in rat models of cancer but has…
May 13, 2007
This week has been a bit of a rough and depressing week on the old blog, with the news that Battlestar Galactica will probably be entering its last season,the appearance of annoying conspiracy theorists in new posts and trolls in old posts, really irritating technical difficulties the ScienceBlogs…
May 13, 2007
I don't know where EoR finds this stuff, but I like the way Deborah Ross thinks when she discusses offering alternative medical practitioners alternative methods of payment. Not surprisingly, they aren't interested: There has been much fuss this week about the 'scientific status' of homeopathy,…
May 13, 2007
From a variety of sources, I've learned that the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica is probably going to be the last and that the beleaguered humans will find Earth. Here it is, right from Admiral Adama himself: iF MAGAZINE: What's coming up for season four? EDWARD JAMES OLMOS: It's fantastic. I…
May 12, 2007
Roy Zimmerman rules!
May 12, 2007
I haven't seen it summed up quite as well as here: Dog: I am starving. Me: Actually, no. You aren't starving. You get two very good meals a day. And treats. And Best Beloved fed you extra food while I was gone. Dog: STARVING. Me: I saw you get fed not four hours ago! You are not starving. Dog: Pity…
May 11, 2007
As many of you may have noticed, we're having some technical difficulties, with prolonged posting times for comments, errors, etc. I assure you that, however much it might annoy you to watch your browser chug away slowly and seemingly endlessly after you've composed your pithy and erudite comment…
May 11, 2007
Remember the SCIO? It was featured in Your Friday Dose of Woo two weeks ago. It's an amazingly woo-ey piece of woo that was just perfect for my little weekly feature. Unfortunately, not everyone appreciates my having a little fun with it. For example, one of the woomeisters responsible for the SCIO…
May 11, 2007
I really love Life Technologyâ¢. I really do. Heck, I could spend the next several weeks mining it for topics for Your Friday Dose of Woo. The stuff there's so over-the-top that I find it hard to believe that these guys are serious. I mean, really, look at some of their products, a couple of which…
May 10, 2007
A common refrain among practitioners and advocates of alternative medicine is that the reason randomized clinical trials frequently fail to find any objective evidence of clinical efficacy for their favorite woo is because, in essence, science is not the right tool to evaluate whether it works. In…
May 10, 2007
It's that time again! Has it really been a fortnight since the last time the skeptics of the blogosphere met to apply desperately-needed critical thinking skills to the woo, credulity, and general lack of critical thinking in which the blogosphere is continually awash? I guess so. This time up, we…
May 9, 2007
Since today seems to be World War II history day on the old blog, I just can't resist posting this little gem for geeks: A full resolution version can be found here. Of course, the nitpicker geek in me can't help but point out that, not only is the Swastika on the left arm of the robot reversed,…
May 9, 2007
I'll admit it. There have been at least two times since I started blogging that I fell for a dubious story because I exercised insufficient skepticism. The first time occurred very early on in my blogging history when swallowed a story about how legalization of prostitution was claimed to lead to…
May 8, 2007
Via Kevin, MD, here's a piece that almost could have been written by me: CAM exists in an alternate universe from real medicine. It wants to be legitimate but manages to avoid the responsibilities and liability of real medical practice. As most CAM treats nebulous symptoms with equally nebulous…
May 8, 2007
In rapid succession after the last pontificating and bloviating article claiming that there will never be a cure for cancer because it would be too financially disastrous to the medical economy, I've been made aware of another pontificating and bloviating article decrying the state of cancer…
May 7, 2007
This one's been going around the medical blogosphere. It's pretty hilarious, based as it is on perhaps the funniest Saturday Night Live Digital Short from the entire 2006-2007 season (warning: may not be work-safe, depending on how uptight your workplace is): Kids these days. I tell you. I don't…
May 7, 2007
It's a simple question that we as medical professionals often have to ask, but one that is a minefield when it comes to answers. To take a cue from our former President, I suppose it depends on what the meaning of the word "active" is.
May 7, 2007
Readers who don't like me might think that the title of this post refers to what I am about to write. I know, the title perfectly encapsulates the verbose style that is my stock and trade. In reality, though, it's referring to a couple of articles floating around the blogosphere of which I've…
May 6, 2007
I know this one's been circulating around the Internet for a while now, but it's so perfect that I can't resist posting it here. Pure genius, particularly the paper upon which the above talk was based!
May 6, 2007
You know our tort system is messed up when stuff like this can happen: (AP) The Chungs, immigrants from South Korea, realized their American dream when they opened their dry-cleaning business seven years ago in the nation's capital. For the past two years, however, they've been dealing with the…
May 6, 2007
Our intrepid mascot has been revealing sides of himself this year of which I had previously been unaware. After all, who knew he was so into art that he'd pose nude without embarrassment? Or that he was a Shakespearean actor? Or that he has a way with the ladies? Maybe it's because he's so suave…
May 5, 2007
If you ever wonder about the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in separating church and state in the Constitution and banning the imposition of a state religion, just look to this story from Malaysia for the sorts of things that can happen when a nation is governed according to religious law: A Muslim…
May 5, 2007
This one will probably not mean much to those who don't have a Detroit connection (such as, like me, having been born there and spent the first 26 years of my life in southeast Michigan), and it will probably mean nothing at all to my cadre of international readers, but it saddens me nonetheless…
May 4, 2007
One day at a time...Tasmanian Devil, Sarcophilus harrisii Tasmanian devils are suddenly on the verge of total extinction, due to a mysterious facial cancer that is spreading rapidly through their population. Since the first sick animal's discovery, eleven years ago, the cancer has swept through…