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]
Science and history deniers love to misapply legal principles to arguments over scientific and historical evidence, for example, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in all things). It’s a useful principle to apply to witness testimony in a court, but it’s not how evidence is evaluated in science and history.
Last week, I wrote about two teens (Katie Wernecke and Abraham Cherrix) who, sadly, had been duped by the siren call of quackery and were, with the acquiescence of their parents, on the road to extinction. It figures that more information would become available over the weekend (after I had written my article) about both […]
Doing the random Technorati search, I happened to come across a disturbing statement. Indeed, our intrepid colon cleanser was not pleased when I forwarded this to him: Eneman, real last name, Fleet, is an illegal immigrant worker. We know that there are dirty jobs to be done in the world, and the proper ones to […]
Compared to the usual topics discussed during the week, I normally like to try to keep the weekend fare on the ol’ blog relatively light and fluffy (mainly because traffic usually falls around 50% and I like to post my serious material on skepticism and science on days when I tend to have the most […]
A very unique date in history is fast approaching. Indeed, if you’re Christian and religious, you probably already know what it is. 6/6/06. The Date of the Beast. (OK, you have to ignore the “0” to get “666,” the Number of the Beast, but everyone seems to be paying little attention to that little detail). […]
