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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The British Chiropractic Association: Beware the Spinal Trap

A while back, I wrote about the grievous miscarriage of justice that occurred to Simon Singh in the form of a ruling against him in the libel suit brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association. Suffice it to say, that the BCA is using the U.K.’s exceedingly plaintiff-friendly libel laws to silence legitimate criticism […]

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Politics Skepticism/critical thinking

Birthers on parade

You may have heard of the lunatic fringe contingent that thinks that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and thus not eligible to be President of the United States according to the Constitution. They’re incredible cranks, cooking up all manner of dire conspiracy theories about a doctored birth certificate and […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Senator Tom Harkin’s and Representative Darrell Issa’s war on medical science

In discussions of that bastion of what Harriet Hall (a.k.a. The SkepDoc) likes to call “tooth fairy science,” where sometimes rigorous science, sometimes not, is applied to the study of hypotheses that are utterly implausible and incredible from a basic science standpoint (such as homeopathy or reiki), the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking Television

Bill Maher and “anti-science”

Last week, I expressed my surprise and dismay that the Atheist Alliance International chose Bill Maher for the Richard Dawkins Award. I was dismayed because Maher has championed pseudoscience, including dangerous antivaccine nonsense, germ theory denialism complete with repeating myths about Louis Pasteur supposedly recanting on his deathbed, a href=”http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/12/bill-maher-anti-vax-wingnut.html”>hostility towards “Western medicine” and an […]

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Announcements

Fast approaching: The 116th Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle

As hard as it is to believe, it’s been a week and a half since the last time the skeptics of the Skeptics’ Circle met. The next meeting will soon be upon it, but it can’t happen unless you make it happen. This time it will be hosted at Beyond the Short Coat, and instructions […]