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Biology Medicine Politics Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

How cute. Orac has been targeted by his first Change.org petition.

I had originally planned on writing about a different topic today, but, as is so often the case in blogging, something came up that caught my attention, much as the errant thought of a squirrel distracts Dug the Dog. Well, actually, I had to go to an evening meeting for work last night and by […]

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Medicine

“Dr. Bob” Sears: Perfecting the art of the antivaccine dog whistle

Oh, no, here we go again. In fact, before I get started, I feel obligated to show this clip, saying, just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in again: Yes, I know I’ve used this clip on multiple occasions before over years. However, sometimes it’s just so completely appropriate to how […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

15 complaints about pro-science skeptics from an antivaccine activist

Having recently discovered a veritable Library with Doctor Moon of antivaccine misinformation and quackery known as Modern Alternative Mama’s blog, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and YouTube channel, I couldn’t resist taking one more drought from the same well. It is, after all, almost Christmas, and truly, as far as the blog is concerned, the discovery […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Criticism of pseudoscience and quackery is not "hate speech"

I sense a new disturbance in the antivaccine force. I hadn’t planned on blogging about the antivaccine movement again, but I felt that I needed to do a follow up to yesterday’s (hopefully) amusing little takedown of the antivaccine stylings of new member of that group personification of the Dunning-Kruger effect and arrogance of ignorance, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Science Surgery

The false dichotomies of “integrative medicine”

A lot of medical specialties have throwaway newspapers/magazines that are supported by advertising and somehow mysteriously managed to show up for free in the mailboxes of their practitioners. In my case, I’ve found myself on the subscription list for such papers about oncology, but, given that I trained as a general surgeon. I’m Board-certified as […]