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Funny how you never see Orac and this person in the same place at the same time…

Three weeks ago, a certain “friend” of mine gave a talk to the National Capital Area Skeptics at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, VA. The topic was one near and dear to my heart, namely quackademic medicine; so I couldn’t resist posting a link to the video.

Amusingly, Jake Crosby makes an appearance in the Q&A. Hilarity ensues as he is totally pwned by speaker.

ADDENDUM (April 15, 2013): Oh, goody. After six weeks, Jake has apparently gotten around to responding. Funny how he denies that he called me a liar. That was, in our encounter after the talk, the reason why I said “We’re done” and walked away.

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]

48 replies on “Funny how you never see Orac and this person in the same place at the same time…”

Eric Merola and DJT have already resorted to making fun of Orac’s “friend’s” presentation on the #burzynski thread. Merola called Orac’s friend a “white supremicist” for some reason (drinking?) but quickly deleted the comment. It’s been archived for posterity however.

They are now disputing the “sugar does not feed cancer” claim that is raised in the video.

Ironically, Orac’s friend did not mention Count Stan’s name once in the presentation. Must have irked Merola.

Narad,

I know–I was hoping to see him too. He must have been out of the camera’s range. Wonder if he wore a clean, pressed shirt.

This is the guy with family ties to the chemical industry and who realized he was vaccine damaged when watching Fox News?

Is it ok if I giggle?

What about a guffaw?

A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat…

Orac, I am the fellow in the audience (with stage IV RCC on Sutent) who asked about nutrition and the fact that marginalizing this vital subject just pushes it further into the arms of sCAMers. I tried to post a comment at SBM but have been unable to register through WordPress. Do you know why that might be?

MSII – I think you’ll find Orac’s friend has posted this as a direct conciquence of Eric and DJT linking to it. Personally, I think it’s odd that you only ever see them in the same place at the same time… I mean seriously guys, get a room!!

I overcame my social anxiety disorder to make it to the NSF as well as post here. I felt obliged to thanks Orac’s friend in person for being one of the key people to turn me away from 20+ years of woo. The turning point for me was when I saw what the DAN! “Dr.” was doing to my then 4 y.o. autistic son. Long story short, I put a stop to the nonsense and torture (he was traumatized by IV chelation – having to be held down). It nearly cost me my marriage, but I went from lurking at AoA to SBM, RI, LBRB, etc. and never looked back.

I also want to thank the posters here – and I do mean all. When I read that I need to “open my eyes” from some of these biomed curebie types I feel very confident that is exactly what I did.

MSII #5:

Jake’s appearance was neat and clean enough. I was more entertained by his attempts to engage Dr. Gorski after the meeting by loudly and repeatedly asking “Since when is everywhere else a geographical location?”

Neil B. Fieldman at #8, because WordPress sucks, on my browser at least. I am a WordPress Imbecile. I can remember my login on SBM, but I have to have a SEPARATE LOGIN for Every. Single. WordPress. Blog. Hence I cannot comment on Neurologica anymore because I’ve forgotten my login, etc etc.

Did I mention I hate WordPress? I might not have conveyed that in the previous paragraph.

Orac, your “friend’s” HEAVY SIGHS at the Quackademic medicine during the presentation were the most awesome part! 😀

Poor Jake. He just absolutely does not understand the meaning of cherry-picking. You TOTALLY pwned him on the Alabama data he has latched onto so hard, and you did so in what I thought was an educational way which illustrated a key point of statistics– that you need a sufficiently large sample size in order to rule out flukes, outliers, and other deceptive results. Also, he’s totally wrong about the age at which Asperger’s can be diagnosed. My boy was diagnosed first by my MIL (Masters degree in special ed) at age 2, and then officially by age 4, and he pulled the age 8 out of his arse why exactly and on the basis of what data other than imagination?

Jake’s appearance was neat and clean enough. I was more entertained by his attempts to engage Dr. Gorski after the meeting by loudly and repeatedly asking “Since when is everywhere else a geographical location?”

He did huff and puff a bit when he apparently disagreed with some of Orac’s friend’s responses. It was clear he disagreed. Marge and Judith let me watch the whole event through energetic channeling. I wasn’t there in person, of course.

@ Melissa G: I hate Word Press even more. Christine Vara at the Shot of Prevention blog is aware of the problem that has been going on for weeks. I emailed her yesterday and she responded that their IT person has been “working on it”.

Is Jake back home in his room in his mommy’s attic?

Has he moved Orac’s picture from the “To Be Stalked” wall to the “Been Stalked” wall?

Jake “tweeted” 10 hours ago…again slamming SafeMinds. I love the reply from Jake’s former BFF, Erik Nanstiel.

BFF? (the thought running in my head isn’t apropos for pg-rated blogs).

Alain

lilady, are you referring to random comments going disappearing into the ether on WordPress? It happened to me at the new ThePoxesBlog. It was not a comment that made it worth for me to try again on, but it does indicate it is something to do with WordPress. Which was better than Discus that would randomly show or not show the comments.

Unfortunately, my video player didn’t co-operate today…
but it will, I can assure you, it will.

What a shame that Jake’s entire performance – acts 1 & 2- has not been captured for posterity. I would adore seeing the after-party segment, JayBee. I’m sure it was hilarious.

I “treated”myself to a video where he addressed the IACC:
the question I kept asking myself was ,” Who is he trying to emulate?”**
It was a performance, definitely- and badly done at that. It reminds me of something in a movie: a young reporter revealing the corruption perpetrated by decades of malfeasance in ( government, industry, research- choose one or all). All by himself. Whilst the audience cheers.

Only in your fevered imagination, Jake.

However what he actually *said* in that video was as dis-jointed as any of his posts.

** is there another anti-vax matinee idol who delivers material as such? Kennedy maybe? Not Andy, I would guess.

@ Chris: I posted on the SOP blog yesterday afternoon at “Shelly” (the latest troll/sockie), to invade the blog.

When it didn’t show up immediately, I posted a “test” post.. that didn’t appear. I immediately emailed Christine and she emailed back at me. She asked for the content of my comment and when I posted it. It should have shown up as # 6 comment…after Shelly’s comment…and before Ken’s. I then tried another “test” post, noting the exact EDT when I posted and emailed Christine to tell her that it didn’t get posted.

I posted another “test post” at SOP about two hours ago…it still does not appear.

Christine said their IT person will be working on the problem and also stated that the IT person was working on the Spam comments that were flooding the blog, weeks ago.

Lilady brings up a point:
Jake is p!ssed at SafeMinds ’cause of Andy
Jake alligns with Bolen, Hooker, Barry, perhaps the Geiers..

Blaxill hangs with Larson, Olmsted, Canaries, etc.

Which side is Andy on?
Has anyone yet drawn up a list of who’s where?
We need a score card.

Which side is Andy on?

His own? (which could include not pissing off his potential supporter however divided they may be).

Alain

Offtopic: I need to upgrade my pubmed skills; I’m looking for all kind of chemical substance (or better, all actual medications) which inhibit glutamate release. How do I go about searching that?

Alain

Alain,
“BFF” means “best friend forever” (I shudder to think what you had in mind!).
As for PubMed, this search narrows it down to a few hundred hits.

Also, click on ‘See more…’ under ‘Titles with your search terms’ on the right hand side of that PubMed search which takes you here which narrows it down even more.

How do I go about searching that?

It’s clumsy, but you could try some variation on this:

(((“excitatory amino acid antagonists”[MeSH Terms] AND “receptors, glutamate”[MeSH Terms]) AND “glutamic acid”[MeSH Terms]) AND “receptors, glutamate/drug effects”[Mesh Terms]) AND “humans”[MeSH Terms]

(The parens are there only because I was trying to refine earlier queries.)

Thanks you very much Krebiozen and Narad; this is going for the blog post which was planned yesterday. I’m doing a meta-analysis on local brain region difference between OCD subject and normal control and the region involved have more glutamate release as compared to control subjects.

Alain

@Lilady,

Alain…What do you think “BFF” means?

You really want to know? The kind of friends we look for in this website: http://www.aff.com/ 😀

There, I said it!

Al

The B5 joke can probably stay, but may need a brief introduction, as Babylon 5 is almost 20 years old and consequently may have faded in some people’s minds. I could barely remember the alien curing device until your “friend” explained it, and even so couldn’t remember much.

Come to DragonCon. The B5 joke will slay them! 😀 Oh, just come to DragonCon anyway, ’cause it’s awesome!

The talk was excellent. Of course, I expected no less.
And I might add, there were masterful touches in dealing with the scoffers ( Mssrs GMO, PTSD et Jake). Too bad we don’t have Twerp- fest, act 2 on tape.

I think I might have insight into why students may support the whimsy-based material in med school- it gives them a rest from having to really work hard on science and using data. In other words, it’s easy stuff, so rest your brains.

A minor, tiny suggestion:
alt med prevaricators often maintain that they have DATA and research, citing studies from journals. This takes advantage of the unwary and most novices: perhaps at some later date, delineate alt med’s interpretation of the words “data”, “study”; “journal” etc in contradistinction to reality.. with the jaw-dropping examples that they use.
It should be hilarious.

The B5 joke can probably stay, but may need a brief introduction, as Babylon 5 is almost 20 years old and consequently may have faded in some people’s minds. I could barely remember the alien curing device until your “friend” explained it, and even so couldn’t remember much.

Naaah. The B5 joke has to go. It fell flat and takes too much explanation as an introduction. Even among skeptics, who tend to have a high SF geek factor, it is clear that that joke is too obscure.

By Post Author

The B5 joke has to go.

You might replace the Babylon 5 reference with ‘The Empath’, a Star Trek TOS episode that has a similar theme but is less obscure.

You should have done the reference in your awesome Zathras voice . . . then they would’ve got it for sure!

Where can one find the ‘teach the controversy’ image shown in the talk?

And another question: when students in medical courses learn SBM, do they also get taught about what the ‘skeptics’ say and how to refute those arguments? Or is the counterargument thing only part of the CAM studies?

As for why people ignore ancient Western medicine, I would assume its a centuries old notion that anything ‘from over there’ is exotic and therefore has some value that can’t be found from ‘over here’. Most people will have heard of the old Western ideas and know why they’re dismissed (or I would hope so anyway), whereas they probably don’t know much about Eastern mysticism.

JayBee – congratulations on your successful battles with SAD. I hope you celebrate every time you post here too! Thank you for sharing about how you came to change your mind regarding alt-med. Many of the families I have worked with feel they will be targeted if they openly discuss why they have chosen to use evidence based programs for their children. Posting here will make a difference to others who are beginning to question.

@Rebecca – he’s back parroting the “party line.” Perhaps they will continue to give him space to publish his “attack / hack jobs” but I doubt he’ll ever be part of the “inner circle” again.

I’m surprised, given his rant in that other video attacking Blaxill and SafeMinds…

Also, I’m not surprised that eventually Jake posted something. I’m guessing AoA will let him post as long as it’s an attack on mutual “enemies” like me. Yawn.

Seriously. Jake needs to get a new schtick. This one’s old and tired.

By Post Author

It’s actually more like nearly six weeks. True, the video was posted three weeks after the talk, but delays in posting video never stopped Jake before. In any case, read and be amused:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/04/watch-david-gorski-squirm.html

Funny how Jake now denies he called me a liar. Funny, of all the things he said to me at the reception after the talk, that was probably the most clear, which is why I said, “We’re done” and walked away.

By Post Author

“Funny how Jake now denies he called me a liar. Funny, of all the things he said to me at the reception after the talk, that was probably the most clear, which is why I said, “We’re done” and walked away.”

Did he add “pants on fire”? Because that would have been classic Jake.

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