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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

October 19, 2009
Every so often, as the health care reform initiative spearheaded by the Obama Administration wends its way through Congress (or, more precisely, wend their ways through Congress, given that there are multiple bills coming from multiple committees in both Houses), I've warned about various chicanery…
October 17, 2009
Here we go again. The 2009 recipient of the Richard Dawkins Award, anti-vaccine wingnut and lover of cancer quackery Bill Maher, decided to use the occasion of the season finale of Real Time with Bill Maher to answer some of the criticisms that have been leveled against him. All I can say is this:…
October 17, 2009
I knew it! I knew there had to be an explanation that young earth creationists could come up with for all that evidence in support of evolution: (WARNING: Borderline NSFW, depending on your job. Definitely offensive to fundamentalists.) It's so obvious. Why didn't I think of it before?
October 16, 2009
Well, here's something refreshing. In fact, it's so refreshing that I just had to link to it. Michael Shermer, renowned skeptic and the publisher of Skeptic, has decided to school the Atheist Alliance International 2009 recipient of the Richard Dawkins Award, anti-vaccine kook Bill Maher, over the…
October 16, 2009
I'm back. If there's one thing I've noticed in the nearly five years that I've been doing this blog thing, it's that getting started again after taking even a few days off is hard. There's a bit of paralysis that sets in. I get used to not having to think about what I want to write, and often there…
October 15, 2009
As I mentioned on Friday, I'm in Chicago right now attending the American College of Surgeons annual meeting, where I was until last evening. Unfortunately, I got back too late and was too tired to lay down some fresh Insolence, Respectful or otherwise. Fear not, though. I'll get to it. In the…
October 14, 2009
As I mentioned on Friday, over the last few days I was in Chicago attending the American College of Surgeons annual meeting. At least, that's where I was until last evening. Unfortunately, I got back home too late and was thus too tired to lay down some fresh Insolence, Respectful or otherwise, for…
October 14, 2009
As I mentioned on Friday, I'm in Chicago right now attending the American College of Surgeons annual meeting, where I'll be until Wednesday afternoon, and may not be able to post anything new before Thursday afternoon or Friday. If there are any of my readers who happen to be surgeons attending the…
October 13, 2009
As I mentioned on Friday, I'm in Chicago right now attending the American College of Surgeons annual meeting, where I'll be until Wednesday afternoon. If there are any of my readers who happen to be surgeons attending the meeting, drop me a line and maybe we can get together. In the meantime, here'…
October 13, 2009
As I mentioned on Friday, I'm in Chicago right now attending the American College of Surgeons annual meeting, where I'll be until Wednesday afternoon. If there are any of my readers who happen to be surgeons attending the meeting, drop me a line and maybe we can get together. In the meantime, here'…
October 12, 2009
As I mentioned on Friday, I'm in Chicago right now attending the American College of Surgeons annual meeting, where I'll be until Wednesday afternoon. If there are any of my readers who happen to be surgeons attending the meeting, drop me a line and maybe we can get together. In the meantime, here'…
October 12, 2009
No màs! No màs! I surrender! I give up! I tried. I really, really did try. I tried really, really hard not to look at the flaming idiocy of Bill Maher again, much less comment on it again. Here I am, in Chicago at the American College of Surgeons annual meeting, taking in all sorts of surgical…
October 11, 2009
I may have been a bit hard on Richard Dawkins lately, but, if he believed in saints, Dawkins would deserve sainthood for keeping his cool in the face of so much concentrated idiocy coming from Bill O'Reilly: A couple of lovely O'Reilly quotes: "I'm throwing in with Jesus because you guys can't…
October 11, 2009
You know, whenever I'm at a meeting or on vacation, I still sometimes feel the tug of the blog. Yet, I tell myself, I need a break. Usually, I handle the problem by setting up several old posts from at least a couple of years a go to repeat, you know, to see how well or badly they've aged.…
October 10, 2009
...Mark Crislip versus Doug Bremner. Dr. Crislip calmly explains the evidence regarding flu vaccination and why it's safe and effective. Perhaps the most important point there is this: So it's a suboptimal vaccine. And that's a problem. One, because it will make it more difficult to prove efficacy…
October 9, 2009
Now here's some tasty blogging for you to peruse and read while I'm on my way to Chicago. Hot off the presses, it's the 121st Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle over at The Mad Skeptic. Go. Read. Learn. Enjoy. Orac will be back soon enough to annoy woo-meisters everywhere, and the occasional skeptic…
October 9, 2009
Surgeons, especially general surgeons, know that the middle of October is an important time of year. One thing that hospitals notice is that the surgery schedule in the O.R. often slows down considerably for several days. If you're the junior surgeon or otherwise the low man on the totem pole, you…
October 8, 2009
Orac's anti-stupidity circuits just took a serious beating. It's kind of like Star Trek, when the Enterprise is being battered by multiple Klingon warships. After multiple phaser and photon torpedo hits, its shields are down to 10% and in danger of failing. Orac is feeling sort of like that right…
October 8, 2009
Quackademic medicine has struck again. Worse, it's struck at one of my old stomping grounds. OK, not exactly, but rather close to a past home. Let me back up a minute. I know someone who attended nursing school at UMDNJ. It's actually a very good nursing school, but, alas, it has a serious woo…
October 7, 2009
Watch CBS News Videos Online A number of you sent me this link. It's to a video (above) of Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News' resident anti-vaccine propagandist, putting on a nauseating display of sucking up to Andrew Wakefield over his recent monkey study, the one that I deconstructed yesterday to show…
October 7, 2009
As you may have noticed, I've fallen into a groove (or, depending on your point of view, a rut) writing about anti-vaccine lunacy. The reason is simple. While I was busy going nuts over Bill Maher's receiving the Richard Dawkins Award, the anti-vaccine movement has been busy, and there are some…
October 6, 2009
Alright, I think I got the whole Maher/Dawkins thing out of my system for now. True, given the highly annoying reaction of one reader, I was half-tempted to write yet another post on the whole fiasco just out of spite, but I decided that spite in and of itself was not a good reason to write a blog…
October 5, 2009
...and, no, I don't mean Orac, his last few posts notwithstanding. No, don't worry, this post is most definitely not about Bill Maher. Rather, it's how, while doing searches for that craziness, I found even more disturbing craziness. Even though I was disappointed in him on this one issue and even…
October 4, 2009
My first hometown, as many readers of this blog know, is Detroit, where I spent the first ten years or so of my life. My second hometown, as I pointed out a while back when a particularly loony city council candidate caught the eye of the skeptical blogosphere. Unfortunately, I just found out that…
October 4, 2009
I hadn't planned on writing much, if anything more, about the whole Bill Maher debacle, but PZ has shown up in my comments and graciously tried to explain what's going on at the AAI convention regarding the truly awful choice of Bill Maher for the Richard Dawkins Award: Look, I don't know what else…
October 3, 2009
...from PZ Myers at the AAI Convention: The good news for all the critics of this choice is that Dawkins pulled no punches. In his introduction, he praised Religulous and thanked Maher for his contributions to freethought, but he also very clearly and unambiguously stated that some of his beliefs…
October 2, 2009
...for Bill Maher to receive the Richard Dawkins Award. It was a huge mistake on the part of the Atheist Alliance International to award it, for the reasons I've repeated ad nauseam over the last couple of weeks; so I won't go there again. What I really want to know is what happened. I can't be in…
October 2, 2009
And so it begins. Well, it hasn't really just begun. In fact, it's been going on a long time. I'm talking about confusing correlation with causation when it comes to vaccines. For example, the "vaccines cause autism" variety of the anti-vaccine movement blatantly confuses the correlation with the…
October 1, 2009
This two-part video trashes common antivaccine arguments better than any video I've seen in a long time: That's right. Vaccines educate the immune system, and Generation Rescue is full of...well, you know what it's full of. Now if only Bill Maher would watch these videos. Let's make 'em go…
October 1, 2009
...you'll know why. I got my flu shot today! Yes, it had thimerosal and everything. Give me mercury, baby! And, guess what? When our hospital gets its supply of H1N1 vaccine later this month, I'll be getting that one, too. Take that, Doug Bremner! Oh, and you too, Bill Maher!