Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The British Chiropractic Association: Beware the Spinal Trap

A while back, I wrote about the grievous miscarriage of justice that occurred to Simon Singh in the form of a ruling against him in the libel suit brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association. Suffice it to say, that the BCA is using the U.K.’s exceedingly plaintiff-friendly libel laws to silence legitimate criticism […]

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

Senator Tom Harkin’s and Representative Darrell Issa’s war on medical science

In discussions of that bastion of what Harriet Hall (a.k.a. The SkepDoc) likes to call “tooth fairy science,” where sometimes rigorous science, sometimes not, is applied to the study of hypotheses that are utterly implausible and incredible from a basic science standpoint (such as homeopathy or reiki), the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking Television

Bill Maher and “anti-science”

Last week, I expressed my surprise and dismay that the Atheist Alliance International chose Bill Maher for the Richard Dawkins Award. I was dismayed because Maher has championed pseudoscience, including dangerous antivaccine nonsense, germ theory denialism complete with repeating myths about Louis Pasteur supposedly recanting on his deathbed, a href=”http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/12/bill-maher-anti-vax-wingnut.html”>hostility towards “Western medicine” and an […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Reader e-mail: Nothing like a little intelligent criticism to start my day

While I’m holed up in my Sanctum Sanctorum grinding out prose that I hope will keep my lab funded for another three years, I’m going to fall back on a lazy blogging trick to keep the posts flowing for one more day, namely the obnoxious reader e-mail. (Don’t worry, there’ll be new insolence tomorrow.) This […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Paw-erful woo for paw-erful pets

It’s been a pretty good week on the ol’ blog here, with lots of good material to draw from, finishing up yesterday with my expression of disdain for the choice of Bill Maher for the Richard Dawkins Award. I expected some blowback for my criticism, and I got some. However, I was surprised at how […]