Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

"Forced" to be an antivaccinationist?

Every so often there are articles or posts about which I want to blog that, for whatever reason, I don’t get around to. I’ve alluded before to my observation that blogging tends to be a “feast or famine” sort of activity. Sometimes, there isn’t a lot going on, and, if there’s one thing I’ve failed […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine

Better late than never: The Dunning-Kruger effect meets an incompetent anti-vaccine “analysis”

It never ceases to amaze me just how ignorant of very basic principles of science anti-vaccine activists often are. I mean, seriously. Every time they try to post something, whether they know it or not, they end up making themselves look so very, very stupid–or at least ignorant. The Dunning-Kruger effect takes over, and people […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

A black hole of antivaccine misinformation

Every so often, I come across a bit of antivaccine idiocy that’s so amazingly idiotic, such a–shall we say?–target-rich environment that it’s catnip to a cat. I just can’t resist it, even when there are other topics and subjects out there that have backed up over the last few days and I want to cover. […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Medicine Politics Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Politics versus science

I’ve always been reluctant to attribute antiscientific attitudes to one political persuasion or another–and justly so, or so I thought. While it’s true that antiscience on the right is definitely more prominent these days, with the Republican candidates conducting virtual seminars on how to deny established science. Evolution? They don’t believe in it because, apparently, […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Tactics and tropes of the antivaccine movement

I’ve been an observer and student of the antivaccine movement for nearly a decade now, although my intensive education began almost seven years ago, in early 2005, not long after I started blogging. It was then that I first encountered several “luminaries” of the antivaccine movement both throughout the blogosphere and sometimes even commenting on […]