Pseudoscience
oracknows | September 24, 2015Early in the history of this blog, I had a running gag that I'd use every now and then. Basically, it involved humorously extravagant descriptions of how I wanted to hide my face behind a paper bag in sheer embarrassment at the antics of fellow physicians, particularly fellow surgeons. Over time, the gag evolved to my expressing a mock desire to hide my visage behind a metal Doctor Doom-style mask, again, over sheer embarrassment over the idiocy of my colleagues about a scientific issue, again, usually evolution. Sadly, creationist physicians are a very common source of such embarrassment,…
oracknows | September 22, 2015Antivaccine quackery is arguably one of the worst forms of quackery. First, the pseudoscientific beliefs undergirding such quackery are based on the fear and demonization of one of the greatest medical advances in the history of the human race, the result of which are children left unprotected against preventable diseases that routinely used to populate cemeteries with little bodies. Almost as bad, one of those beliefs, namely the scientifically discredited belief that vaccines cause autism, has led to a cottage industry of quack "treatments" based on the idea that autism is a manifestation…
oracknows | September 20, 2015Ever since late June, I've been intermittently taking note of a new conspiracy theory in the alternative medicine world. It began when notorious autism quack Jeff Bradstreet, one of the longest practicing, most prominent purveyors of the scientifically discredited notion that vaccines cause autism, was found dead in a North Carolina river on June 19. The police rapidly concluded that he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. It was impossible not to note that the FDA had raided his clinic a few days before, and it later came out that it was due to his use of and unproven…
oracknows | September 18, 2015Homeopathy is a frequent topic on this blog, for reasons that regular readers no doubt understand all too well by now. Homeopathy is, as I like to call it, again borrowing from Tolkien, The One Quackery To Rule Them All. When it comes to quackery, few can even come close to homeopathy for the sheer ridiculousness of its precepts. Whether it is the Law of Similars, which claims that to cure a disease you need to use a substance that cause's that diseases symptoms in healthy people, a "law" that has no basis in science, or the Law of Infinitesimals, which postulates that serially diluting a…
oracknows | September 17, 2015It just occurred to me that Breast Cancer Awareness Month is fast approaching, not the least of which because I did a Komen event last night as one of the breast cancer experts. I sometimes wonder if I suffer from a bit of the imposter syndrome, because sixteen years on I still sometimes can't believe that I'm considered some sort of "expert" in breast cancer, much less anything else. It's not that different than when, as a freshly minted faculty member, I was sent out to our cancer center's affiliates to attend their tumor boards as the "expert" from the mother ship.
In any case, in my…
oracknows | September 16, 2015Regular readers of this blog will find it no surprise that I don't think much of Dr. Mehmet Oz. The reason, of course, is that his daily television show, The Dr. Oz Show, has been a font of misinformation about medicine almost since it began airing six years ago. It's not for nothing that I long ago labeled him "America's Quack." Simply searching for the name Mehmet Oz on this blog will quickly produce examples of the many times when he's credulously promoted quackery and pseudoscience such as homeopathy (The One Quackery To Rule Them All), faith healing, fear mongering about GMOs, and…
oracknows | September 14, 2015Note added 9/17/2015: I knew it. The vaccine issue came up during the second debate and Donald Trump repeated basically the same nonsensical antivaccine tropes that he's been repeating for at least eight years. It rather puts the lie to his claim that he listens to experts and changes his opinion based on what they tell him. Hilariously, Mike Adams is painting it as an attempt by CNN to "destroy" Donald Trump using the vaccine issue. Depressingly, Ben Carson, while defending vaccines, fell into the "too many, too soon," trope, something a pediatric neurosurgeon should know better than to say…
oracknows | September 14, 2015[Note: My flight home from London was delayed until quite late; so unfortunately another "rerun" is in order. This one's from three years ago, and I actually consider it one of my "classics." It was also originally published at my not-so-super-secret other blog and represents the first time I tried to put together my concept of a "central dogma" of alternative medicine into a semi-coherent form. Ultimately, this lead to my talk The Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine, given at Skepticon last year. If you've been reading less than three years, it's new to you. If you haven't, you really…
oracknows | September 6, 2015This is a public service announcement—with skepticism. Orac needs a recharge:
Some of you might have seen it alluded to in the comments that I am on vacation this week. It is true, although it's not entirely a vacation. Basically, I was invited by a collaborator to give a talk at a two-day conference at Imperial College London, and my wife and I decided to make a vacation of it. What this means is that, depending upon my mood and the amount of time I have, there might or might not be new material this week. Worst case scenario, there will be reruns. Of course, if you're relatively new to…
oracknows | August 23, 2015As hard as it is to believe after over ten years of existence and over 5,000 posts on SBM, every so often, something reminds me that I've missed paper that cries out for some not-so-Respectful Insolence. So it was a couple of weeks ago, when I saw a familiar name in a news story that wasn't about vaccines. You might recall a news story last month when a shadowy group with ties to radical antiabortion groups, the Center for Medical Progress, led by a man named David Daleiden, ran a highly questionable "sting" operation (complete with fake IDs) to "prove" that Planned Parenthood was selling…
oracknows | August 14, 2015File this one under the category: You can't make stuff like this up. (At least, I can't.)
Let's say you're a die hard all-conspiracy conspiracy theorist and alternative medicine believer (a not uncommon combination). You love Alex Jones and Mike Adams and agree with their rants that there is a New World Order trying to suppress your rights. You strongly believe that vaccines not only cause autism, sudden infant death syndrome, a shaken baby-like syndrome, autoimmune diseases, sudden ovarian failure, and even outright death but are a depopulation plot hatched by Bill Gates and the Illuminati…
oracknows | July 16, 2015I frequently call homeopathy The One Quackery to Rule Them All, but there are times when I am not so sure that that's the case. You see, there is...another. I'm referring, of course, to what is referred to as "energy medicine." What energy medicine modalities have in common is that they postulate that there is some sort "energy field" around humans that can be manipulated for therapeutic intent or that somehow practitioners can channel "healing energy" from elsewhere. For example, as I've discussed many times before, reiki is based on the concept that reiki masters can channel this…
oracknows | July 6, 2015Aside from deconstructing the misinformation and pseudoscience of the antivaccine movement, another of the top three or so topics I routinely discuss here is the infiltration of pseudoscience into medicine. In particular, I've found and discussed more examples than I can possibly remember of what I like to call quackademic medicine, defined as the infiltration of quackery into academic medicine. This quackery mainly insinuates its way into medical schools and academic medical centers through the emerging specialty known as "integrative medicine," which used to be called "complementary and…
oracknows | May 29, 2015I've frequently written about the "arrogance of ignorance," a phenomenon that anyone who's paid attention to what quacks, cranks, or antivaccine activists (but I repeat myself) write and say beyond a certain period of time will have encountered. Basically, it's the belief found in such people—and amplified in groups—that somehow they can master a subject as well or better than experts who have spent their entire professional lives studying the subject on their own, often just through the use of Google University and the echo chamber discussion forums that they frequent with their fellow…
oracknows | May 27, 2015When it comes to the use of what is sometimes called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or, increasingly, "integrative medicine," there is a certain narrative. It's a narrative promoted by CAM proponents that does its best to convince the public that there is nothing unusual, untoward, or odd about CAM use, even though much of CAM consists of treatments that are based on prescientific concepts of human physiology and pathology, such as traditional Chinese medicine or homeopathy. In other words, it's a narrative designed to "normalize" CAM usage (and therefore CAM practice), making…
oracknows | May 21, 2015Epigenetics.
As I've described before, to alternative medicine practitioners, epigenetics seems to mean something akin to what the word "quantum" means: Magic. I've covered, for example, the woo-filled stylings of Deepak Chopra invoking things like "quantum consciousness," and seemingly for quite a few years the best way to slap a patina of "sciencey"-sounding credibility on a pseudoscientific medical treatment has been to add the word "quantum" to it. Perhaps the epitome of this tendency was the infamous Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface promoted by a rather—shall we say?—flamboyant…
oracknows | May 20, 2015Yesterday was a long day, starting in the operating room and finishing at a dinner reception for our visiting speaker today. As a result, when I arrived home, I was sawing the proverbial logs within five or ten minutes of hitting the couch, more or less without realizing it. I was going to just skip today, making it a rare weekday where I don't provide you, my loyal readers, with a dose of the Insolence, be it Respectful or not-so-Respectful, to which you have become accustomed. But then I saw an article that reminded me of a topic that I haven't revisited for quite a long time. I'm referring…
oracknows | May 15, 2015Dedicated to lilady.
One of the disadvantages of writing for this blog is that sometimes I feel as though I spend so much time deconstructing bad science and pseudoscience in medicine that I'm rarely left with the time or the opportunity to discuss some interesting science. Of course, even when I do that, usually it's in the context of that very same bad science or pseudoscience, and this post won't be different. Still, there was some interesting science with respect to vaccines published last week in Science, and I think it's worth looking over. The only thing that surprises me is that the…
oracknows | May 14, 2015As much time and effort as I spend deconstructing, refuting, and otherwise demolishing the misinformation that is routinely promulgated about vaccines by the antivaccine movement, it's important never just to reflexly dismiss a claim or news story that gains traction among antivaccinationists. After all, it is always possible that the story is as the antivaccinationists represent it; possible, but not likely. Still, one must be careful not to be so close-minded that one leaps to dismiss a story just because of its source. That is skepticism, and it's a big difference—or at least should be—…
oracknows | May 13, 2015After having written yesterday's piece about the fallacy known as the appeal to nature, a favorite fallacy of the alternative medicine crowd. The idea that if something is somehow "natural" it must be superior to anything viewed as "unnatural" or "man-made" is deeply ingrained in pseudoscientific medicine. Heck, there's even a brand of quackery known as "naturopathy" because it supposedly utilizes the "healing power of nature" when in reality is takes what I sometimes call a "Chinese menu" approach to quackery; i.e., one from column A, two from column B, one from homeopathy, two from…