Skepticism/Critical Thinking
oracknows | September 19, 2010If there's one area where I've been remiss, it's been in promoting new skeptics groups. Maybe it's the enormous Orac-ian ego. Maybe it's sheer laziness. Maybe it's becoming too engrossed in work and my two blog projects. I will try to rectify that in the future beginning by flogging a new skeptics group from my hometown. Well, not quite my hometown, but southeast Michigan nonetheless. I'm referring to the Michigan Skeptics Association, which now has a blog, has had a meetup, and has announced a new podcast dubbed the Drunken Skeptics Podcast, which will debut soon. It's to be hosted by Adam…
oracknows | September 16, 2010It's no secret that I'm a bit of a connoisseur of pareidolia.
The various shapes and contortions the human mind can impose on clouds, stains, pancakes, trees, toast, Lava lamps, toilet seats, and even medical imaging tests never ceases to amaze me. We are pattern-seeking creatures, and our brains will go to great lengths to impose familiar patterns onto objects. Sometimes, however, I have to call 'em as I see 'em, and this bit of pareidolia is just lame: Satan on a bathroom tile:
A family abandoned their bathroom fearing it had been possessed by the devil after an image of Satan appeared…
oracknows | September 13, 2010Regarding this whole skeptic thing, if there's one thing I've learned about pseudoscience and bizarre, unscientific beliefs, it's that, just when I think I've seen it all, the world slaps me in the face (facepalm, to be precise) to show me that I haven't seen it all after all. Such was what happened when a truly bizarre conference started popping up around the skeptical blogosphere at blogs like Pharyngula, Unreasonable Faith, and Starts With A Bang. If you think that one thing that kooks can't deny is that the earth revolves around the sun, you'd be wrong. Witness the Galileo Was Wrong…
sa smith | September 7, 2010In about a month Im going to be speaking at the Texas Freethought Convention.
I can talk about anything.
Which means I dont know what to talk about.
I mean, I have lots of things I want to talk about, but I dont wanna be all "YEAHHHH!!!!", and the audience not give a rats ass about what I pick.
Im leaning towards connecting immunology with evilution-- they have so much in common, but I rarely see the science of immunology and vaccination discussed in skeptic circles (EXAMPLE: Penn & Tellers Vaccination episode). The logic is fine, but the science is superficial. But if you understand…
sa smith | September 3, 2010What is it about ERVs that makes kooks cling desperately to them, like little 'gag-pol-env' life-rafts, as the kooks FAILboats sink into even further obscurity?
I think the general populations ignorance about ERVs is what kooks find so attractive. Kooks, like Creationists, can say any damn thing they want about ERVs, and Average Joe/Jane doesnt know any better. Some Creationists might be ignorant themselves and actually believe such claims, but Ive corrected Creationists so many times at this point, its frankly hard to believe Creationist Claims about ERVs are anything but purposeful,…
oracknows | August 29, 2010Yesterday, I expressed my displeasure over a truly idiotic press release by the Center for Inquiry over the "Ground Zero mosque" entitled The Center for Inquiry Urges That Ground Zero Be Kept Religion-Free. I happen to know that a lot of supporters of CFI were very unhappy about the press release as well, because apparently the president of CFI, Ron Lindsay, is feeling the heat. Because I wrote to him complaining, I received the following mass response:
Thank you for providing us with your comments concerning the recent press release issued by the Center for Inquiry on the Ground Zero…
The Center For Inquiry on the "Ground Zero mosque": Incompetent satire or abandonment of principles?
oracknows | August 28, 2010I hadn't planned on blogging at all today, much about on this particular topic. As some of you may have noticed, I'm trying to cut back on the blog habit, particularly on the weekends. Gone are the days when I'd foolishly try to emulate P.Z. Myers and have several posts up in a day; lately most days there is only one post up. Moreover, over the years, I've drifted away from writing about religion, except when it explicitly intersects with science, in particular medical science. In fact, the whole creationism/evolution kerfuffle, which I used to write about quite frequently, has become an…
oracknows | August 19, 2010At the risk of once again irritating long time readers who've hear me say this before, I can't resist pointing out that, of all the various forms of "alternative medicine" other than herbal medicines (many of which are drugs, just adulterated, impure drugs), acupuncture was the one treatment that, or so I thought, might actually have a real therapeutic effect. Don't get me wrong; I never bought magical mystical mumbo-jumbo about "meridians" and "unblocking the flow of qi" (that magical mystical life energy that can't be detected by scientists but that practitioners of woo claim to be able to…
oracknows | August 18, 2010There's so much horrible reporting on vaccines and the whole manufactroversy that promulgates the myth that vaccines somehow cause autism through a combination of confusing correlation with causation, bad science, quackery, and misrepresenting autism that it's gotten harder for me to be sufficiently irritated to write about it. When I see yet another another example of credulous reporting, it has to be either truly egregious to the point of catching my attention above the baseline noise of stories presenting anti-vaccine pseudoscience as though there were any truth to it or somehow illustrate…
oracknows | August 16, 2010Over the years, I've written a lot about cell phones and the scientifically highly implausible claim that radio waves from cellular telephones can lead to brain cancer and other health problems. For example, two years ago, when the then director of the respected University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman issued a warning to the faculty and staff of UPCC to limit their cell phone use because of the risk of cancer, I had a definite bone to pick with him. The evidence upon which Dr. Herberman based his hysterical warning, which was duly picked up by the press and spread…
oracknows | August 13, 2010After nearly six years subjecting the world to my meandering and often incredibly verbose stylings, I'm now what you would call an established blogger. Even more than that, I'm a reasonably high traffic blogger, at least in the medical blogosphere. What that means is that I get a lot of e-mail. A lot. While I do look at each and every e-mail that finds its way into the in box of one of my accounts, there's no way I can respond to them all. In order to save time, I look for shortcuts, and one of those shortcuts is not to devote more than a second or two to e-mails that are obvious sales…
oracknows | August 11, 2010...in not pointing out that one of my favorite blogs from the "old days" (as in four years ago) is back. The Second Sight, which closed up shop in 2007, reappeared a couple of months ago. It's as great as ever. Check it out.
oracknows | August 5, 2010I hate science press releases.
Well, not exactly. I hate science press releases that hype a study beyond its importance. I hate it even more when the investigators who published the study make statements not justified by the study and use the study as a jumping off point to speculate wildly. True, it's not always the fault of the investigators, particularly if they don't have much experience dealing with the press, but all too often scientists fall prey to the tendency to gab glibly and give the reporter what he or she wants: Pithy, juicy quotes that relate the results to what the reporter…
oracknows | July 30, 2010A couple of days ago, I expressed my amusement at an e-mail sent to me by someone named "Carol." The amusement came primarily from the subject matter in the e-mail, which described something called a "biophoton ionizer," whatever that is. Knowing, as I do, how prevalent water woo is (after all, what is homeopathy but the grand daddy of all water woo?), I was naturally curious about what the heck a "biophoton ionizer" is. After all, what's the difference between a regular photon and a "biophoton"? What is the characteristic of the photon that makes it "bio," if you know what I mean. I was sure…
oracknows | July 29, 2010Funny how everything old is new again, isn't it?
Yes, if there's one thing I've learned over nearly six years of blogging, it's that, sooner or later, everything is recycled, and I do mean everything. At least, that was the thought going through my mind when I came across PZ's discussion of a clueless wonder who appears to be advocating a science section in that cesspit of anti-vaccine quackery and quantum woo, The Huffington Post, whose proclivities for pseudoscience have led its activities to be characterized as a war on medical science. It's actually more than just a war on medical science…
oracknows | July 28, 2010One of the odd things about blogging is the e-mail. True, I don't get anything near the quantity, quality, or sheer weirdness of the e-mail that, for example, PZ Myers, gets, but I do get my share. Some of it's praise; a lot of it ends up being rants against my being "close-minded" or excessively harsh on quackery; occasionally I get the odd rant about religion; and sometimes I get something that's just plain weird. In this latter category, very, very occasionally I get e-mails that show that the person sending it either doesn't have a clue or sent the e-mail to the wrong person.
Enter "Carol…
oracknows | July 23, 2010Even after having been at this skeptical medical blogging game for nearly six years, every so often I still come across woo about which I had been previously unaware. It's hard to believe, but it's true. In fact, I'm beginning to think that, even if I were to keep blogging until I drop dead (hopefully at least thirty or forty years in the future), as I type out my last extra cantankerous bit of not-so-Respectful Insolence (my cantankerousness merely increasing with advancing age, of course), I would come across some new and spectacular form of woo that somehow had been missed during my forty-…
oracknows | July 18, 2010Now this would be a most excellent gift for skeptical friends: The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense. Check it out:
(Bigger version at the link.)
It would clearly make a lovely poster, although I must confess that I have my doubts that it will show up well enough on a T shirt to be worth doing.
oracknows | July 8, 2010I've been a critic of Arianna Huffington's massive group blog, The Huffington Post, since three weeks after it first blighted the blogosphere. That's when I first noticed that the "health" section (such as it is) of HuffPo had already become a wretched hive of scum and anti-vaccine quackery, something I began documenting again and again and again and again and again over five years ago, before Salon.com and Rolling Stone flushed their credibility right down the crapper with Robert F. Kennedy's infamous conspiracy mongering about thimerosal in vaccines. Indeed, I continue to document the…
oracknows | July 7, 2010After the annoying kerfuffle that erupted last night over our Seed Overlords' most unfortunate decision to let a corporate blog breach the firewall between content and advertising, it's a good thing that I can go and hang out with fellow skeptics, chill, and think about things a few days. Yes, I'm going to TAM8. By the time this posts, hopefully I'll be in the air on my way to Vegas to hang with around 1,000 skeptical rogues, give a talk at the Science-Based Medicine workshop, and participate in a panel discussion.
A perfect antidote for what's going on at Sb. Who else is going? Don't forget…