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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

July 26, 2006
When you don't have time to write something substantive, what do you do? Post YouTubes videos, of course! Sadly, I can almost relate to this one (after all, thanks to BitTorrent, I have now seen all of the episodes from season two of the resurrected series, with David Tennant playing The Doctor…
July 26, 2006
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to write much for today. Fortunately, this gives me the perfect opportunity to remedy a situation in which I've been remiss. As you know, Kathleen Seidel has been tirelessly exposing the dubious science promoted by Mark and David Geier, who advocate using Lupron to…
July 25, 2006
...has been posted at Medical Humanities. Enjoy the best medical blogging from the past week.
July 25, 2006
Alright, now they've gone too far. I thought I'd seen every specious and fallacious argument and example that creationists could throw out there to annoy scientists and be gobbled up by the credulous, but I was wrong. They're muscling in on my turf now! No, they're not making fallacious arguments…
July 25, 2006
From the AP: NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- A 16-year-old cancer patient was headed to court Tuesday with his lawyers to try to block a judge's order requiring him to report to a hospital the same day for treatment as doctors deem necessary. A juvenile court judge on Monday denied a request by lawyers for…
July 24, 2006
....are up at The World According to Nick.
July 24, 2006
Not surprisingly, since the court decided that Abraham Cherrix, a Virginia teen who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease at age 15, underwent chemotherapy, relapsed, and then refused to undergo any further chemotherapy, opting instead for an "alternative medicine" treatment known as the Hoxsey…
July 23, 2006
Eh Nonymous has posted a first hand account of a speech by Judge John E. Jones III, who decided the Kitzmiller v. Dover case on "intelligent design" creationism in Dover. We need more judges like him. My only thought is: How on earth did this guy get appointed to the federal bench by the Bush…
July 22, 2006
It looks as though it's time to 'fess up. It's us surgeons who are the source of all that CO2. Sid Schwab tells us why. (And, no, it's not because of all the hot air we surgeons are capable of producing; we're nothing compared to politicians in that respect.)
July 22, 2006
Head on over and give fellow physician and outspoken warrior against pseudoscience Dr. R. W. a hearty congratulations! Today is his first blogiversary. May there be many more!
July 22, 2006
I tell you, I take a night off from blogging, not even glancing at the blog or my e-mail, instead falling into a deep slumber at 10 PM after The Dog Whisperer on TV, thanks to a somewhat stressful week and a large meal plus a beer, and what happens? Abraham' Cherrix's uncle comments on the old blog…
July 22, 2006
The latest Carnival of Bad History has been posted over at Hiram Hover's. If you think the Bush Administration can abuse science, you ain't seen nothin' yet when it comes to how history is abused by various people and groups for ideological purposes!
July 21, 2006
A little blog housekeeping is in order here. Several days ago, the overlords at SEED Magazine installed a new spam filter, which, despite some fine-tuning over the last several days, unfortunately still seems a bit more indiscriminate than we'd like, sometimes gobbling up legitimate comments…
July 21, 2006
Alright, I admit it. I went a little overboard with last week's edition of Your Friday Dose of Woo. This feature was intended to be a light-hearted look at whatever particular woo target that catches my fancy on a given week, as opposed to the more serious discussions of alternative medicine I like…
July 20, 2006
You may have noticed that I opted out of the last two or three weeks worth of Ask a ScienceBlogger questions. The last couple of weeks it was because the questions simply didn't interest me, and the week before that it was because i just plain forgot. This week, however, our overlords at SEED…
July 20, 2006
Thirty seven years ago today, on July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man ever to walk on the Moon. (You can quibble and say it was July 21 by Universal Time (a.k.a. Greenwich Mean Time), but I'm an American, and to me as a child it happened on July 20. In any case, I have two…
July 19, 2006
Zoinks! Why didn't anyone think of this before? This week's Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle starts out in the Mystery Machine, courtesy of Big Heathen Mike at Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant: We join the gang as everyone got ready for a weekend adventure... Everyone piled into the stretch Mystery…
July 19, 2006
The latest Tangled Bank has been posted at a fellow skeptic's blog, Salto Sobrius, who, it just so happens, is also scheduled to host the Skeptics' Circle in September. Go catch up on the best science blogging of the last two weeks. Speaking of the Skeptics' Circle, you still have a few hours left…
July 19, 2006
I thought this was a joke when a reader e-mailed me about it. I mean, it's just so over-the-top that I had a hard time believing that it was real. It was (found via MacDailyNews): The huge rise of autism in Britain is linked to old iPod batteries, mobile phones and other products of the electronic…
July 19, 2006
Here we are, five and a half years into George W. Bush's Presidency, and he's not yet vetoed a bill. Not even a single bill. All sorts of bad legislation have been passed, from the bankruptcy reform legislation that makes it harder for people to start again after declaring bankruptcy, to budgets…
July 18, 2006
If Your Friday Dose of Woo from me isn't enough woo for you, now Medgadget has inaugurated a new feature it calls Pseudoscience Friday (its first target: bioresonance testing). Between the two blogs, plus the Amazing Randi, that ought to be all the woo any skeptic could want to see debunked every…
July 18, 2006
This week's Grand Rounds has been posted at ChronicBabe.
July 18, 2006
Egads, I almost forgot to mention it, but the latest RINO Sightings was posted. Oh, well, better late than never.
July 18, 2006
Fellow traveler in the fight against Holocaust denial Andrew Mathis asks whether Israel has adequate justification for its recent attacks in Lebanon and Gaza based on "just war theory." Basically, he finds that Israel meets many of the criteria, but fails in proportionality of response and using…
July 18, 2006
Over the weekend, between bouts of rounding on patients and seeing consults (I was on call), I perused the Last 24 Hours channel on the ScienceBlogs homepage, when I came across a fellow SB'er discussing a recent paper in Science about evolution. It was a study of the finches of the Galapagos…
July 17, 2006
The time is rapidly approaching again. This Thursday, the latest edition of the Skeptics' Circle, the only blog carnival that I'm aware of that is dedicated to skepticism and critical thinking, is scheduled to appear at Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant, which means you have only two days to get your best…
July 17, 2006
Via Kevin, MD, here's a Washington Post article describing how the religious beliefs of health care practitioners result in the denial of care. Here are some examples: Cynthia Copeland also had a run-in with a pharmacist in 2004. He wrongly assumed she was planning an abortion because she had a…
July 17, 2006
Many of the bloggers here at ScienceBlogs lament about the woeful state of science knowledge among the U.S. public. This ignorance about the basics of science and the scientific method has been blamed on many things, whether it be the poor quality of science education in the public schools, an all-…
July 16, 2006
The 35th History Carnival has been posted at air pollution. Enjoy!
July 16, 2006
It was a sad day when of the earliest and most prolific medbloggers, Medpundit retired from blogging a couple of months ago. However, like many of us, she's found that she just can't keep out of the blogospher, and, via Kevin, M.D. and GruntDoc, I've learned that she's back: Well, it's official. I'…