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Medicine Paranormal Religion Skepticism/critical thinking

The rise of a new grief vampire

I don’t write about psychics that often. Most commonly, when I do, it’s about psychics making claims that could be construed as medical claims, such as when America’s Quack, Dr. Mehmet Oz brought psychic scammers like John Edward and the “Long Island Medium” Theresa Caputo, even going so far as to imply that psychics can […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Will 2016 be the year when the FDA and FTC finally crack down on homeopathy?

I like to say that homeopathy is The One Quackery To Rule Them All (although of late I’ve debated whether homeopathy or reiki is the most properly referred to as that). It’s a strange beast, homeopathy. Its two main “Laws” are so clearly pseudoscience that you’d think that no one could ever fall for something […]

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

Brian Martin again: Criticizing Judy Wilyman’s antivaccine thesis is suppression of dissent

One of the cool things about being a longtime blogger in the skeptical world with a reasonably high profile is that I’ve met, either virtually or in person at various skeptic conferences, a wide variety of people from all over the world. One place in particular that has a vibrant skeptic movement is, of course, […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Movies Music Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

You stay away from Ziggy Stardust and Severus Snape, Mike Adams!

I’ve been a big fan of David Bowie ever since high school. True, I didn’t appreciate his less mainstream stuff as intensely as I do now until I had been in college a couple of years, but it’s not an inaccurate to characterize the effect of David Bowie’s art on my life as significant. Basically, […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine History Medicine Politics Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Makayla Sault’s mother: Racism, trust, and science-based medicine

One of the recurring topics I write about is, of course, cancer quackery. It goes right back to the very beginning of this blog, to my very earliest posts more than 11 years ago. Over the years I’ve covered more cases than I can remember of patients relying on quackery instead of real medicine. In […]