July 12, 2012
I was thinking of doing a quickie post about the silliness that's erupted in the antivaccine cranksophere over the IACC hearing that I mentioned yesterday. (Of course, a "quickie" post for me is usually only 1,000 words long, as opposed to the usual 2,000.)
Then disaster struck!
My hardy, reliable…
July 11, 2012
Here we go again...
Yes, I'm off to The Amazing Meeting, a.k.a. TAM, where I'll commune with a bunch of fellow skeptics, help do a workshop on science-based medicine, and participate in a panel discussion of so-called "complementary and alternative medicine." Things have been so crazy the last…
July 10, 2012
About a week and a half ago, I took note of a rather unhinged rant by comedian Rob Schneider about vaccines in which he trotted out an antivaccine movement's greatest hits compendium of pseudoscience, misinformation, and logical fallacies, all in the service of opposing California Bill AB 2109.…
July 9, 2012
Something came up that made me think it would be a good idea to mention a couple of features of the new WordPress template, just in case anyone missed them when I mentioned them before. I apologize to any who might find this repetitive, but there do appear to be some newbies here; so I think it's…
July 8, 2012
One major point I've tried to make over the last few years is that the so-called "individualization" or "personalization" of treatments claimed by practitioners of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) is not "individualization" at all, but rather a sham that appears superficially like…
July 6, 2012
What would we do without the Internet?
It's become so necessary, so pervasive, so utterly all-enveloping that it's hard to imagine a world without it. Given how much it pervades everything these days, it's easy to forget that it wasn't that long ago that the Internet was primarily the domain of…
July 5, 2012
A couple of years ago, I gave a talk to a bunch of Chicago skeptics that was co-sponsored by the Chicago Skeptics and the Women Thinking Free Foundation. At the time, I had no idea that the organization was that new, but I did know that I was very impressed by the turnout to my talk and the…
July 4, 2012
It's rather odd that I'll be writing two posts in a row having to do with a chiropractor, given that chiropractic is at best an occasional topic on this blog. Certainly, I don't hesitate to take on chiropractic when the mood strikes me or, more importantly, when I come across some seriously burning…
July 2, 2012
Every so often I come across a post by quacks or supporters of quackery that make me wish that we as skeptics and supporters of science-based medicine actually had the abilities and powers attributed to us. I mean, what's the good of being accused of running a conspiracy to crush any sort of "…
July 1, 2012
If there's a law that I view as a horrible, horrible, law, it's the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA of 1994). It is a law that blog bud and former ScienceBlogs blogger Dr. Peter Lipson has rightly called a travesty of a mockery of a sham, and, quite frankly, I think he has…
June 29, 2012
Remember California Bill AB 2109? I've written about it at least a couple of times before. In fact, for some reason, the comment section of this post on AB 2109 suddenly come alive again a couple of days ago, with antivaccinationists infiltrating it, much to the annoyance of my regular commenters.…
June 27, 2012
And now for something completely different.
Except that it isn't really. I say that it isn't really different because, although this post will seem to be about politics, in reality it will be about a common topic on this blog: Anti-science. And where is this anti-science? Sadly, it's in the…
June 26, 2012
Remember Luc Montagnier? Sure, you do. He's the Nobel Laureate whose identification of the virus that causes AIDS garnered him plaudits, laurels, and, of course, the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Unfortunately, since winning the Nobel Prize, from a scientific standpoint, Montagnier's been on a downward…
June 26, 2012
No matter how you slice it, I've been at this blogging thing a long time. it's been over seven years now. It's been even longer than that, though, because before that cold gray Saturday afternoon in September when I started farting around with Blogger and ended giving birth to the first iteration…
June 24, 2012
I wondered how long it would take for someone critical of current cancer care to capitalize on the recently reported health misfortune of a celebrity. The answer, unfortunately, is "not long at all." I will admit, however, that the source of that use and abuse of the misfortune of a celebrity was…
June 22, 2012
I just thought I'd give a brief update on the transition to the new blog platform. After nearly a month, things have finally settled down, although I'm still bugging the powers that be about some of the problems that still exist. One thing I have noticed over the last day is that one of our "…
June 21, 2012
The clip above says it all with respect to "miracle mineral solution" (a.k.a. MMS). Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in. And, as Yoda would probably put it, back in I am one more time. (How's that for mixing movie allusions?)
Let's recap. MMS is bleach. Specifically, it is a 28%…
June 20, 2012
I realize that this has been posted by a lot of people on Facebook and around the blogosphere, but I can't resist. Given my history of making fun of Deepak Chopra's inimitable type of woo and even coining the term "Choprawoo" for that combination of the pretentious and stupid that Deepak Chopra…
June 20, 2012
Oh, goody.
I don't know how I've missed this, given that it's been in existence now for over a month now, but I have. Regular readers (and even fairly recent readers, given that I write about this topic relatively frequently) know that I'm not a big fan of the National Center for Complementary and…
June 19, 2012
A couple of months ago, a reader sent me an article that really disturbed me. In fact, I had originally been planning to write about it not long after I received it. However, as I've mentioned before, when it comes to blogging, I'm a bit like Dug the Talking Dog from the movie Up in that I'm easily…
June 17, 2012
Here we go again.
Remember how last week I said I wouldn't write about the Miracle Mineral Solution (abbreviated MMS) again for a while? I lied.
Well, actually, I didn't. At the time I wrote that, I really did mean to give it a rest for a while, and for a while at least I was a good boy. I even…
June 15, 2012
Naturopathy is at least 99% woo. That has to be said at the outset. Naturopaths might brag about all the science they take in naturopathy school, claiming that it's as much as MDs take. Even if that were true, the question is not how many hours of basic science naturopaths take, but rather what's…
June 14, 2012
One of my favorite YouTube channels is Epic Rap Battes of History. Some of my favorite battles include Darth Vader vs. Adolf Hitler (and, of course, the rematch), Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers (hilarious!), Napoleon vs. Napoleon, Gandalf vs. Dumbledore, and, of course, my favorite of all time, Albert…
June 13, 2012
Although I'm interested in skepticism in general, I have a tendency to gravitate towards one particular form of pseudoscience (alternative medicine) and, in particular, a certain kind of that particular form of pseudoscience, namely antivaccine quackery. However, as much as I keep returning to the…
June 12, 2012
I know, I know, I've been writing about MMS a lot. Don't worry. Barring some unforeseen development, this will probably be the last one for a while. However, I just had to comment again because this is just too funny (not to mention that I didn't have a lot of time last night because, yes, I had to…
June 12, 2012
I have to hand it to Autismum. Remember the Open Letter to Kerri Rivera she wrote, the one criticizing her for using bleach (Miracle Mineral Solution, often referred to as MMS) to try to "cure" autism? I referred to it yesterday when I pointed out how the pro-MMS apologists were striking back at…
June 12, 2012
If there's one thing shared in common among nearly all advocates of pseudoscience, it is the belief that they know The Truth. More importantly, they know The Truth, and The Powers That Be don't want you to know The Truth and will do almost anything to makes sure that The Truth stays secret. Think…
June 10, 2012
A couple of weeks ago, I was horrified to learn of a new "biomed" treatment that has been apparently gaining popularity in autism circles. Actually, it's not just autism circles in which this treatment is being promoted. Before the "autism biomed" movement discovered it, this particular variety of…
June 10, 2012
I felt a brief update on the blog status is in order because the National Geographic overlords have actually rolled out some improvements on Friday.
First, the Last 24 Hours feed is reportedly working again, although, quite honestly, when I just checked it it appeared not to be working. The funny…
June 8, 2012
Sometimes I feel like Dug, the talking dog in the movie Up, in that when it comes to blogging I'm often easily distracted. The reason I say this is because there's been a "viral" (if you can call it that) video floating around the antivaccine quackery blogosphere that antivaccinationists are…
