Categories
Biology Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Science Skepticism/critical thinking

When it comes to refuting creationist nonsense, I am but slime…

…from one of Michigan State University Professor Richard Lenski’s E. coli cultures. Lenski’s second response to the clueless “request” of the creationist idiot Andrew Schlafly to provide his raw data to him for “independent review” supporting a recent PNAS paper (more here) by him that is yet another in a line of papers by evolutionary […]

Categories
Medicine Science

Old school versus new school in the lab

I was perusing the feeds of my fellow ScienceBloggers the other night when I came across a post by ERV that really resonated with me. In it, she expounds on the benefits of doing things “old school” in the lab, specifically with respect to having hard evidence to defend oneself if ever accused of scientific […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Sanctioned!

Remember the case of Clifford Shoemaker, lawyer for the antivaccinationist mercury militia who tried to subpoena Kathleen Seidel under incredibly dubious legal reasoning in order to harass and intimidate her? Remember how the subpoena was quashed? One word: Sanctioned! Woo-hoo! Quoth Judge James R. Muirhead: Clifford J. Shoemaker’s action is an abuse of legal process, […]

Categories
Anti-Semitism History Holocaust Holocaust denial Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Crank magnetism in action: Astrology, crop circles, and Holocaust denial, oh my!

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years of delving into pseudoscience, quackery, and alternative medicine is that conspiracy theories are just like Lays potato chips; cranks can’t eat just one. No, they have to stick their hand in the bag and pull out a huge, heaping handful and snarf it all down. Believers […]

Categories
EneMan Humor Medicine News of the Weird

Enema of the people? Or our blog mascot must make a pilgrimage

If you happen to be a blogger, has there ever been anything that you meant to blog about, but it totally slipped your mind? This is just such an item for me. Yes, multiple people e-mailed me about this on Friday, and for some reason in my amusement at David Kirby’s antics over the weekend […]