Skepticism/Critical Thinking
sa smith | December 8, 2010Trine Tsouderos has done it again!
She is a one woman, woo-fighting machine!
She has taken on anti-vaxers.
She has taken on Dr. Oz.
She has taken on XMRV-->CFS.
And now shes goin after a rare wooity-- Chronic Lyme Disease:
Lyme disease is real. The bacterial infection, chiefly transmitted by deer ticks, can cause rashes, swollen joints and inflamed nerves, and usually is curable with a round of antibiotics.
But doctors around the country are telling patients with common medical problems such as back pain, poor concentration and fatigue that their ailments stem from a chronic form of Lyme…
oracknows | December 8, 2010Two women died of breast cancer yesterday. One was named Kim Tinkham. One was named Elizabeth Edwards.
In some ways, these women were similar. True, one was older than the other, but both of them died far sooner than they should have, one at age 53, the other at age 61. Both engaged in activism about breast cancer. Both were ambitious, driven women. Both died in the presence of their friends and family. Both died within hours of each other. Both demonstrated the implacable killer that breast cancer can be.
There the similarities end. One of these women (Kim Tinkham), for example, died…
oracknows | December 3, 2010As a part of a longer post where I was, for the most part, serious albeit sarcastic, I asked one question that I considered a bit of a throwaway joke. Oddly enough, the more I think about it, the more I think that it wasn't such a joke. Here was my question:
Perhaps we could have a contest: Which cranks are most persistent, tobacco/smoking denialists, AGW denialists, anti-vaccine loons, or anti-fluoridation activists?
To which jre responded in the comments:
Fairness requires that we try to round out Orac's list. At a minimum, this must include:
Tobacky / 2nd-hand smoke denialists
Climate…
oracknows | December 1, 2010No, no, no, no, no!
I hate it when a fellow ScienceBlogger goes astray!
Fortunately, it's been a long time indeed since I felt obligated to administer a dose of Insolence, Respectful or otherwise, to a fellow ScienceBlogger. It's been even longer (as in, I think, never) that I've ever seen one whose resource I use regularly screw up so amazingly. I'm talking about Coby of A Few Things Ill-Considered, whose How To Talk To A Climate Skeptic (also found here) is a resource I turn to again and again and again when faced with denialist arguments about anthropogenic global warming. Indeed, I've…
oracknows | December 1, 2010I don't recall if I ever mentioned this before, but back when I was in college I had quite the interest in a couple of sciences that you might not have expected or guessed at, namely anthropology and archaelogy. Indeed, an archeology class that I took as a senior was one of the most memorable and fascinating classes I took during my entire four years in college. If I have one regret about my college years, it was my laser-like focus on getting into medical school. It was that intense focus that kept me taking far more classes related to chemistry, biology, and other sciences that I thought…
oracknows | November 24, 2010If there's one characteristic of denialists of all stripes, it's that they have a strong tendency to personalize their dislike of their particular bete noir science. For instance, anti-vaccine activists tend to attack Paul Offit as though he were the Dark Lord of Vaccination. Creationists tend to attack Charles Darwin (who, being conveniently dead, can't defend himself) and Richard Dawkins (who, being one of the most vocal atheists in the world, makes a convenient target because creationists are almost invariably motivated by religious objections to evolution). Climate change denialists tend…
oracknows | November 23, 2010They call it the Nobel disease.
Linus Pauling is the prototypical example. A brilliant chemist who won two Nobel Prizes, one for chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize, in his later years Pauling became convinced that high dose vitamin C was a highly effective treatment for cancer and the common cold and, expanding upon that, came to believe in the quackery that is orthomolecular medicine. As a result, Pauling's reputation was tainted for all time, and he became known more for his crankery than his successes. Since his death, Pauling's successors have continued to chase his dream with minimal…
oracknows | November 19, 2010The other day I had a bit of fun deconstructing a shockingly bad post by a blogger at the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism named Dan Olmsted. In his post, he criticized the progressive movement for not "getting" autism. It was one of the silliest bits of whining I had ever seen, in essence a crybaby crying because "his people" weren't paying attention to his book.
Shockingly, yesterday Olmsted was able to find a post from a "progressive" who was willing to drink deeply of the anti-vax Kool Aid without realizing that he's doing so and agree with him. For instance, let's take a look at…
oracknows | November 16, 2010Woo-meisters love to build massive straw men about what skepticism is, the better to tear it down with gusto and paint skeptics as close-minded "debunkers." I just came across a video that does just that (click on the link for even more straw men in addition to the video), but in one of the most overblown and ridiculous ways I've ever seen. Can you count the number of straw men and outright lies about skepticism and skeptics in this video?
I lost track fairly early on, so fast and furious came the misinformation, particularly because the portrayal of skeptics and skepticism wasn't even…
oracknows | November 12, 2010Last night, seeking to expand the name of Orac rather than his waistline, I did a skeptical meetup with a local skeptics' group to discuss the topic of quackademic medicine. A fine time was had by all (at least as far as I can tell). What that means, unfortunately, is that I got back too late last night to have time to prepare a helping of new insolence that you all crave. (And you know you do crave it so.) Fortunately, the archives are here and chock full of excellent woo to republish from time to time, perfect for this situation, and I'm taking advantage of them now. The installation from…
oracknows | November 4, 2010I may have taken a break yesterday, but that doesn't mean I've abandoned my mission to make this Vaccine Awareness Week (or, more properly, the Anti-vaccine Movement Awareness Week, dedicated to countering the lies of the anti-vaccine movement). Even though it was good to take a day off, the anti-vaccine movement rarely takes a day off, and yesterday was no exception. Indeed, one of the most belligerent anti-vaccinationists of all, the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest anti-vaccine bull of all, decided to show up for the first time in a long time yesterday on his organization's…
oracknows | November 2, 2010One of the great things about having declared Vaccine Awareness Week is that it gives me a convenient excuse to revisit topics and blog posts that I had meant to address but that somehow didn't make the cut the first time around. This is the sort of thing that happens fairly frequently in blogging, where there is far too much woo and idiocy for one blogger to have even a hope of ever addressing it all.
And that's just the anti-vaccine movement.
In any case, if there's one thing about the anti-vaccine movement that I've noticed, it's that its members have a very warped view of both science and…
oracknows | October 25, 2010Over my nearly six years of blogging, I've become known as a staunch advocate of science- and evidence-based medicine, both in the guise going under my long-used pseudonym "Orac" and under my real name. And so I am, which is why certain varieties of predictable attacks on science-based medicine (SBM) annoy me. Usually, they come down to appeals to other ways of knowing, rants against "arrogance," or tu quoque arguments trying to claim that SBM is as bad as whatever woo I happen to be criticizing at the time. Actually, strike that. The latter complaint often tries to argue that SBM is actually…
oracknows | October 24, 2010Wow. Just wow.
I realize that I haven't exactly been enamored of Richard Dawkins lately, at least not as much as I was, say, three or four years ago. Most of this came about gradually, although the final nail was driven into the proverbial coffin last fall, when Atheist Alliance International bestowed the Richard Dawkins Award to that quacktastic anti-vaccine and anti-science believer in woo and cancer quackery, Bill Maher, an atrocity that I likened to giving Jenny McCarthy an award for public health. Actually, the second to last nail was probably driven in back in May when Richard Dawkins…
oracknows | October 20, 2010I really have to give those guys at McGill University's Office for Science and Society credit. They're fast. In fact, they've already uploaded video for all the events at the Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium. Here's the main page with the videos (the 2010 Trottier Symposium occurred on October 17, 18, and 19), and here are the individual links:
2010 Lorne Trottier Roundtable (moderated by Dr. Joe Schwarcz)
2010 Lorne Trottier Public Syposium
Investigating Pseudoscientific & Paranormal Claims with James Randi
Enjoy!
My "friend" also reports that a great time was had by all and he…
oracknows | October 20, 2010Yesterday was a travel day, which means I was too exhausted to grind out a piece of peerless logorrheic prose full of Insolence, Respectful, not-so-Respectful, or both. Fortunately, readers sent me something rather amusing that is also timely given some of the conversations we had at the Lorne Trottier Symposium Monday and Tuesday, where questions about why various forms of woo are not accepted by mainstream medicine, chemistry, science, etc. One answer that came up is that, if these things worked, there'd be a lot of really interesting things to study, applications of these things to real…
oracknows | October 19, 2010The Lorne Trottier Symposium is over, and it went quite well. Amazingly, even though I had to follow Michael Shermer's talk, people told me I didn't suck, which made me feel better. Oh, there was this issue of a guy who wanted to tout Royal Rife and his machine. He wouldn't have irritated me so much for doing that. What did irritate me was that he went on and on and on and wouldn't yield the microphone, to the point where I tried to interrupt him to ask him if he had a question and then ended up being perhaps too dismissive of his question. On the other hand, even Michael Shermer told him, "…
oracknows | October 11, 2010
Well, this looks interesting. It's the 2010 Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium at McGill University in Montreal. This year, the theme is Confronting Pseudoscience: A Call to Action. A certain "friend of the blog" will be speaking with Ben Goldacre and Michael Shermer on Monday, October 18 from 5 to 7 PM on the Threat of Pseudoscience. He'll also be on Dr. Joe's radio show on CJAD 800. On Tuesday, October 19, the ever-amazing Randi will speak on investigating paranormal claims.
If you happen to be in the Montreal area or can get there on October 18 and/or 19, come on over to McGill. It…
oracknows | September 24, 2010Every 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. Besides getting into full R01 grant-writing swing, I went out to dinner last night with a visiting professor and didn't get home until too late for me to grind out one of those 2,000-4,000 word screeds you've come to know and a love. So enjoy this bit of Classic Insolence from back in November 2006 that, shockingly, as far as I can tell I've never "rerun" before. Remember, if you've been reading less than four…