Categories
Evolution Religion Science

Gideon’s backlash (a.k.a. Darwin’s revenge)

Here’s a great idea: I was staying in a hotel in New York earlier this year, and I noticed that as well as the usual Gideon’s bible, there was also a copy of the Quran. So that got me thinking – why limit the principle to religious books, why not get some science in there […]

Categories
Medicine Politics

A travesty of justice in Libya

I wish I could say that this was unexpected, but, given the politics and backwardness of Libya, it wasn’t. The Tripoli Six (a. k. a. the Benghazi Six) have been found guilty by a kangaroo court in Libya: A Libyan court has sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for knowingly infecting […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

FAQ: Woo versus non-woo

I don’t think I could have done it much better, if at all. Dr. R.W. presents, in FAQ-form, a primer on the difference between woo and conventional medicine, even conventional modalities that are weakly grounded in evidence. A couple of examples: Many of mainstream medicine’s conventional treatments are not evidence based. Aren’t they a form […]

Categories
Announcements Blogging

Relegated to the corner of ScienceBlogs

The latest Seed Magazine extravaganza happens to include a “class photo” of all of us ScienceBloggers. Orac should be easy to spot. Maybe I should have gone with the cliche of a masked surgeon, but I’ve got to be true to my alter ego. (No, not that alter ego.) I guess that’s just the lot […]

Categories
Bioethics Medicine Religion

Separating doctoring from doctrine

You may recall how I’ve criticized the infiltration of woo into medical school and medical education in general. Such an infiltration threatens the scientific basis behind the hard-won success of so much of modern medicine over the last century. Unfortunately, woo isn’t the only threat to scientific medicine. Now, there is a growing movement that […]