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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Science

How engaged should scientists be in policy?

I really hate this. I really hate having to take a friend to task, but he leaves me little choice. You see, I actually like Chris Mooney. Back in the day, I even even hoisted a pint with him at the Toledo Lounge in D.C., round about the time of the commencement of the whole […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine History Holocaust Humor Medicine Quackery World War II

Zombies: A perfect metaphor for Andrew Wakefield and his followers since his utter disgrace

Regular readers may have noticed something happening around ScienceBlogs. As PZ pointed out, a little malware somehow infiltrated the ScienceBlogs collective, and many of us appear to have turned into zombies. It’s a veritable Zombie Day, complete with illustrations by Joseph Hewitt, creator of Gearhead. Obviously, with anything having to do with zombies, there’s only […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

A more “fluid” discussion of the Human Genome Project

Remember Dr. David Katz? Fellow skeptic and supporter of science-based medicine Dr. Steve Novella is unfortunate to be saddle with Dr. Katz on the same faculty as him at Yale. He achieved some notoriety a couple of years ago when at a Yale conference on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), he laid down this gem: […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

I know you are, but what am I?: Medical Voices’ woo-ful anti-vaccine whine

“I know you are, but what am I?” That’s basically the child’s version of a familiar logical fallacy known as the tu quoque, which basically means, “You, too!” It’s a very simple and simplistic logical fallacy that tries to argue that, if one’s trait shares one or more of the same bad traits of the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Questions requested for an anti-vaxer

While the drama continues and interesting developments occur, I’ve found that I actually don’t mind taking a couple of days off. Don’t worry. Blogging’s a bug that’s gotten into me and, like PZ, I’ll probably start twitching and seizing if I go too long without producing one of my patented logorrheic screeds of pure insolence, […]