Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Quackery

2010: Another bad year for the anti-vaccine movement, as the Special Masters rule

Perhaps you’ve heard of the case of Poul Thorsen. Perhaps not. Either way, that anti-vaccine movement was making a huge deal over this Danish psychiatrist and researcher for two reasons. First, he has become embroiled in some sort of scandal involving research funds at his former place of employment, Aarhus University, leading the ever-hyperbolic Robert […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

While I’m crashing polls…

While I’m crashing idiotic Internet polls, I might as well see if I can send some tactical air support over to Steve Salzberg, who wrote an excellent blog post about the Autism Omnibus ruling that I just wrote about earlier today. Steve’s blog post is entitled Vaccine Court Ruling: Thimerosal Does Not Cause Autism, and […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

“Censorship.” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It’s rare that I encounter a bit of nonsense that allows me to deploy two of my favorite rhetorical devices. First, it lets me pull out one of my favorite clips from one of my favorite movies, in which the immortal line, “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” was first uttered. Second, it lets me repeat […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Evolution Medicine Physics Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Hostility towards scientific consensus: A sign of a crank

It has often been written on this blog and elsewhere that the mark of a true crank is hatred of the scientific consensus, be it consensus regarding the theory of evolution, the science that says homeopathy is impossible, anthropogenic global warming; various areas of science-based medicine; or the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Perhaps the […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Entertainment/culture History Humor Medicine Movies World War II

Utter defeat and devastation at the hands of science

As far as silly Internet memes go, given my interest in World War II history, I have a weakness for Downfall parodies, which have grown up on YouTube like kudzu over the last couple of years. I also thought it was only a matter of time before someone did something like this and wondered why […]