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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The invasion of well-meaning quacks into West Africa continues apace, part three

I hope my U.S. readers have all had a happy Thanksgiving. Today has been known at least since the mid-1970s as Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. Whether it’s still true or not, given the relentless proliferation, progression, and metastasis—yes, the use of terms related to cancer is intentional—of holiday sales right […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Can you destroy a meter other than an irony meter?

I don’t think I mentioned this, but I’m on a bit of a staycation this week. I figured, what the heck? After coming home from Skepticon I could do with a little R&R. Of course, fool that I am, I still can’t resist blogging a bit. On the other hand, the day before Thanksgiving I […]

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

The invasion of well-meaning quacks into West Africa continues apace, part deux

I realize that I risk getting repetitive by writing about this again, but it’s a rich vein that just keeps on producing and producing. It also demonstrates that, for every tragedy as huge as the ongoing Ebola outbreak that has killed over 5,000 people in West Africa thus far, there always exist well-meaning people who […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Quackery

Evolutionary selection on alternative medicine

(Orac note: I was away at Skepticon over the weekend, where I gave a talk entitled The Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine. (When the talk’s up on YouTube, I’ll provide a link, of course.) Because of all the fun and travel delays I didn’t get a chance to turn my slides and notes into a […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Off to Skepticon…

As this goes live I’ll be heading to the airport, my purpose being to wing my way to Skepticon 7, where I’ll be speaking tomorrow on a little ditty I like to call The Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine. It’ll be fun, and I’m looking forward to it. However, in true Orac fashion, I haven’t […]