Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Earn CME credits for attending an autism quackfest!

Well, it snuck up on me again, the way it has a tendency to do every year. Maybe it’s because Memorial Day is so early this year. Maybe it’s because there’s just so much work to do this week given the multiple grant deadlines. Whatever the case, it just dawned on my last night that […]

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

Alternative medicine as religion, again

Over the years, I’ve often likened alternative medicine to a religion—or even a cult. Basically, it requires belief in a set of precepts that have at best little and more commonly no evidence to support them that is often accompanied by magical thinking that a god-substitute, be it nature, one’s body, or, of course, the […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

A lesson about correlation and causation

Besides yesterday being Mothers’ Day yesterday, I had a lot of grant stuff to do, which means that this one will be a quickie. On Saturday, a reader sent me a link to one of the most useful sites I’ve ever encountered. I realize that over the weekend it’s spread around the skeptical blogosphere like […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Mike Adams issues a challenge over vaccines to Neil deGrasse Tyson, and hilarity ensues

I’m sure that a lot of you, like me, are watching the rebooted version of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, with Neil deGrasse Tyson taking over the hosting duties originally handled so ably over 30 years ago by Carl Sagan. I definitely enjoyed the first episode and am looking forward to additional episodes. The only thing […]

Categories
Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

On undisclosed conflicts of interest in medicine, science, and skepticism

I’ve written about conflicts of interest (COIs) a lot over the years. COIs are important in medicine and science because, as much as physicians and scientists like to think that they are immune to such things, we are as human as anyone else. We are just as prone to unconsciously (or consciously) being influenced by […]