Holy crap. I get up on this holiday morning, and what is the first thing that I see when I check out the ScienceBlogs most recent posts, but a bunch of posts on Pharyngula, Pure Pedantry, Dr. Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge, and Evolving Thoughts, The Scientific Indian, and Afarensis? Steve Irwin (a.k.a. the Crocodile Hunter) […]
Author: Orac
Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.
That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)
DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.
To contact Orac: [email protected]
A Spinal Tap moment…
I don’t know why, but yesterday I was thinking about Spinal Tap. It’s a hilarious movie that I haven’t seen in a while, and I’ve wanted to own the DVD for a while now. Somehow, this thought reminded me of something. Something about the blog. Something that, in my absence and now my return from […]
John Wilkins over at Evolving Thoughts has posted an excellent brief summary of the history of the eugenics movement. In the process, he makes a strong argument that it was genetics far more than evolution that influenced eugenecists and that the entire eugenics movement was based on the concept that evolution was being thwarted by […]
This time, the Virgin Mary is on a tree: LOCKPORT — A Harvey Street woman claimed on Wednesday that she heard the voice of the Virgin Mary and has seen visions of the Mother of God in the trimmed branches of a maple tree in front of her house. Antonia “Toni” Filipertis, 84, a devout […]
While I was catching up on some of the stuff that’s happened while I was away, I noticed PZ Myer’s article about animal rights terrorists who intimidated a neurobiologist at UCLA named Dario Ringach to the point where he decided to stop doing research on primates. Then I saw that Jake and Bora also weighed […]
