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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 16, 2010
Ever since I somehow stumbled into a niche in the blogosphere where I seem to be one of a handful of go-to bloggers for issues having to do with vaccines and the anti-vaccine movement, like Spider-Man I realize that with great power comes great responsibility. Wait a minute. That beginning was…
July 15, 2010
As much fun as I had at TAM8, there is one consequence of being out of town and not paying attention to the blog or the Internet as much as I usually do. Well, actually, there are multiple consequences. One is a momentary lapse in insanity. In other words, it's good for the mental health to cut…
July 14, 2010
Orac note: Please be sure to read the addendum. Say it ain't so, Jill! Check out this e-mail notice from the latest Generation Rescue mailing list sent to me by a reader. It's apparently legitimate, because I found a copy of it on the Generation Rescue website itself. Look at who's being featured…
July 14, 2010
Wendy, I'm home. Oh, wait a minute. I'm not that crazy. Yet. Sometimes, though, it does seem as though the constant barrage of quackery, anti-vaccine pseudoscience, and pseudoscience in general might drive me to become like poor Jack Torrence of the Stephen King novel and movie The Shining.…
July 13, 2010
Finally, I'm winging my way back home after TAM8 plus a couple of days. It seems as though I've been away a long time, even though it's only been less than six days. While I'm on a travel day, check out this video that a few of you have been sending me: Not bad. Not bad at all. How'd I miss it a…
July 13, 2010
Remember Doctors Data? It's the highly dubious medical laboratory that Trine Tsouderos exposed in her series on the quackery that is the "autism biomed" movement. A couple of weeks ago, Doctors Data also decided to launch what appears to be frivolous lawsuit against the creator and maintainer of…
July 12, 2010
Although The Amazing Meeting is now over, my vacation is not, at least not yet. My wife and I decided to take an extra couple of days off before winging our way home tomorrow. Originally I had planned on posting "reruns" for a couple of days, but something popped up that I felt obligated to comment…
July 12, 2010
...then how come there are so many believers in homeopathy? Truly, a scientific mystery...
July 11, 2010
I may be in Las Vegas as The Amazing Meeting winds down today, but still I'm a bit sad. Has it really been two whole years today? Yes, we have a different dog now, but does the presence of a new friend make you forget a friend who's died?
July 10, 2010
Still away, still having too much fun to blog. So....we still need content: Fear not. The logorrheic insolence will return. Just not today. In fact, as this autoposts, I'll be heading over to the Skepchick party. I'm a little nervous. I don't think I've been to such a bash since college or medical…
July 10, 2010
My wife and I had a pleasant evening with a handful of our readers last night, but I'm aware that there are more of you here who might not have run into us at the hotel bar. What I proposed doing yesterday still stands. The panel discussion on alternative medicine "professions" in which I'm…
July 9, 2010
My wife and I are here at TAM8, and so far things have been a blast. The Science-Based Medicine Workshops yesterday went quite well, and I'm told that my talk actually wasn't half-bad. In the meantime, after the serious misstep of Pepsigeddon, which has claimed some of my fellow ScienceBloggers,…
July 8, 2010
I've been a critic of Arianna Huffington's massive group blog, The Huffington Post, since three weeks after it first blighted the blogosphere. That's when I first noticed that the "health" section (such as it is) of HuffPo had already become a wretched hive of scum and anti-vaccine quackery,…
July 8, 2010
I learned with dismay this morning that blogchild Mark Chu-Carroll has decided to leave ScienceBlogs over our management's incredibly bone-headed decision to host a blog written by PepsiCo. Given that Mark's blog was the first (and, as far as I know, only) blog directly inspired by my efforts over…
July 7, 2010
After the annoying kerfuffle that erupted last night over our Seed Overlords' most unfortunate decision to let a corporate blog breach the firewall between content and advertising, it's a good thing that I can go and hang out with fellow skeptics, chill, and think about things a few days. Yes, I'm…
July 6, 2010
There's a problem brewing and ScienceBlogs, a disturbance in the Force, if you will, and it's a doozy. It's a darkness that's distubed several of my fellow ScienceBloggers to the point where I fear that some of them may leave. Indeed, it's a spectacularly tin-eared and idiotic decision on the part…
July 6, 2010
Oh, goody. It looks as though the fall is going to be a repeat of the spring as far as anti-vaccine lunacy goes. This spring, we had the release of a book by the now disgraced granddaddy of the most recent incarnation of the anti-vaccine movement, Andrew Wakefield. The book, entitled Callous…
July 6, 2010
Remember Dr. David Katz? Fellow skeptic and supporter of science-based medicine Dr. Steve Novella is unfortunate to be saddle with Dr. Katz on the same faculty as him at Yale. He achieved some notoriety a couple of years ago when at a Yale conference on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM…
July 5, 2010
Today is the third day of the three day weekend cobbled together from happenstance that the Fourth of July fell on the weekend this year. In any case, I'm still in a bit of vacation mode; so this post won't be as voluminous as you are used to. (Some of you are probably rejoicing at the lack of…
July 4, 2010
It's nearly sundown here in the eastern time zone of the United States. That means that soon all sorts of amateur fireworks aficionados will be making a whole lot of noise and, the part that I hate, scaring the crap out of my poor dog. So, for those of you who are soon going to be reducing my poor…
July 4, 2010
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Since it is a holiday here in the States, I'm chilling out and recovering. I'll try to be back tomorrow, but, worst case scenario, I'll be back for sure on Tuesday. (Monday just so happens to be a holiday, too, this year. Gotta have those three day weekends.) In the…
July 2, 2010
Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging, preventing the creation of fresh Insolence, at least Insolence of the quality that you've come to expect. This is one of those times. So enjoy this bit of Classic Insolence from almost exactly four years ago, in July 2006. Also remember that, if you'…
July 1, 2010
Status report: I'm in the home stretch of writing my grant. It will be finished by 8 AM, when I have to be at work again, in tip top mental condition for the meetings I'll have to endure all morning. (What the heck happened to not doing anything substantive the day before a holiday weekend? At…
July 1, 2010
Regular readers may have noticed something happening around ScienceBlogs. As PZ pointed out, a little malware somehow infiltrated the ScienceBlogs collective, and many of us appear to have turned into zombies. It's a veritable Zombie Day, complete with illustrations by Joseph Hewitt, creator of…
July 1, 2010
Regular readers may have noticed something happening around ScienceBlogs. As PZ pointed out, a little malware somehow infiltrated the ScienceBlogs collective, and many of us appear to have turned into zombies. It's a veritable Zombie Day, complete with illustrations by Joseph Hewitt, creator of…
June 30, 2010
First, there was the history of Andrew Wakefield and the MMR vaccine in cartoon form. Now there's the history of homeopathy (click on the image): The cartoonist, Darryl Cunningham, says this is a first try at such a history, a beta version, if you will. It's definitely a good start, particularly…
June 30, 2010
ORAC SAYS: Please note my disclaimer. After the events of last week, I'm a bit sensitive when it comes to matters like the one I'm about to discuss. Having the anti-vaccine cranks over at the Age of Autism weblog trying to get me fired over my blogging has a tendency to do that to me. (The details…
June 29, 2010
I wish it were otherwise, but not all that many reporters "get it" when it comes to science and quackery. Fortunately, Chicago Tribune reporter Trine Tsouderos does. She's shown it multiple times over the last year with stories about the autism "biomed" movement and Boyd Haley's trying to pass off…
June 29, 2010
With the aging of the population, one of the most feared potential manners by which more and more of us will leave this earth is through Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. And it is a scary thing, too. Having valued my intelligence all my life and in particular enjoying the…
June 28, 2010
I really hate this. I really hate having to take a friend to task, but he leaves me little choice. You see, I actually like Chris Mooney. Back in the day, I even even hoisted a pint with him at the Toledo Lounge in D.C., round about the time of the commencement of the whole "framing" kerfuffle that…