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

Your Friday Dose of Woo: “Grounded” in woo

The other day, as is my wont every week, I was perusing my Folder of Woo, the folder on my computer in which I keep a bunch of URLs leading to many potential targets for Your Friday Dose of Woo, looking for this week’s victim. I had one all picked out, too, but for some […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Religion

Online prayer benefits breast cancer patients?

Online prayer benefits breast cancer patients? At least that’s what they were saying a couple of days ago on the Internets: NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Praying online in a support group may help women with breast cancer cope with the disease more effectively, a new study shows. Dr. Bret Shaw of the University of […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Quackery Religion

If only it were this simple…

Inspired by the story of the faith healer who claimed that Jesus cured her of a breast cancer she in fact never had and, it turned out, who also claimed that faith had healed her brother of a terminal cancer and covered up the fact that he was dying while promoting her book, here’s a […]

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Bioethics History Holocaust Medicine Religion Science World War II

Richard Dawkins’ tin ear regarding bioethics: The execution of Saddam Hussein as an “act of vandalism”

It is with a bit of trepidation that I write about this. The reason, for anyone who reads ScienceBlogs specifically or science blogs in general, should be obvious. Richard Dawkins is such a polarizing figure with a penchant for stirring things up with regards to the most deeply held beliefs of both the religious and […]

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Cancer Medicine

Cancer and “fate”

Last week, our Seed overlords published on the flagship an Agence France-Presse article about a survey in Britain whose results showed that large numbers of people believe that cancer is due to “fate” rather than risk factors that can be modified to decrease one’s risk of developing the disease: LONDON (AFP)–More than a quarter of […]