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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: There’s no woo like stem cell woo, revisited

Sometimes a topic demands to be included in my little Friday bit of hubris and tweaking. Usually when that happens, it’s obvious because somehow the topic is synergistic with what’s been going on during the preceding week on the ol’ blog, in the same way that herbalists claim that all the various compounds and contaminants […]

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Anti-Semitism Entertainment/culture History Holocaust Humor Intelligent design/creationism Movies Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

P.Z. Expelled!, Dawkins in…

…to see Expelled! In perhaps the funniest incident I can recall involving a fellow ScienceBlogger since there has been ScienceBlogs, earlier this evening scourges of “intelligent design” creationism P. Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins went to see a screening of the antievolution pro-ID creationism movie Expelled! in the Minneapolis area. The guards recognized P.Z. and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

Autism and vaccines: The story morphs

I have to hand it to Dan Olmsted. As Dr. Michael Egnor is for “intelligent design” creationism, ol’ Danny Boy is the Energizer Bunny of antivaccinationism. Tag-teaming with fellow “journalist” David Kirby, who seems able to live rather well without actually, you know, having a regular job, ex-UPI correspondent Olmsted form the not-so-dynamic duo of […]

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Medicine Religion

Words fail me again: How to be nailed to a cross without getting an infection

It’s a rare, rare situation, but the sheer craziness of this (hat tip PZ) knocked the wind out of me, so that I’m having a hard time finding something to say about it: Health officials in the Philippines have issued a warning to people taking part in Easter crucifixion rituals. They have urged them to […]

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Bioethics Clinical trials Medicine Quackery

Stem cell tourism: Stem cells as the new snake oil

There’s no doubt about it: Stem cells are hot. Yes indeed, they’re not only hot, but they’re hip, they’re happenin‘, they’re right now, baby. Scientists are falling all over themselves with excitement at the potential applications that could potentially come from stem cell technology. True, no validated therapies for embryonic stem cells have yet made […]