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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Repeat after me: Enforcing medical and scientific standards is not “censorship”

I don’t mean to beat up on Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick. I really don’t. I realize I rather harshly criticized him yesterday for being so hostile to the concept of “denialism,” to the point where he characterized even the use of the term as a means of “suppressing” free speech. Normally, that criticism would have been […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Are one person’s iconoclastic views another person’s denialism?

I’ve had a lot of fun thus far this week expressing more than a bit of schadenfreude over Andrew Wakefield’s being ignominiously stripped of his medical license in the U.K. by the General Medical Council, not to mention pointing out the quackfest that is Autism One, I feel the need for a brief break from […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

A response is needed: Matt Lauer to interview Andrew Wakefield Monday morning

Andrew Wakefield’s back, and he’s sure trying to come back big. I knew when I last wrote about his utter humiliation and disrepute that he wouldn’t stay away for long. In fact, he stayed away longer than I thought–a whole three months. Unfortunately, though, he appears to be on a full media blitz to try […]

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Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

I’m not just “preaching to the converted”

Every so often, I hear the complaint from some readers, usually in the context of complaining about my posting style on issues I care a lot about, such as countering the anti-vaccine movement or pseudoscientific alt-med modalities, that I’m just “preaching to the converted” and not changing any minds. While there may be some element […]

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Biology Evolution Medicine Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Move over, Deepak, there’s a new woo-meister at HuffPo

Anyone who’s been reading this blog for any length of time longer than a few weeks knows what I think of Deepak Chopra. Indeed, he’s been a recurring topic here since the very beginning (just type his name into the search box for this blog if you don’t believe me). In fact, Chopra has “distinguished” […]