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Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

When a single quote tells you all you need to know about a critic’s reasoning ability

Last week, I gave everybody’s favorite creationist neurosurgeon, Dr. Michael Egnor, the gift everyone loves to read but not to receive: the gift of not-so-Respectful Insolence. Christmas or no Christmas, he did ask for it, and far be it from me, given my benevolent nature, not to respond to his plaintiff plea with a resounding […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The woo-meister supreme returns, and he’s brought his friends

Here we go again. You know, now that it’s 2009, I had hoped that one of the most irritating people alive would continue his blissful quiet. I’m referring, of course, to Deepak Chopra, that Indian physician who demonstrates that a medical training is no protection whatsoever against pseudoscientific and anti-scientific thinking. Indeed, Chopra goes far […]

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Anti-Semitism Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Holocaust denial Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking World War II

Bishop Richard Williamson, Holocaust denial, and the problem of “recantation” by cranks

Because of the fallout from the revelation by Brian Deer that very likely Andrew Wakefield, hero of the antivaccine movement but, alas for his worshipers, one of the most dishonest and incompetent scientists who ever lived, had almost certainly falsified data for his infamous 1998 Lancet paper that launched a decade-long anti-MMR hysteria that shows […]

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Biology Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking Surgery

200 years since Darwin’s birth, what about medicine?

Today is Darwin Day. But, more than that, it is a very special Darwin Day in that it is the 200th anniversary of the birth of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. This day is meant to celebrate not just the life, but especially the discoveries, of Charles Darwin. His theory of evolution by natural selection, is […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Quackery Religion

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Can somebody get me some frickin’ laser beams with my Reiki?

Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging, preventing the creation of fresh Insolence, at least Insolence of the quality that you’ve come to expect. This is one of those times. I happen to be sitting here in Palm Beach, Florida, but I’m not chilling at the beach or pool. Rather, I’m attending “leadership training.” […]