Categories
Autism

Well, that didn’t take long: The knives come out for Paul Shattuck

Yesterday, I wrote extensively about a new study by Paul Shattuck that seriously casts doubt upon one of the key claims of those arguing that mercury in childhood vaccines causes autism, namely the existence of an “autism epidemic.” These claims are nearly always based on rapidly rising numbers of children being classified as autistic for […]

Categories
Autism

Evidence against an “autism epidemic”

One of the key arguments by advocates claiming a link between mercury in childhood vaccines is that there is an “epidemic” of autism. They’ll claim that autism was unknown before the 1930’s, when thimerosal was first introduced into vaccines. (Never mind that there are plenty of descriptions of autism-like conditions dating from as far back […]

Categories
Autism Quackery

Prometheus on “armchair science”

A couple of weeks ago, I lambasted Mark and David Geier for their irresponsible proposal to treat autism by using Lupron to lower testosterone levels, in essence chemically castrating autistic children, because, they claimed, it would make the mercury that supposedly caused the autism in the first place “easier to excrete.” Naturally, Prometheus couldn’t resist […]

Categories
Evolution Intelligent design/creationism

Deconstructing Dembski mathematically

MarkCC is really making a name for himself pretty fast with Good Math, Bad Math, a blog dedicated to “shredding bad math and squashing the crackpots who espouse it.” (And to think that a post of mine had a small role in getting him going and promoting him in the blogosphere; it almost makes me […]

Categories
Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery

The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons: Medical “science” as dubious as it gets

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons appears to be a legitimate medical professional group. It’s not. It’s a far right wing group of doctors masquerading as a professional society. Its journal reflects that by being packed with pseudoscience and antivaccine misinformation.