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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Quackery promotion zones?

I hate to write about that woo-meister supreme Mike Adams more than one time in a week. For one thing, his website, NaturalNews.com, is a font of pseudoscience and quackery rivaling the infamous Whale.to, which makes it powerfully seductive to go back to that well again and again for blogging material. Although taking on an […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Mike Adams’ 10 biggest lies about health care

It’s good to be home. True, while I was away for five days, first to NECSS and then to the AACR Meeting, mail piled up, and I had to go through it last night. Also, just for the heck of it, my wife and I went out to dinner at a local diner. Finally, to […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Too deliciously ironic for words: Gary Null hoist with his own petard

In the wake of FRONTLINE’s The Vaccine War, I was going to have a bit of fun with the reactions of the anti-vaccine fringe. After all, the spokescelebrity of the anti-vaccine movement, Jenny McCarthy, has posted yet another brain dead screed at–where else?–The Huffington Post. So has everybody’s favorite pediatrician to the stars and apologist […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Quoth Richard Dawkins: “I am proud to have presented the [AAI] award to Bill Maher”

It just so happens that I was up quite late last night doing–what else?–writing yet another grant application (well, two actually). Even though the grants aren’t due until Wednesday, Tuesday happens to be my operating room day, meaning I need to get this done and buried by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. In any case, […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Knowledge versus certainty in skepticism, medicine, and science

“I don’t want knowledge. I want certainty!” –David Bowie, from Law (Earthlings on Fire) If there’s one universal trait among humans, it seems to be an unquenchable thirst for certainty. This should come as no surprise to those committed to science and rational thinking because there is a profound conflict between our human desire for […]