February 5, 2007
Amazing!
I had thought that one of my favorite skeptical blogs, Photon in the Darkness, had gone the way of the Dodo. With no posts since last July, I thought Prometheus had given up blogging for good, never to be seen again. Hoping against hope that he'd reappear, I left his RSS feed in…
February 5, 2007
Since DaveScot has made an appearance or two in the comments here, annoying everyone he comes in contact with, it's worth pointing out that mine isn't the only cluestick that could be used to pound some science into him about dichloroacetate, the supposed "cure" for cancer that's being "ignored" or…
February 5, 2007
Pity poor David Kirby.
After all, he made his name by hitching his star to a losing hypothesis, namely that the mercury in thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. He wrote a book about it, Evidence of Harm, back in 2005 and has milked that sucker dry ever since. Most recently, his appearances…
February 4, 2007
So says this Dalek:
Hilarious. Not as funny as the Jamaican Cybermen, but pretty funny nonetheless.
February 3, 2007
Remember how often I rail against misguided laws that seek to criminalize Holocaust denial, laws such as the one in Austria under which David Irving was imprisoned? I've referred to them more than once as "stomping free speech flat," and I still believe that's what they do. I've also pointed out…
February 3, 2007
Here's a blog that Shelley discovered and that I've been meaning to mention for a week now: Drug Rep Toys.
Yep, it's a blog whose purpose is to review and rate the various bits of swag that drug reps hand out to us doctors in the hopes that (I guess) we'll prescribe or use their products. It's…
February 2, 2007
I know, I know, I said last time that I probably wouldn't post on dichloroacetate and the hype some of the more credulous parts of the blogosphere are falling for over its being supposedly a "cancer cure" that big pharma is either willfully ignoring or actively suppressing. However, when DaveScot…
February 2, 2007
Skeptico announces it's his second blogiversary! Skeptico is one of the premier skeptical blogs out there, and, although he isn't posting as much as he used to, can still be counted on to provide some of the best takesdowns of woo there are.
Go on over and say hi and read his retrospective of the…
February 2, 2007
You know, I really wish I could have made it to The Amazing Meeting this year. It would have been really cool to have a chance to hear in person such skeptical luminaries, such as The Amazing Randi, Penn and Teller (although I do concede that Penn's Libertarianism does occasionally border on…
February 1, 2007
The 53rd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has been posted at Slicing with Occam's Razor. Once again, the best skeptical blogging from the last fortnight has been gathered, sifted, and presented in one tight, easy to peruse package.
Next up is Action Skeptics, who will host a fortnight hence, on…
February 1, 2007
It's things like this over at Over My Med Body! that show our friend Graham really knows how to make a humble guy like Orac feel the love:
Big name bloggers like Orac and Dr. RW and KevinMD are all up in arms about how "medical schools are going the wrong way" and asking "Does anyone in academic…
January 31, 2007
Three announcements about blog carnivals of interest to my readers:
Medical blogging: Grand Rounds, vol. 3, no. 19 has been posted at Envisioning 2.0.
Science blogging: Tangled Bank #72 has been posted at Ouroboros.
Skeptical blogging: The Skeptics' Circle will be appearing tomorrow at Slicing…
January 31, 2007
There I was, puttering around the Internet trying to procrastinate while writing yet another grant, when I came across a truly inane article by Scott Adams arguing that the entire universe must be intelligent because processes that lead to products of intelligent (machines, books, etc., made by us…
January 30, 2007
At the risk of irritating a fellow ScienceBlogger again, I thought I'd point out this little post forwarded to me by Norm Jenson as yet another example of exactly the inflated hype for dichloroacetate as a "cure for cancer" that will "never see the light of day" because it has little profit…
January 30, 2007
Via Black Triangle, I'm made aware of another example of religious fundamentalism interfering with sound health care:
A MUSLIM doctors' leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is "un-…
January 29, 2007
Here's just another friendly reminder that the latest edition of the Skeptics' Circle, that now-venerable blog carnival dedicated to critical thinking and skepticism, is due to appear this week on Thursday, February 1 at Slicing with Occam's Razor. (Hmmm, that's mighty close to Groundhog's Day.)
So…
January 29, 2007
The latest Pediatrics Grand Rounds has been posted over at Unintelligent Design: Grand Rounds, Volume 1 Edition 21: What Dreams May Come.
January 29, 2007
Critics who don't like my insistence on applying the scientific method to the claims of alternative medicine sometimes accuse me of unrelenting hostility towards alternative medicine, as though no amount of evidence would ever convince me of the efficacy of various alternative medicine therapies.…
January 28, 2007
PZ mentioned it, but, after having seen it, I thought I'd give it a plug too, mainly because my readership skews more towards the medical blogosphere than PZ's does, and a new blog this promising should be publicized to other medical bloggers. It's by a graduate student in Biomedical Visualization…
January 28, 2007
I haven't seen a Broadway play in quite a while now, but it may be time for that to change. In the New York Times, I came across an ad for a revival of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee´s 1955 courtroom drama Inherit the Wind:
This revival of the play stars two great actors, Brian Dennehy as…
January 28, 2007
Remember Donnie Davies, the "youth pastor" that I wrote about a couple of days ago, who posted a list of gay bands, plus a homophobic video proclaiming that "God hates a fag" that led to a prolonged debate over whether he was for real or some sort of elaborate Borat-like prank?
Two sources tell me…
January 28, 2007
Everyone who reads this blog regularly knows my dismay at the infiltration of the curriculum of American medical schools with increasing amounts of non-evidence-based woo. It's even gotten to the point where one medical school (Georgetown University) has is integrating alternative medicine into the…
January 27, 2007
I'm reminded by this article that today is the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops advancing west towards Germany:
OSWIECIM, Poland -- As they do on every anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops, witnesses to the Holocaust will gather Saturday --…
January 27, 2007
I don't know if I'll make this a habit or not, but it's a Saturday, and once again I feel like posting a YouTube or two and dedicating it to one of the "targets" of the week. (Besides, after the last post, I could use something light-hearted, or at least funny.) This one, of course, has to be…
January 26, 2007
I hate to end the week on a downer, but I came across this last night and, given my attention to the case of Katie Wernecke (the girl whose parents chose dubious alternative medical therapy over the radiation therapy she needed for her lymphoma) over the last several months and the recent news…
January 26, 2007
After posting about the Donnie Davies, an alleged "youth minister" in Houston who has garnered a lot of attention throughout the blogosphere for his website in which he provides a hilariously off-base list of "gay bands" to avoid and "safe" bands, I was perusing my Folder of Woo, looking for…
January 25, 2007
Grant season is upon us. Every day that I'm not in the clinic and the O.R., I find myself holed up in my office pounding my head against my monitor trying to write just that perfect mixture of preliminary data, blarney, and grantsmanship to persuade the Powers That Be to give me just a taste of…
January 25, 2007
Oh, no! The gay bands are here! Hide your children, and keep them away from this corruption! So sayeth Donnie Davies, an evangelical preacher who runs a website called Love God's Way:
One of the most dangerous ways homosexuality invades family life is through popular music. Parents should keep…
January 24, 2007
The other day, I did a reality check on a story making the rounds through the blogosphere about an alleged new cure for cancer that, if you believe some hysterical bloggers, is being suppressed because it would cut into their profits. I took one blogger to task for what I characterized as the "…
January 24, 2007
At the risk of muscling in on Bronze Dog's territory, I've encountered a phenomenon that ought to be in his list of doggerel but doesn't appear to be. It appeared in the comments of my post about the Arthur Allen-David Kirby debate and my discussion of how the human tendency to see patterns where…