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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

When “gut feelings” about science attack, or: Oh, no! Histidine and polysorbate-80 are going to destroy our girls!

Some people should keep their “gut feelings” to themselves. You know the type: People who have no knowledge about a topic or, even worse, just enough knowledge to sound as if they have a clue about it to people who don’t have a clue but who are at the same time easily spotted as utterly […]

Categories
Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The revenge of “microfascism”: PoMo strikes medicine again

I hate postmodernism. Well, not exactly postmodernism per se, but I hate it when pseudoscientists and purveyors of dubious “alternative” medicine treatments invoke bizarre postmodernist-sounding arguments to attack science or, in the case of medicine, science- and evidence-based medicine. Usually these attacks involve a claim that science is nothing more than one other “narrative” among […]

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Cancer Medicine Politics

John McCain a “dead man walking”? Not so fast

Less than a month ago, I got a bit perturbed by some vile rhetoric written by a left-wing blogger named Matt Stoller, who referred to John McCain as a “crazy, cancer-ridden dishonest madman.” As you recall, I administered a bit of not-so-Respectful Insolence to him. It wasn’t so much because I like John McCain. Indeed, […]

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Humor Politics

Sarah Palin: Tina Fey nails it again

At least when it comes to politics, Saturday Night Live has been pretty funny so far this season: The resemblance is uncanny. I have to admit, also, that SNL did a pretty good job parodying the first Presidential debate, too, given that the writers and comics had only a little more than 24 hours after […]

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Humor Politics

More lazy weekend video

I’m still buried working on next week’s talk and my part of the center grant. Fortunately, Saturday Night Live provides some temporary entertainment until I can get out from under the pile. Once again Tina Fey nails it, especially the “maverick” part. While watching the debate last week, by the end I thought I was […]