oracknows

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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 3, 2006
Time flies. In fact, it flies so fast that it seems only yesterday that Kev put together a great Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, but in fact it's been over a week and the time for a new host to take on the responsibility is fast approaching. This time around, it's Thursday's turn to host the…
November 3, 2006
I feel for you, ScienceBlogs compatriot Afarensis. I really do. Sure, your Cardinals beat my Tigers in the World Series last week. Sure, the Tigers made a lot of embarrassing errors and showed every sign of letting their youth and inexperience lead them to choking under the pressure. Sure at times…
November 3, 2006
There are times when the struggle to keep cranking out Your Friday Dose of Woo every week starts to get to me. No, it's not because I don't enjoy putting together these little light-hearted but pointed analyses of some of the strangest woo that I've come across. Believe me, many times it's the…
November 2, 2006
Let Abel Pharmboy put all the hype over the study showing that resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, can extend the lifespan of mice by 20-30% in better perspective for you.
November 2, 2006
The History Carnival XLII has been posted at Holocaust Controversies. Sergey runs a great blog about Holocaust denial and history; you should add Holocaust Controversies to your regular blogroll. One entry that particularly saddened me was the story of how Deathcamps.org, which was a great resource…
November 2, 2006
Suzanne Somers annoys me. She annoys me because, despite the fact that her statements and activities over the last 25 years reveal her to be probably no more intelligent than the character that she played on Three's Company, she still feels the need to spread misinformation about diet and medicine…
November 1, 2006
The latest edition of Change of Shift, the blog carnival about nursing, has been posted at DisappearingJohn RN.
November 1, 2006
Seen pulling into the hospital parking lot this morning, a cardiologist with a vanity license plate on his car. The vanity plate read: LUB DUB (For nonphysicians who may not be aware of the significance of the above, "lub-dub" is the way the two parts of the heart sound with each beat are usually…
November 1, 2006
I had been planning on finally getting around to writing that review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion that I've been meaning to write since I finally finished the book two weeks ago. Then a Google Alert hit my mailbox last night for a preset search that I keep active on "Abraham Cherrix," and…
October 31, 2006
Back to Alice Cooper:
October 31, 2006
No Alice Cooper this time. Instead, given that this is the blog that conceived of the Hitler Zombie, how could I not post a clip involving an actual cinematic brain-eating zombie on Halloween? (Warning: In the interest of full disclosure, this clip contains a brief and poorly lit topless shot and a…
October 31, 2006
More Halloween-appropriate mania from Alice Cooper, this time with Vincent Price! And more: More to come, but not necessarily Alice Cooper...
October 31, 2006
A little more than a year ago, an autistic boy named Abubakar Tariq Nadama died of a cardiac arrest due to hypocalcemia at the hands of an "alternative medicine" practitioner named Dr. Roy Kerry while chelation therapy was being administered to him intravenously. Dr. Kerry, who trained as an ENT…
October 30, 2006
it's Halloween, and I thought I'd celebrate by posting a few appropriate YouTube! videos. And what says Halloween quite like Alice Cooper?
October 30, 2006
Last week, I wrote a couple of posts about Rush Limbaugh's despicable attacks on Michael J. Fox for appearing in an ad for a Democrat who supports loosening the federal ban on funding for embryonic stem cell research. Somehow, I missed the fact that Jon Swift also wrote on the topic. And, as is…
October 30, 2006
Institutional review boards (IRBs) are the cornerstone of the protection of human subjects in modern biomedical research. Mandated by the federal government in the 1970's in the wake of research abuses of the 20th century, in particular the the horrors of the infamous Nazi biomedical experiments…
October 29, 2006
Remembering two rather frivolous posts that I made last weekend, you might have an idea of what this costume might be. Yes, you too can Be The Hoff. Of course, if The Hoff is not your style, you can also Be The Magnum. (Via Attu World.)
October 29, 2006
It seems to be the time of the year for this sort of thing. Yes, I realize that the Harry Potter novels have come under attack from various fundamentalist Christians, who view them as somehow indoctrinating children into witchcraft, Wicca, demon worship, or whatever. I also realize that I may be a…
October 29, 2006
Leave it to Jason Foxtrot...
October 28, 2006
Mitch Albom sums the World Series and the Tiger's 2006 season up far better than I ever could.
October 28, 2006
With the Tigers losing the World Series last night, I think I need something light and funny to pick me up. Here's just the thing: Believe it or not, you don't have to be Jewish to learn Yiddish with George and Laura. (The part mentioning evolution at the end is particularly timely, given a couple…
October 27, 2006
This is getting depressing. Last night, the Tigers lost a particularly heartbreaking game 5-4. It's heartbreaking because it's a game that they really should have won. Unfortunately errors and the two unearned runs that they allowed killed them. Now the 2006 World Series is at the same point that…
October 27, 2006
It's Friday, and I haven't done this for a long time; so here we go. I fired up iTunes, set it to Shuffle Play, and awaited with baited breath for what came out. See how this stuff compares to Mark's list today: 1. My Chemical Romance, Welcome to the Black Parade (from The Black Parade). OK, I…
October 27, 2006
Tired of doing Google searches for evidence-based discussions of dubious-sounding medical treatments and finding that the first 100 sites (or, if you're unlucky, the first 1,000 sites) that pop up are nothing more than altie woo, shills selling alternative medicine and supplements, and CureZone or…
October 27, 2006
No, I'm not talking about "Iron Justice," a guy who regularly posts to misc.health.alternative and seems obsessed with iron metabolism as the be-all and end-all of health and disease, with a particular affinity for iron overload as the cause of seemingly all disease, although he might make an…
October 26, 2006
The Skeptics' Circle has been hosted in many places and in many forms, but leave it to Kev at Left Brain/Right Brain to bring it to the one place that it's been hosted before. We're talking Heaven, people. Naturally, the assembled skeptics were a bit disconcerted by this particular venue, as…
October 26, 2006
You didn't think this one would go by without my commenting on it, did you? Even though Abel and Tara have already ably commented on it, I can't help but jump in because the article echoes one of the common threads of this blog since the very beginning. Besides, as I've said before, just because…
October 25, 2006
This one's for you, Afarensis (all in good fun, of course--well, for the most part, anyway): Here's Jeff Suppan, pitcher for the Cardinals (who, it just so happens, will be starting game four of the World Series tonight) appearing prominently along with Patricia Heaton, Jim Caviezel, and other…
October 25, 2006
One problem with getting old is that you start to see bands that you admired in your youth start to betray what you perceived as their ideals. The Baby Boomers were the first to start experiencing the disillusionment that comes with that, and songs from the rock gods of the 1960's have become…
October 24, 2006
Yesterday, I wrote about a rather disgusting and ignorant tirade by Rush Limbaugh about Michael J. Fox, in which Limbaugh accused Fox of either faking Parkinsons's symptoms or purposely not taking his medications before taping an ad in which he supported a Democratic candidate because she supports…