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

January 29, 2010
I've sort of alluded to it, but grant fever took over the last couple of days as the deadline approaches. Unfortunately, it happened right around the time when the GMC ruling on Andrew Wakefield came down and came down hard on him and his unethical behavior. Oh, well, as they say, it looks like I…
January 28, 2010
...is, sadly, this: Boomtown Rats - Up All Nightby epb21 It's times like these that my surgical residency training comes in handy. Yep. As I've alluded to, it's been grant time, and this was my night. But the R01 is finished. I'll have my lab people go over it one last time for errors and typos…
January 28, 2010
You knew it was coming. You knew from many previous incidents that it was inevitable: Who knew Hitler was such a Mac geek? Personally, although I think the iPad looks like a really cool device, I'm really not sure where it would fit into my life. I already have an iPhone, which I love, and I…
January 28, 2010
Faster than a blink of an eye (well, not really, but it sure seems that way sometimes) another fortnight has flown by, meaning that it's time yet again for another meeting of that venerable blog carnival of critical thinking, the Skeptics' Circle. This time around, we have our first ever…
January 27, 2010
And now for something completely different. I've been on a bit of a tear the last few days beating on Mike Adams, someone who arguably deserves the title of Woo--meister Supreme, but it's important to remember that defending science-based medicine is more than just having a little fun every now and…
January 26, 2010
Dammit. I realize that this has been floating around the blogosphere for a couple of days, but when I first saw it at PZ's place, I thought that Chis Clarke had stolen someone's blogging strategy notebook, except that I thought he had stolen mine, so spot-on is his channeling of just the right…
January 26, 2010
Almost two years ago, I discovered something that disturbed me greatly. Basically, I learned the story of an Air Force officer named Col. Richard Niemtzow, MD, PhD. Col. Niemtzow is a radiation oncologist who has over the last decade fallen deeply into woo. Specifically, he has become known for a…
January 25, 2010
It's amazing how fast two weeks can slide by, but the 129th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is fast approaching and will be landing Thursday, January 28 at The SkeptVet Blog. Blog-specific instructions for submitting your best skeptical blogging can be found here, while general guidelines can be…
January 25, 2010
It's amazing how these "natural" medicine mavens reveal their true nature when faced with a little adversity. As you may recall, Mike Adams was eliminated from the running for a Shorty Award in Health, thanks to the cluelessness of his fans and followers. He immediately erupted into tirades full…
January 24, 2010
Mike Adams is confused. I know, I know. Such a statement is akin to saying that water is wet (and that it doesn't have memory, at least not the mystical magical memories ascribed to it by homeopaths), that the sun rises in the East, or that writing an NIH R01 grant is hard, but there you go.…
January 23, 2010
Oh, yes, my brothers and sisters, we have done it! My pharma paymasters are very, very pleased indeed with me and all of their other blogging and Twittering minions. Very, very pleased indeed. In fact, they are cackling with glee over the discomfiture of one of their greatest enemies, Mike Adams, a…
January 22, 2010
One week ago, The Chicago Tribune added yet another excellent addition to its recent series of articles exposing the dark underbelly of the anti-vaccine movement and, more importantly, the quackery that permeates the "autism biomedical" movement promoted by anti-vaccine groups such as Age of Autism…
January 21, 2010
Last night was grant crunch time to get a truly serviceable draft to my collaborators today as promised, leaving enough time to revise it by the February 5 deadline. That means the blog has to take a hit today, which is a shame, because Joe Mercola and Age of Autism have laid down some idiocy this…
January 20, 2010
Last night was grant crunch time to get a truly serviceable draft to my collaborators today as promised, leaving enough time to revise it by the February 5 deadline. That means the blog has to take a hit today, which is a shame, because Joe Mercola and Age of Autism have laid down some idiocy this…
January 20, 2010
If you ever want to get a sense of the scale of the universe and how insignificant our little planet is compared to the scope of it all, here's something really cool to put things in perspective, courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History's Astronomy Picture of the Day: It'd be really…
January 20, 2010
Although I have a Twitter account, I really don't use it all that often, other than having set up an automatic feed to Tweet all my new posts for the blog. True, I do from time to time have flurries of activity (usually when I'm trapped in a particularly boring conference) or am inspired to tweak J…
January 19, 2010
I'd like to start this post by thanking a commenter named Paul Grenville. He provided me with this blogging material and, indeed, may have supplied me with material for two blog posts. He did it by showing up in an old post about a homoepath named Jeremy Sherr, who has been bringing woo to the…
January 18, 2010
The double standard of the anti-vaccine "autism biomed" movement never ceases to amaze me. Imagine if you will, that a pharmaceutical company examined a chemical used for industrial purposes. Imagine further that the chemical this pharmaceutical company decided to look at originated as an…
January 17, 2010
While I'm working today, enjoy some bizarre cartoon awesomeness from Max Fleischer, courtesy of Boing-Boing: Truly amazing. And 80 years old, too, with a wicked jazz soundtrack. The Fleischer brothers rule.
January 16, 2010
...for the 128th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, being held over at Ionian Enchantment. It's another great one! And, as usual, it's never too early to think about submitting your work to the next edition of the Skeptics' Circle, to be held on January 28 at SkeptVet. Hmmm. I wonder if he'll take on…
January 15, 2010
Although there's been plenty of woo this week (Harriet Denz-Penhey, anyone?), it hasn't been the truly entertaining woo that I so love, you know, the kind of woo of Your Friday Dose of Woo, my long-standing (albeit now intermittent) excursion into the depths of alt-med silliness so over-the-top…
January 14, 2010
You don't tug on Superman's cape You don't spit into the wind You don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger And you don't mess around with Jim - Jim Croce I love it when a commenter gives me blogging material. Let's face it. Blogging is a tough hobby. As much as I do love it so, sometimes I'm…
January 13, 2010
People fear chemotherapy. Some of this fear is not unreasonable, but a lot of it is a vestige of older days, when chemotherapy was much more unpleasant and even at times horrific. However, contrary to the old alt-med trope of chemotherapy as "pure poison" that makes you sicker than cancer, advances…
January 13, 2010
The Onion or real life recommendations by cancer quacks? You be the judge. Courageous Man Refuses To Believe He Has Cancer Sometimes The Onion cuts a little too deeply, but this is not too far from "Secret" territory. Unfortunately for wishful thinking, reality doesn't care what you believe and…
January 13, 2010
Yesterday, I expressed dismay at how Dr. Mehmet Oz, the protege of Oprah Winfrey who now has his own popular syndicated daily show, recently named the quackery known as reiki as number one in his list of "Dr. Oz's ulimate alternatie medicine secrets," leading me to characterize him as having "gone…
January 12, 2010
For some reason, I've tended to give Dr. Mehmet Oz a bit of a free pass when it comes to promoting woo. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I just haven't paid that much attention to him. Perhaps it's because, even when he was on Oprah's show, he didn't delve as deeply into the woo as her other…
January 11, 2010
I've discussed why Barbara Loe Fisher is a hypocritical coward for trying to silence her opponents using the courts. Now Rebecca Watson, a.k.a., The Skepchick, schools Barbara Loe Fisher for in essence pissing on the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: For some reason, my irony meter didn't…
January 11, 2010
Being a Doctor Who fan and all, I've often wondered what it would be like to be able to travel through time and visit times and places in history that I'm most interested in. For instance, being a World War II buff, I'd certainly want to be able to check out what every day life was like here in the…
January 9, 2010
As regular readers know, I really like Tim Minchin's take on skepticism in general and on alternative medicine in particular. His piece de resistance thus far in his career is a "nine minute beat poem" entitled Storm, in which at a dinner party our performer is forced to deal with a female version…
January 9, 2010
I've said it before, and I've said it more times than I can remember. Purveyors of unscientific medicine don't have the goods. If they had the goods, then their nostrums wouldn't be called "alternative" medicine anymore; they'd just be medicine. Because they don't have the goods in the form of…