One of my interests in skepticism and critical thinking has been the similarity in the fallacious arguments, approach to data, and general behavior of those who are–to put it generously–not so skeptical or scientific in their approach to life. I’m talking about believers in the paranormal, quacks, anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy theory mavens, Holocaust deniers, creationists, […]
Category: Medicine
It’s one of those things that can’t be repeated too many times, but homeopathy is ridiculous. In fact, so ridiculous is homeopathy that I don’t usually write about it all that often. The reason is that, like homeopathic dilutions, a bit of skeptical blogging about homeopathy goes a long, long way (although I’m not sure […]
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Sometimes I feel a little bit guilty when I’m writing a post deconstructing anti-vaccine nonsense, “alternative medicine” quackery, or some other form of pseudoscience. This guilt usually derives when I end up picking a target that’s just too easy, a study that’s just so mind-numbingly, brain-meltingly awful that it’s not much of a challenge, even […]
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I detest the term “integrative medicine,” which is what promoters of “alternative medicine” pivoted to call “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) when they decided that they needed to lose the word “alternative” altogether. After all, no longer were CAM practitioners content to have their favorite quackery be “complementary” to real medicine because “complementary” implied a […]
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Whenever I refer to an anti-vaccine activist as an “anti-vaxer” or an “anti-vaccinationist,” I can always count on outraged and self-righteous denunciations from the the person who is being labeled as “anti-vaccine.” “Oh, no,” she’ll say, “I’m not ‘anti-vaccine.’ I’m pro-safe vaccine.” or “I’m a vaccine safety activist.” Of couse, over the years, I’ve learned […]
