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Antivaccine nonsense Biology Humor Medicine Science

Don’t worry about those giant intelligent crabs…

Yet another reason why I love The Onion: Because giant, highly intelligent, acid-spitting crabs pose no danger to society. Of course, certain antivaccine advocates seem to think that this parody has something to do with vaccines, which just goes to show how far down the rabbit hole they’ve gone when they think that a parody […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

Clinical trials: Where the rubber hits the road for science-based medicine

Until recently, most of my research was laboratory-based. It included cell culture, biochemical assays, molecular biology, and experiments using mouse tumor models. However, one of the reasons that I got both an MD and a PhD was so that I could ultimately test ideas for new treatments on patients and, if I’m good enough and […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Entertainment/culture Medicine Television

Ben Goldacre on how the media reports on vaccines and medicine

By way of badscience.net: Speak it, brother Ben! Oh, and don’t be too hard on your hairstyle and clothing in that one. I could totally picture you as an incarnation of The Doctor in that getup. That sweater vest does look a bit Peter Davison-ish, although the curly locks do rather echo Tom Baker.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Hero of the antivaccine movement Andrew Wakefield strikes back

The antivaccine counterattack against Brian Deer continues. As you recall, about a month ago British reporter Brian Deer published an exposé, a tour de force of investigative journalism that led him to discover that Andre Wakefield had not only had incredibly blatant undisclosed conflicts of interest (his having been in the pocket of trial lawyers […]

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Pareidolia Skepticism/critical thinking

Pareidolia parade 2008

I have to admit that I’ve always had a soft spot for pareidolia, that phenomenon wherein people see things that aren’t there because human brains are wired for pattern recognition. As a child (and even as an adult), I loved lazily looking up at the clouds and envisioning animals, objects, and people in the clouds. […]