Tag: epigenetics

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

An attempt to “Null”-ify Wikipedia on science

Wikipedia

Love it or hate it, Wikipedia is a main go-to rough and ready source of information for millions of people. Although I’ve had my problems with Wikipedia and used to ask whether it could provide reliable information on medicine and, in particular, alternative medicine and vaccines, given that anyone can edit it, I now conclude that Wikipedia must be doing OK, at least in these areas. After all, some of the highest profile promoters of alternative and “integrative” medicine hate Wikipedia, to the point of attacking it and concocting conspiracy theories about it.

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Biology Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

Saunas and longevity: Another example of putting the preclinical cart before the horse

No, contrary to what Dr. Gottfried says, this will probably not make you live longer.

Dr. Sara Gottfried, MD, wants you to know she is a doctor. She also wants you to know that you can “reset” your hormones and genes with food and saunas. In the case of the saunas, she’s put the preclinical cart before the clinical horse and extrapolated animal and early molecular epidemiological data off of a cliff.

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Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Intelligent design/creationism Medicine News of the Weird Paranormal Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Deepak Chopra castigates Donald Trump for not being reality-based. Another irony meter explodes.

Irony meter
Dammit. Another quack blew up my irony meter. Again.

I’m sure that most of you watched the Presidential debate on Monday night, just as I did. Over the years, these debates have always always painful for me to watch, given the candidates’ tendency to answer the question they want to answer rather than the question actually answered; to find ways to spew prepackaged talking […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

I thought I’d seen it all: Epigenetic birth control

Epigenetics. As I’ve described before, to alternative medicine practitioners, epigenetics seems to mean something akin to what the word “quantum” means: Magic. I’ve covered, for example, the woo-filled stylings of Deepak Chopra invoking things like “quantum consciousness,” and seemingly for quite a few years the best way to slap a patina of “sciencey”-sounding credibility on […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

The quack view of preventing cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie, part 3

Angelina Jolie

I happen to be in Houston right now attending the Society of Surgical Oncology annual meeting. Sadly, I’m only about 12 miles away from the lair of everybody’s favorite faux clinical researcher and purveyor of a cancer cure that isn’t, Stanislaw Burzynski. Such is life. In any case, this conference is all about cancer and […]