Tag: Skeptical Raptor

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Paul Thacker amplifies antivaccine messaging by attacking science communicators

Paul Thacker at work
Paul Thacker at work writing another entry for his Substack.

In his eagerness to attack skeptics for what, in the wake of reports of blood clots associated with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, he sees as “vaccine cheerleading,” anti-GMO hack Paul Thacker has inadvertently amplified antivaccine messaging. Or was it inadvertent?

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Computers and social media Medicine Quackery

Once again, Facebook reporting algorithms facilitate harassment of pro-science advocates by antivaccine cranks

Nearly eleven years ago, back in April 2005, I opened my work e-mail (I was working at a different university back then) and saw an e-mail from someone whose name I had seen before, one Mr. William P. O’Neill. Opening the e-mail, I was shocked to find an e-mail to Orac; worse, the e-mail was […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

I am Spartacus! or: Orac applies some Insolence to a rather confused antivaccine blogger

Although I'm flattered that an antiavccine blogger seems to think Orac and Skeptical Raptor are one in the same, I assure you they are not. Blinky lights and green scales do not go well together. Yes, I know velociraptors probably had feathers, but go with the joke please. It's so much cooler that way. In any event, for those of you not familiar with Orac's namesake, he's the clear box that everyone's standing around on the right, a blinky box that was the most powerful computer in the universe in a 1970s British SF show.

I’ve used my current pseudonym since at least the late 1990s, first on Usenet and then on the first incarnation of this blog. Not surprisingly in retrospect (although it surprised me at the time), people who didn’t like me began trying back in the 1990s to “unmask” me. It began with Holocaust deniers. No, I’m […]