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From the Archives: Caught in the Line of Fire - Animal Rights Activists Take Over Oxford

Here's another post from the old site. Since I've been writing quite a bit lately about Pro-Test and the response of Oxford scientists to animal rights extremism, it's important to understand why the current movement is significant, in light of what scientists in Oxford have been facing over the last few years. This post, which takes the reader into the heart of an animal rights protest, attempts to do just that. I think it's also interesting because it offers a unique explanation of the forces motivating the animal rights activists in Oxford. This post is the same as when it originally…

Surprise! John Oliver's vaccine segment has given antivaxers a sad.

I know that a lot of you like John Oliver and watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver , and I do too. In particular, I love how he devotes 20 minute segments of his show to intelligent long form comedy about all sorts of issues, including scientific and medical issues, including issues that I never would have thought I was interested in. Indeed, there are lots of times when he covers news stories better than the news media. So when he did a segment on vaccines last night—and a segment that was longer than his usual major segments—you know I would be incredibly interested. Here's a video of…

Another zombie antivaccine study rises from the grave

There are a thousand crappy studies out there carried out with the explicit (although often unspoken) goal of demonizing vaccines by "proving" that they cause autism. Indeed, over the last 12+ years that I've been blogging here, I've deconstructed more such studies than I can remember—or would care to remember if I could. Unfortunately, if there's one thing I've learned about some of these studies, it's that they're like the killers in 1980s slasher flicks. You remember them? Killing machines like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, who mowed through teens misbehaving (often by having sex) for…

More anti-vaccine nonsense from an old friend on (where else?) The Huffington Post

Here we go again. You may have noticed that I've been laying off that repository of quackery, autism pseudoscience, and anti-vaccine nonsense, The Huffington Post. I assure you, it's not because things have gotten much better there. Oh, sure, occasionally someone will try to post something resembling science and rationality, but it's impossible for so few to overcome so much history and so much woo. Indeed, even when someone tries, he can't help but be sucked into the morass of pseudoscience that is HuffPo. For example, Dr. Harvey Karp (the same guy who went toe-to-toe with Dr. Jay Gordon--…

How overdiagnosis produced a nonexistent "epidemic" of thyroid cancer in Fukushima

One of my favorite topics to blog about over the last six or seven years has been the topic of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. These are two interrelated phenomena that most people are blissfully unaware of. Unfortunately, I'd also say that the majority of physicians are only marginally more aware than the public about these confounders of screening programs, if even that. Overdiagnosis has long been appreciated to be a major impediment to translating programs to screen for disease into better outcomes in a number of diseases but has only recently really seeped into the public consciousness…

25 Plants You Should Consider Growing

Note: This is a rerun from ye olde blogge. As the book deadline approaches, expect to see some of my previous opi making appearances here. Since I've got more than 1000 of them, it shouldn't be too boring, I hope. I hope this one will help some of you in garden planning this year. There are a million gardening books out there to tell you how to grow perfect tomatoes and lettuces. And that's important, especially after the blight disaster last year - in my house, salsa is a food group. But the reality is that for those of us attempting to produce a large portion of our calories, tomatoes…

The Open Laboratory 2009 - the submissions so far

Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 300 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays): A Blog Around The Clock: On Being a Nurse- a guest post A Blog Around The Clock: Why social insects do not suffer from ill effects of rotating and night shift work? A Blog Around The…

The Open Laboratory 2009 - the submissions so far

An actual pro-vaccine storyline? On ABC?

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 watch. However, on Thursday night an episode aired that royally pissed off the antivaccine contingent, and that has to be a good thing. The episode, Contamination, featured a storyline in which an unvaccinated child shows up in the emergency room with the measles. The parents are antivaccine and…

In which the latest movie about Stanislaw Burzynski's "cancer cure" is reviewed...with Insolence

Well, I've finally seen it, and it was even worse than I had feared. One might even say that watching it was like repeatedly smacking my head into a brick wall. It felt so good when it finally stopped. I'm referring, of course, to Eric Merola's latest cinematic "effort. Ever since it was revealed that ric Merola's planned to make a sequel to his 2010 propaganda "documentary" about Stanislaw Burzynski, Burzynski The Movie: Cancer Is Serious Business, whose rank stupidity provided me with copious blogging material, I've finally actually seen the finished product, such as it is. Of course,…

New and Exciting in PLoS this week

Tuesday night - time for four PLoS journals to publish new articles and for me to check them out and pick a few I consider most bloggable. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: Flower Bats (Glossophaga soricina) and Fruit Bats (Carollia perspicillata) Rely on Spatial Cues over Shapes and…

Jess Ainscough finally admits her condition is deteriorating

Not being Australian and, for some reason, never having encountered her promotion of "natural health" online before, I first encountered Jessica Ainscough, also known as "The Wellness Warrior" over a year ago when I learned that her mother Sharyn Ainscough had died of breast cancer. Her mother, it turns out, had rejected conventional treatment for her breast cancer and chosen instead the quackery known as Gerson therapy. It's a treatment regimen based on long-discredited view of how cancer forms and that requires the consumption of boatloads of supplements and the administration multiple…

Hey, where is everybody? The "CDC whistleblower" manufactroversy continues apace

Here it is, Tuesday already, and the antivaccine underground is still on full mental jacket alert over the biggest story the antivaccine movement has seen in a while. Fortunately, it’s a story that’s been largely ignored by the mainstream media, which tells me that maybe, just maybe, the mainstream media has figured out that it shouldn’t give undue credence to cranks. I’m referring, of course, to the claim that the CDC has for 13 years been covering up smoking gun evidence that the MMR vaccine when administered before 36 months causes autism in African-American males. Ironically, as I…

Torah and Relativity: Attack of The Jewish Cranks

UPDATE(9/1): In a move that, frankly, astonished me, the author of the piece that I mocked in this post has withdrawn the article, because he's recognized its errors. And he didn't just withdraw it - he came back to this blog to explain the withdrawal. I've never seen a fundamentalist writer admit to errors this way. Most authors of what I consider bad religion/science/math either ignore their errors, or silently pull the erroneous articles and pretend that they never existed. The way that Mr. Bar-Cohn handled this is an excellent example of how honest people with genuine integrity behave.…

Another Week of GW News, December 4, 2011

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Sipping from the Internet Firehose...December 4, 2011 Chuckles, COP18+, Durban Reports, Durban GCF, Durban Kyoto, Durban Protests, Durban Misc Horn of Africa, Bottom Line, GFIs, Crap Detector, Ecocide, Cook, Post CRU Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Report Card, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food…

Wine Science: extreme edition

At the beginning of this past week, I did a post on some of the science behind the aroma of coffee, so I thought it would be fitting to talk a bit about wine as well. Not because I'm a wine afinionado (not even close), but mainly because I had the opportunity to write a piece for Maisonneuve which looked closely at the burgeoning use of genomic technology in this otherwise tradition steep profession. As well, the process behind this piece getting published was interesting in of itself, since this was one occasion where I really experienced how heavy handed the editing process can be. Anyway…

Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 21: The chickens come home to roost edition

The reactors at Fukushima continue to be hotter than "cold shutdown" levels, and at least one reactor (#1) is probably leaking from the core containment vessel. Fission products in high amounts, high pressure, and high temperature indicate that something close to fission is still happening although an apparent lack of large quantities of short lived isotopes may indicate that it has been a while since extensive fission has occurred in the leaking reactor. There is still concern over possible hydrogen explosions and unexplained "white smoke" continues to rise from several buildings on site…

Kevin in China #19 - The snakes are hatching, the peppers are raw, and the amphibians are too damn frustrating to identify

The adventures continue. It's like Steve Irwin, but without the cameras. Last Leg (of Shennongjia) 27 August Watched some made-for-TV movie (in English!!) with the chick from the TV series "Weird Science" and the movie "King Pin." My plan for the next few days was to go to Pinqian for 3 or 4 days, depending on luck, returning to Muyu on the 31st because the 1st was Xiaoli's birthday. Then we'd go to Caiqi (Tai chi) for a day, followed by one last visit to Dalongtan to check on the tin. For the most part, whenever I am in Shennongjia I am at the mercy of Linsen and/or Xie Dong. Linsen was…

New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

I know, I know, I've been traveling so I've been remiss at highlighting the best new articles over the past few days. In the meantime, we published 25 new articles on Friday night, 29 new articles last night, and 30 new articles tonight in PLoS ONE. So, there is a whole lot of them to check out, and as always, I will showcase below some of the stunningly good ones and some I personally am interested in. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (…

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario: Proposing a policy that legitimizes quackery?

ORAC NOTE: Work kept me out late last night going out to dinner with a visiting professor. Fortunately, it was actually pretty fun. Unfortunately, it kept me from cooking up a heapin' helpin' of the Insolence, either Respectful or not-so-Respectful, that my readers crave. So instead, here's a repost from elsewhere. I didn't think I could use it because the deadline for the survey I discuss was originally September 1. Fortunately, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) extended the deadline to September 16, making this post relevant for exactly one more week. Enjoy! And go…

Paleontological Profiles: Mike Taylor

As regular readers of this blog know, I have an extreme affinity for museums and always welcome the news of a long-lost specimen that was locked away in storage turning out to be something new and significant. In 2006 one such discovery occurred when Mike Taylor (seen left, holding the specimen) came across a sauropod vertebra named BMNH R2095, a fossil that would turn out to be something so entirely different that one year later it was assigned the name Xenoposeidon. Mike Taylor has done much more than bring Xenoposeidon to light, however, and I caught up with him to ask a few questions…

Global Warming and Extreme Weather - #climate #agw

We call it "weather whiplash." This is not just meteorologists being funny. It is a phenomenon that perhaps has always been with us to some degree, but that has recently become much more common, apparently. If you were under the impression that there is a lot of strange weather going on out there, you may be right, and weather whiplash may be the phenomenon you've noticed. Importantly, there is good reason to believe that weather whiplash is the result of anthropogenic global warming. In other words, it's your fault, so please do pay attention. Weather patterns tend to move…

Legal and scientific burdens of proof, and scientific discourse as public controversy: more thoughts on Chandok v. Klessig.

As promised, I've been thinking about the details of Chandok v. Klessig. To recap, we have a case where a postdoc (Meena Chandok) generated some exciting scientific findings. She and her supervisor (Daniel F. Klessig), along with some coworkers, published those findings. Then, in the fullness of time, after others working with Klessig tried to reproduce those findings on the way to extending the work, Klessig decided that the results were not sufficiently reproducible. At that point, Klessig decided that the published papers reported those findings needed to be retracted. Retracting a…

Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 3. Science is a Dynamic Process

In this post, I want to propose my own view, or rather the views I have come to accept, about the nature of science. [Part 1; Part 2] There are three major phases in the philosophical view of science. The first was around in the nineteenth century - science is the use of inductive logic based on data to draw conclusions about the laws of nature. Thick books described this in detail, and they are still worth reading, in particular a book by W. Stanley Jevons, The Principles of Science, published in the 1870s. But induction, as anyone who has studied Hume knows, is problematic. You simply…

America's quack counterattacks by calling his critics industry hacks

Last week, a group of ten doctors led by Dr. Henry Miller, most of whom were affiliated either with the Hoover Institution or the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)—or both—wrote a letter to Lee Goldman, MD, the Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia University complaining that Dr. Mehmet Oz shouldn't be faculty at Columbia University because of his "disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine, as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops" and "an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments…

Quackery and faith healing in Motown

I've complained quite a bit about the news media in my hometown. Indeed, about a year ago, I was stunned at how utterly credulous one TV reporter was about--of all things--orbs. I mean, orbs! Even dedicated ghosthunters don't push orbs much anymore, realizing that they are nothing more than reflections or specks of dust reflecting lights in photographs. Then there's Steve Wilson and his forays into anti-vaccine nonsense, in which he recycles some of the oldest, most tired, most highly debunked canards. Lately, it's been some additional crappy reporting about Gardasil and a recent "autism"…

And now death by Gardasil? Again, not so fast...

I guess this is in effect part two of yesterday's post. Regular daily readers (and you are a regular daily reader, aren't you?) will remember that yesterday I commented on the recent uptick in anti-Gardasil vaccine rhetoric coming from the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism and other sources, in the process deconstructing speculation masquerading as a case report allegedly indicting the quadrivalent HPV vaccine as a potential cause of premature ovarian failure in a 16 year old Australian girl. The article was so bad and so biased that I couldn't believe BMJ Case Reports published it in the…

"Vaccine exceptionalism": With friends like these, who needs enemies?

There’s an old saying that basically asks the question, “With friends like these, who needs enemies? or, as Voltaire (or Marshal Villars, depending on the account) said, “May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.” The point, of course, is that friends or allies can sometimes be as infuriating as enemies, if not more so. Such is the case with Alice Dreger, author of Galileo’s Middle Finger, a book dedicated to describing how activists can undermine science in favor of ideology. I’ve written about her twice that I can recall, although both in the context of a…

March 15th Democratic Primary Results: What does it mean?

I'm starting this post before any primary results are in, and I'll add the outcome of the primaries below, where I will also compare the results to my predictions and discuss what I think this means for the overall process of the Democratic primaries. But first, I wanted to get some thoughts down to contextualize my thinking on this. I'll publish this post now, at mid-day Tuesday, so look for an update late Tuesday night, or early Wednesday. I like Hillary Clinton, and I often think that her presidency would be better than a Sanders presidency, with an inaugural in 2017. This is based on…

When Talking About Science is Dangerous

I mean the title in a different sense than most science bloggers or SciBlog readers will likely presume. I mean it as one who studies science, not one who practices it - given the complexity, esteem, importance, and promise of the scientific enterprise, such deeper understandings of what this science thing is would seem requisite. Thus, over the past thirty or forty years, a lot of people have worked to develop the area of study known as "science and technology studies" (or, with slightly differing emphases that I don't need to get into here, "science, technology, and society" - "STS" in…

#11: When Talking About Science is Dangerous (Ten Best of the Decade from Half of the World's Fair)

I'm threading the needle between eight days of Hanukkah, twelve days of Christmas, Top Ten lists, seven deadly sins, and any other enumerations with this eleven-item top ten list. So, as promised earlier, to continue on this Marlowe-esque Long Goodbye here is a reprint of a post I enjoyed writing. It first ran here in February 2007. I mean the title in a different sense than most science bloggers or SciBlog readers will likely presume. I mean it as one who studies science, not one who practices it - given the complexity, esteem, importance, and promise of the scientific enterprise, such…

Test essay 3: Blogs, Wikis, Microblogging & benefits/threats to Science Communication

This is the third in a series of test essays I'm doing to prepare for my comprehensive exams. The questions for these essays come from 3 places: ones I've made up based on my readings, ones assigned to previous doctoral students, and ones my advisor makes up based on my readings. I'm assuming the advisor ones will be closest, but I don't want to knock them all out in a row - it almost seems like a waste when part of this is getting the timing right, practicing writing, and test-taking. Rules of the road are as follows: closed book, closed internet, all you have is the question, a…

The mercury zombie rises again...this time, in the grandchildren of Pink disease (infantile acrodynia) sufferers

Here we go again. Starting sometime in 2007, back when the idea that mercury in vaccines was the cause of the "autism epidemic" of the late 1990s and into the new century, I started referring to the "mercury/autism" hypothesis as being dead, dead, dead, as in pining for the fjords dead. Then, depending on what kind of mood I was in, I'd start liberally quoting more from Monty Python's famous Dead Parrot Sketch, including pointing out that the mercury/autism hypothesis passed on! This hypothesis is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: A homeopathic journal club

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. I happen to be sitting here in Palm Beach, Florida, but I'm not chilling at the beach or pool. Rather, I'm attending "leadership training." Yes, be very, very afraid! In any case, I never saw the point of having these sorts of training seminars at beautiful oceanfront locations if they're going to pack the entire day with, you know, actual training! Worse (for purposes of blogging), I really have to fine tune my…

How "they" view "us," Mike Adams and Kent Heckenlively edition

I came so close. Yes, when I read the latest target subject of this piece of Insolence to be bestowed upon you today, I came so close to resurrecting a certain undead Fuhrer who used to roam this blog on a regular basis chomping brains and inspiring horrible Nazi analogies. Indeed, it’s been at least four years since the Hitler Zombie made an appearance on this blog; so the temptation was there, although there was trepidation too because four years is a long time. There are, of course, hard core long time Orac readers who no doubt would have cheered the Rotting Seig Heil’s return, but I’m…

Stanislaw Burzynski and the cynical use of cancer patients as shields and weapons against the FDA, this time with rock stars

I don't know if it's a sign that I've arrived as being a bit more influential than just a blogger or just dumb luck when reporters start sending me things, but I'll take it. It's like blog fodder being served to me on the proverbial silver platter. Unfortunately, as a result of receiving a press release, FDA Denies Treatment to Two Terminally Ill Young Women, from two different sources, after yesterday's hilarious (if I do say so myself) bit of fun with a certain woman who fancies herself a "Thinker" when everything she writes shows that she is anything but, I find myself tackling a much more…

Shame! Another front in the libertarian war on the FDA: Rational Vaccines' unethical offshore herpes vaccine clinical trial

I've caught a fair amount of flak over my opposition to so-called "right-to-try" laws. Right-to-try laws have proliferated throughout the US like so much kudzu over the last three and a half years, to the point where 37 states now have some version of these profoundly anti-patient laws on the books. At the federal level, three weeks ago the Senate passed a federal version of right-to-try, with the House scheduled to take up the bill when Congress returns from recess next week. Granted, it's watered down and therefore less horrible than the original version, which Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI_…

Another Week of GW News, March 2, 2008

Sipping from the internet firehose... This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H.E.Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup (skip to bottom) Top Stories:Connaughton's Deke, Svalbard, Wheat Panik, Arctic, Antarctica, Fergus' Survey, Aerial Bacteria, La Nina Winter Hurricanes, GHGs, Glaciers, THC Impacts, US Dust, Forests, Corals, Wacky Weather Floods & Droughts, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration Journals, Misc. Science, Genetic Engineering Kyoto-2, Carbon Trade, Carbon Tax, Optimal…

Requiem for a quack

What can one say about a woman who wrote books with titles such as The Cure For All Cancers, The Cure For All Advanced Cancers, The Cure for HIV and AIDS, The Cure For All Diseases, and, most recently, The Cure and Prevention of All Cancers (with bonus DVD)? A woman who stated that a liver fluke is the cause of all cancer and that she could cure all cancer by zapping the liver fluke with a device that looks as though it's constructed from spare parts purchased at Radio Shack? What can one say about a woman who can make a video like the one below? In brief, what can one say about "Dr." Hulda…

Inconceivable: Why Failure Should Be Part of the Plan...But Isn't

"He'll never catch up!" the Sicilian cried. "Inconceivable!" "You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped. "I don't think it means what you think it does." ..."Inconceivable!" the Sicilian cried. The Spaniard whirled on him. "Stop saying that word!" It was inconceivable that anyone could follow us, but when we looked behind, there was the man in black. It was inconceivable that anyone could sail as fast as we could sail, and yet he gained on us. Now this too is inconceivable, but look - look" and the Spaniard pointed down through the night. "See how he rises." The man in black was,…

Epigenetics. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Epigenetics. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. I realize I overuse that little joke, but I can't help but think that virtually every time I see advocates of so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or, as it's known more commonly now, "integrative medicine" discussing epigenetics. All you have to do to view mass quantities of misinterpretation of the science of epigenetics is to type the word into the "search" box of a website like Mercola.com or NaturalNews.com, and you'll be treated to large numbers of articles touting the latest…

Another Week of GW News, October 9, 2011

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another week in the Ecological Crisis Sipping from the Internet Firehose...October 9, 2011 Chuckles, COP17+, Horn of Africa, Pakistan, EU & Tar Sands, Planet 3.0 Grumbine, Drought, Maathai, Subsidies, Ecocide, BS Detector, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics Food: Crisis, Prices, Riots, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, IP Issues…

The resident anti-vaccine reporter at CBS News strikes again

I'm not infrequently asked why the myth that vaccines cause autism and other anti-vaccine myths are so stubbornly resistant to the science that time and time again fails to support them. Certainly useful celebrity idiots like Jenny McCarthy are one reason. So, too, are anti-vaccine propaganda websites and blogs such as Age of Autism and anti-vaccine organizations like Generation Rescue, the National Vaccine Information Center, and SafeMinds and the organizations that publish them. However, these are clearly not the only reason. Alone, these people and organizations are in general quite…

Another Week of GW News, June 3, 2012

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another Week in the Planetary Crisis Information Overloadis Pattern RecognitionJune 3, 2012 Chuckles, Rio+20, COP18+, Kahan, Leakey 400 ppm, Corps, 11F, Tuna, Bottom Line, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures…

Confusion due to cancer care choices

Saturday, I thought that I knew what I'd be writing about for Monday, which, I've learned from my two and a half years of blogging, is a great thing when it happens. A certain Libertarian comic had decided that he wanted to argue some more about secondhand smoke and indoor smoking bans, starting a few days earlier with a rather specious analogy (which was handily shredded by you, my readers) and then finishing by annoying me with a comment and a post that implied that I didn't "care about the little guy." It looked like great fodder for a post to start out the week and a chance to apply a…

OMG! MSDSs N.G. Rx?

By Myra L. Karstadt, Ph.D Whether you Twitter, IM, text or use plain old-fashioned English, hereâs an important message for occupational health professionals: material safety data sheets (MSDSs) are deeply flawed, and something has to be done to change that situation. Steps are needed to improve the sheets and to ensure that the major OSHA toxic chemicals hazard communication program, the HazCom (hazard communication) standard (OSHA 1983 and amendments), which is based on those flawed sheets, is altered to provide workers with useful information that they control concerning the toxic…

Dr. Oz's journey to the Dark Side is now complete: Faith healing quackery glorified

Yesterday, I concluded that Dr. Mehmet Oz's journey to the Dark Side was continuing apace. After all, he had pulled the classic "bait and switch" of "alternative" medicine by allowing a man who calls himself Yogi Cameron to use his television show to co-opt the perfectly science-based modalities of diet and exercise as being somehow "alternative." Like all good promoters of woo, whether you call it "alternative" medicine, "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), or "integrative medicine" (IM), Yogi Cameron used diet and exercise as the thin edge of the wedge, behind which followed…

Environmentalism and anti-science, how GMOs prove any ideological extremity leads to anti-science

Today I read about two individuals who decided on political defections over perceived anti-science amongst their former political allies- one due to climate change, the other for anti-GMO. From the right, we have Michael Fumento, who in Salon describes his break with the right, spurred by Heartland's campaign comparing those who believe in climate change with the Unabomber, as well as a general atmosphere of conspiratorial crankery and incivility. And from the left, we have Stephen Sumpter of Latent Existence leaving the Greens over their support for the misguided anti-scientific campaign of…

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