The University of Northern Iowa is hosting a conference on facilitated communication, despite multiple warnings from academics that it’s quackery and overwhelming evidence that it is the “facilitators” who are actually producing the claimed “communication” from nonverbal people and a history of producing false cases of child abuse. Why is UNI being so dangerously irresponsible?
Parents Magazine published an article in which it listed what various celebrity moms think of vaccines. Unfortunately, it was an example of false equivalence. Indeed, it was one of the worst examples of false equivalence I’ve ever seen.
Almost alone among celebrities, Stephen Colbert used to ruthlessly (and justifiably) mock Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand Goop on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. So eyebrows were raised (at least mine were) when it was learned that Paltrow would be a guest on The Late Show. During a bout of insomnia last night I saw the episode and had time to write about it. Her appearance was worse than I expected, a veritable puff piece promoting her her quackiest In Goop Health, where a featured speaker is a rabidly antivaccine doctor named Kelly Brogan.
Rachel Bredow is antivaccine and doesn’t want her children vaccinated. Her ex-husband disagrees. When Ms. Bredow violated a court order to vaccinate her child, she was thrown into jail for contempt of court. Unfortunately, our local media have not exactly covered themselves in glory covering this story.
When I first heard that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President, was scheduled to appear on The Dr. Oz Show, my first thought was, basically, “Of course he is. What took him so long?” After all, it’s a crank pairing made in heaven. Given that, I considered it my skeptical blogging duty at least […]
