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Autism Medicine Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Pesticide exposure during pregnancy increases autism risk in the child? Not so fast…

If there’s one thing that antivaccine activists share in common, it’s the passionate (and as yet unproven) belief that “something” out there in the environment caused the “autism epidemic.” Usually, that “something” thought to be vaccines, but with the utter failure of the vaccine-autism hypothesis to the point where it is considered soundly refuted, antivaccinationists […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

More hype than science: Ketogenic diets for cancer

If this looks a bit familiar to some of you, let’s just say that it’s grant crunch time again. This should be over after today. I hope. In the meantime, one of the difficult things about science-based medicine is determining what is and isn’t quackery. While it is quite obvious that modalities such as homeopathy, […]

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Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The Food Babe is to food as Jenny McCarthy is to vaccines

I’ll admit it: I’m a bit of a beer snob. I make no bones about it, I like my beer, but I also like it to be good beer, and, let’s face it, beer brewed by large industrial breweries seldom fits the bill. To me, most of the beer out being sold in the U.S., […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Politics Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

An astoundingly dumb bit of CAM apologia from thousands of miles away

One of the benefits of blogging is that it’s broadened my horizons. Although the vast majority of what I write about happens in my very own country, the United States, nonetheless I frequently learn about things happening in many other countries, some that I wouldn’t necessarily pay a lot of attention to. But when something […]

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Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Paranormal Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Deepak Chopra issues a hilarious “challenge” to James Randi over consciousness

Deepak Chopra isn’t very happy right now. In fact, he appears downright pissed off right now, particularly at skeptics, so much so that he’s issued a hilariously fatuous “challenge” to James Randi (a.k.a.) The Amazing Randi on You Tube entitled Deepak Chopra’s One Million Dollar Challenge to Skeptics: Yes, apparently with The Amazing Meeting (a.k.a. […]