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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery Religion

Alternative medicine as religion

Over the years, I’ve often likened non-science-based medical belief systems to religion. It’s not a hard argument to make. Religion involves believing in things that can’t be proven scientifically; indeed, religion makes a virtue out of ignoring the evidence and accepting various beliefs on faith alone. Similarly, alternative medicine frequently tells you that you have […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Religion Skepticism/critical thinking

Quoth Vox Day: Vaccines are killing babies! Retorts Orac: Vox’s arguments are killing neurons!

Theodore Beale, a.k.a. Vox Day, thinks he’s discovered that vaccines increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. They do not, and his arguments are so painful that your neurons may apoptose just hearing it.

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Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Quackery Religion

Reiki versus dogs just being dogs

Let me start right here by repeating yet again my oft-repeated assessment of reiki. Reiki is clearly nothing more than faith healing that substitutes Eastern mysticism for Christianity. Think of it this way. In faith healing, the faith healer claims to channel the healing power of God into the person being healed. In reiki, the […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

“Eat the Sun”: Sun-worshiping fantasy versus reality

Almost exactly a year ago, I came across a bit of woo so incredible, so spectacularly stupid and unbelievable, that I dedicated one of the last segments I’ve done in a long time of Your Friday Dose of Woo to it. Basically, it was about a movie called Eat the Sun, which described a bunch […]

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Cancer Medicine Religion

Another case of chemotherapy refusal for pediatric cancer

As sometimes happens, last week I let myself get tied up writing multiple posts about a single topic, namely the promotion of an antivaccine movie by a school board president in California, apparently as part of an attempt to influence California legislators who are considering a law that will make philosophical exemptions for school vaccine […]