RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE

"A statement of fact cannot be insolent." The miscellaneous ramblings of a surgeon/scientist on medicine, quackery, science, and pseudoscience (and anything else that interests him).

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Good math

Post author By Orac
Post date March 8, 2006
10 Comments on Good math

Here’s an interesting new blog that I discovered via Trackback.

Remember my post yesterday praising a certain commenter who chimed in about the Geiers.

He’s started his own blog called Good Math, Bad Math, which he describes thusly:

…in my experience, one of the most clear ways of identifying a crackpot is through math. No matter the specific subject, the crackpots always either avoid or screw up the math. Whether it’s the “mercuy causes autism” folks, the Velikovskians, creationists, alt-medicine quacks, republican pollsters, or scientologists – you can always recognize the crackpots by their math.

So I’m going to do my best to provide a voice of mathematical sanity – both by showing what’s wrong with the bad math slop pumped out by the loonies, and by showing how good math works.

And he delivers right away, first by adding more commentary about the Geiers’ bad statistics (where he points out another problem with the paper that I missed) and then taking on the concept of cellular automata.

Gee, if he sticks around the blogosphere long enough, I might just have to ask him if he wants to host a future edition of the Skeptics’ Circle.

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By Orac

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 this particular surgeon 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 35 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: [email protected]

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