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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The University of Wollongong issues a PhD in antivaccine pseudoscience

I remember my PhD thesis. In particular, I remember the years of work that went into it. I remember being grilled (with good, constructive intent) by my thesis committee a couple of times a year as I worked on it. I remember the many, many hours spend writing it. And, above all, I remember the […]

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Entertainment/culture Music

R.I.P., Mr. Bowie

I couldn’t believe it when I woke up this morning to the news that David Bowie had passed away. Because there had been so many celebrity death hoaxes, I started checking other news outlets. Not good. Then I checked the official David Bowie Facebook page and Twitter feed. Oh, no. No hoax: January 10 2016 […]

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Medicine Politics Science Skepticism/critical thinking

How the Michigan state government poisoned the children of Flint

This post will be different than my usual post. Let’s just say that it has to do with quackery of a different kind than I usually write about here. It’s about a public health disaster that was entirely preventable and had nothing to do with vaccines. It has to do with government malpractice on an […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

More acupuncture Tooth Fairy science as 2015 approaches its end

Several years ago, Harriet Hall coined a term that is most apt: Tooth fairy science. The term refers to clinical trials and basic science performed on fantasy. More specifically, it refers to doing research on a phenomenon before it has been scientifically established that the phenomenon exists. Harriet put it this way: You could measure […]

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Cancer Clinical trials History Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Vincent DeVita: We need more freedom to be mavericks. Orac: Not so much

One of my favorite television shows right now is The Knick, as I described before in a post about medical history. To give you an idea of how much I’m into The Knick, I’ll tell you that I signed up for Cinemax for three months just for that one show. (After its second season finale […]