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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 22, 2009
Being involved in clinical research makes me aware of the ethical quandaries that can arise. Fortunately for me, for the most part my studies are straightforward and don't provoke much in the way of angst over whether what I am doing is ethical or whether I'm approaching a line I shouldn't approach…
January 21, 2009
Regular readers here know that one of the themes of this blog is both a lament over the infiltration of quackademic medicine and a call to arms to fight it with science- and evidence-based medicine. However, to achieve this end, it won't be enough for middle-aged farts like myself to take up the…
January 21, 2009
I got home from work rather late last night; so for once I'll spare you my typical Orac-ian level of logorrhea today. Yes, I know how much the ravening hordes of my fans thirst for every bit of wisdom that flows from my keyboard to Seed Magazine's servers and from there to the world, but fear not.…
January 20, 2009
I never thought I'd finally see the day, but George W. Bush is no longer President of the United States, and Barack Obama is. I have to say, I've paid attention to Presidential Inaugurations since 1981, and I can't recall one greeted with as much excitement, hope, and expectation. All around my…
January 20, 2009
About a year ago, I discussed an article by Dr. Atul Gawande describing a quality improvement initiative that appeared to have been stalled by the Office for Human Research Protections and its apparent tendency to apply human subjects research protection rules to initiatives that are not exactly…
January 19, 2009
This was so good that I just couldn't resist. Yesterday, I did a quick post about an amusing bit of pareidolia, in which the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus were seen in a Lava Lamp. Apparently, an Australian man going by the pseudonym of John Smith noticed the shape in the wax as he fired up a brand…
January 19, 2009
I almost feel sorry for homeopathy Jeremy Sherr. Almost. You see, he is busily learning a lesson that HIV/AIDS denialist Celia Farber learned a couple of weeks ago, namely that, unlike the fictional nation of Oceania in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, memory holes do not work very well in the…
January 18, 2009
Let's see. We've seen the Virgin Mary on trees, under a freeway overpass in Chicago, a window in Perth Amboy, NJ, and even in the brain. We've seen Jesus himself show up on toast, on a piece of sheet metal, on a potato chip, on a pierogi, on a ceiling tile, and even on a cat. Heck, we've even seen…
January 17, 2009
Everyone agrees that it was an amazing demonstration of pilot skill, combined with the rapid response of a large number of people, that allowed all 155 passengers and crew members of a U. S. Airways flight that hit a flock of birds to do a controlled crash into the Hudson River to survive and be…
January 16, 2009
I hate to see this. I really do. I really hate it to see people who think they're doing a good thing, who think they're raising money for a worthy charity, totally clueless that what they are doing is supporting the rankest pseudoscience and quackery. Here's an example from my hometown of Detroit.…
January 16, 2009
I hate to finish up the week on a bit of a downer, but unfortunately this week I really wasn't in the mood to do justice to Your Friday Dose of Woo, even though I have at least a couple of potential targets--I mean subjects--to cover for my (hopefully) fun little Friday exercise. I was gearing up…
January 15, 2009
Here we go. It's a new year, and, now that the festivities of the holiday season are now clearly a couple of weeks in the past and the deepest darkest depths of winter have descended upon huge swaths of the U.S., what can warm the cockles of a skeptical heart better than a fresh hot blast of great…
January 15, 2009
P.Z. Myers turned me on to a phenomenal proposal at Change.gov, the website of President-Elect Barack Obama's transition team: Defund the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Here's a way to increase the available funding to NIH without increasing the NIH budget: halt funding…
January 15, 2009
My dear readers, I beg your indulgence for the moment. I had been planning on doing something a bit more serious than what I've been up to lately. Believe it or not, NaturalNews.com pointed me to a study that's actually pretty interesting. It even challenges to some extend existing results. Of…
January 14, 2009
Good news! After an extended and distinguished stint as a coblogger on Denialism.com, blog bud PalMD has decided to resurrect his own blog, the place where he got started, White Coat Underground. The only difference is that this time he's doing it as a member of the ScienceBlogs collective. Head on…
January 14, 2009
Too bad the holidays are over. I've found something that would make a perfect gift for J. B. Handley, Jenny McCarthy, Mike Adams, and other "friends" of the blog. After all, clearly scientific arguments aren't working. Hmmm. Perhaps a certain physiologist-blogger would be interested in purchasing…
January 14, 2009
I find it hard to believe that we're already two weeks into 2009. The older I get and the longer I've been blogging, it seems, the faster time files. It's gotten so bad that it's not at all infrequent that I remember a post that I've written, go searching for it, and end up amazed that it's several…
January 13, 2009
Last week, I did multiple posts about the death of HIV/AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore of what for all the world looked like an HIV-related pneumonia, the excuses HIV/AIDS denialists made to try to persuade people that it wasn't AIDS, and the attempted coverup of damning posts. In the past, I've…
January 13, 2009
About four weeks ago, I wrote what I thought to be an amusing piece about how our blog "buddy" J. B. Handley, antivaccine advocate extraordinaire and now second fiddle in the organization he founded (Generation Rescue) to a Jenny-come-lately former purveyor of Indigo Child woo previously best known…
January 12, 2009
In responding to Deepak Chopra's "integrative medicine" nonsense from last week that I "http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/01/the_three_musketeers_of_woo_m…," Derek Lowe proposes the best trial of Qi Gong ever: "Chronic pain is one of the major sources of worker's compensation claims costs, yet…
January 12, 2009
Here's a cool idea. Take a newbie, who has never read Charles Darwins' On the Origin of Species, and have the newbie actually read the book. Then have him blog each chapter. That's exactly what John Whitfield, London-based freelance science writer, is doing, and ScienceBlogs has him over at…
January 12, 2009
The seemingly never-ending quest of advocates of unscientific medicine, the so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) movement is to convince policy makers, patients, and physicians that, really and truly, it no longer deserves the qualifier of "alternative," that it is in fact…
January 11, 2009
It's amazing how fast the time passes. The year 2008 is now history. 2009 is nearly two weeks old. But, for purposes of this blog, most important of all is that the very first Skeptics' Circle of 2009 is fast approaching. It will be held at Bug Girl's Blog on Thursday, January 15, a mere three days…
January 10, 2009
I don't watch Private Practice. I didn't like Grey's Anatomy, which, every time I caught part of it, struck me as the cheesiest sort of medical soap opera, a General Hospital transplanted to prime time. Given that Private Practice is a spinoff of Grey's Anatomy, I never saw any reason whatsoever to…
January 9, 2009
...but only temporarily! As you may have heard, our benevolent leaders at ScienceBlogs are finally doing a major upgrade of our blog publishing software. That's the good news. I'm hoping the back end is much easier to use and more responsive. The bad news is that the whole ScienceBlogs site is…
January 9, 2009
Three weeks ago, I reintroduced my readers to one of the most amazingly skilled weaver of woo tales who has ever lived. I'm referring, of course, to Lionel Milgrom, the man who can pepper his homeopathic woo with quantum nonsense the way Bobby Flay seasons his latest creation with various spices.…
January 9, 2009
During the confirmation hearings yesterday for Tom Daschle, who is to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services, there was this exchange: J. REED: As you grapple with health care reform, you're also grappling with the budget, so good luck on both matters. But if you could pay particular…
January 8, 2009
As much of a completely disgusting sleazebag as I think he is, at some level I grudgingly have to admire Larry Flynt. He never misses an opportunity for self-promotion and annoying the hell out of politicians, and he's back now, promoting himself and annoying the hell out of politicians. This time…
January 8, 2009
First fellow ScienceBlogger Abel Pharmboy live-blogged (sort of) his vasectomy. That record could not stand, however. You just knew it wouldn't be long before someone tried to outdo him. Now Kev is live-Tweeting (live-Twittering?) his own vasectomy. He's at the surgeon's office right now, but tells…
January 8, 2009
This blog is primarily about medicine, the scientific basis of medicine, and general skepticism and critical thinking. As part of my interest in skepticism, a particular form of pseudoscience and pseudohistory that I first took an interest in about a decade ago, namely Holocaust "revisionism,"…