Ed over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has been on a tear lately defending the ACLU against spurious attacks from right wingers and religious. Now I see that that dreaded atheistic, America-hating organization has invaded a little too close to home, coming into my area of the country.Clearly any real God-fearing American can’t let […]
Author: 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]
Well, it didn’t take The Spoof long to comment on the Andrew Wakefield affair. Choice bits: While on holiday in the US in 1997 he was introduced to a creationist nutter called Professor Hugh Fudenberg who claimed to cure autistic children by giving them samples of his own bone marrow. And, my favorite: Wakefield was […]
A few days ago, given that light of the “intelligent design” creationism movement, William Dembski, had bragged about how much he had helped Ann Coulter write the chapters in her latest screed (Godless: The Church of Liberalism) attacking evolution, I had wondered what he might think now of being associated with her, given some of […]
When it rains it pours, eh? While I happen to be on the topic of vaccines and autism again today, here’s a surprising story: Andrew Wakefield, the doctor behind the scare over a potential link between the MMR jab and autism in children, is to face four charges relating to unprofessional conduct at the General […]
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that it’s been a while since I’ve written a substantive post on the fear mongering and bad science that are used by activists to support the claim that mercury in the thimerosal used as preservatives in vaccines is the cause of an “autism epidemic.” The closest I’ve […]