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Announcements

It’s almost here: The 95th Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle!

It’s almost here yet again. (Man, how time flies!) This Thursday (September 11), longtime skeptic extraordinaire Robert Carroll, the man behind the indispensable Skeptic’s Dictionary, will be hosting the 95th Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle at Skeptimedia. That’s a mere four days from now! I can’t wait to see what Bob cooks up for this […]

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Medicine Surgery

The way to a surgeons heart…

…is through his plush guts, as Liz Ditz tells me: I particularly like the plush pancreas, even though I haven’t done pancreatic surgery on a regular basis since the 1990s. I’m a little confused, though, about why the plush gallbladder is purple instead of green. Surgeons really, really hate to see purple gallbladders, because the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Humor Medicine

A perfect tool for the JABS contingent

I guess I’m just going to have to face it. I’m entering a period of lots of vaccine blogging again. After all, Jenny McCarthy’s book is coming out this month, and I’ve heard rumblings that she’s scheduled to be on the undisputed Queen of Woo Oprah Winfrey’s TV show later this month; so beware. Already […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Acupuncture and polycystic ovary disease: A depressing case of science by press release

I’ve railed on more than one occasion about how much I detest science by press release. For one thing, it bypasses the peer review process and reports results directly to the public, which to me is a strike against any study. Indeed, releasing results by press release or using a press release to tout a […]

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Humor Politics

A double standard?

As usual, when Jon Stewart nails it: My goodness! Two political posts in a row. I’d better watch myself, or I’ll become one of those dime-a-dozen political bloggers that I complain about. Not that I count this, given that it’s just a Daily Show video clip. Still, it’s so spot-on that I couldn’t resist. Don’t […]