Today, I’m winging my way to sunny Las Vegas. Yes, in the middle of summer, when southern Nevada’s weather is most like an oven, I will be there. The reason? I’ll be doing a workshop and a panel with fellow supporters of science-based medicine at The Amazing Meeting. I don’t know how many of my […]
Category: Skepticism/critical thinking
Over the years I’ve been studying science versus pseudoscience, medicine vs. quackery, reason versus crankery, I’ve noticed one thing. The cranks, pseudoscientists, and quacks of the world have a hard time dealing with legitimate criticism. Now, I know I sometimes get a bit—shall we say?—frisky with my criticisms. OK, obnoxious. I have, however, mellowed considerably […]
Happy 4th of July! I’m taking the day off, largely to indulge my patriotic duty to laugh at things like Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie (something all patriotic red-blooded Americans should be doing), but more importantly to work on a manuscript and especially to get ready for The Amazing Meeting. If you’re going to be there, […]
If there’s one thing that antivaccine activists share in common, it’s the passionate (and as yet unproven) belief that “something” out there in the environment caused the “autism epidemic.” Usually, that “something” thought to be vaccines, but with the utter failure of the vaccine-autism hypothesis to the point where it is considered soundly refuted, antivaccinationists […]
If this looks a bit familiar to some of you, let’s just say that it’s grant crunch time again. This should be over after today. I hope. In the meantime, one of the difficult things about science-based medicine is determining what is and isn’t quackery. While it is quite obvious that modalities such as homeopathy, […]