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Blogging

Conscientious apathetic objection

Apparently, among some circles today is some sort of holiday. Its virus has apparently infected some of my fellow ScienceBloggers. I do not understand this holiday. I never really have. I tend to doubt that I ever will. Consequently, there’ll be no “arrrrr” here today, nor, most probably, on any future September 19. Consider me […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Can it be real? An FTC sweep goes after cancer quacks

As a cancer surgeon, I maintain a particularly intense contempt for peddlers of cancer quackery. Although I’ve been fortunate enough not to have had to see the end results of it more than a handful of times in my career, women with bleeding, stinking, fungating tumors with widespread metastases that could have been treated if […]

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Biology Religion Science

Yep, that about sums it up

This one’s been floating around the intertubes, at least those parts of the intertubes I frequent, for several days now at least. But it’s so good that I just can’t resist posting it myself. I had no idea John Cleese had a video podcast…

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Viruses are “molecular acids”?

I feel a bit bad this week. You see, since Tuesday I’ve been pretty much wallowing in some of the most outrageous woo, antiscience, and abuses of logic and reason I’ve ever come across, courtesy of the merry band of clueless antivaccinationists over at Age of Autism. I had thought that I should try to […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Chelation study for autism tossed on the dustbin

Well, well, well, well. Sometimes science and ethics do win out after all: CHICAGO (AP) — A government agency has dropped plans for a study of a controversial treatment for autism that critics had called an unethical experiment on children. The National Institute of Mental Health said in a statement Wednesday that the study of […]