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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

How about a real challenge for science communication?

Three days ago, ScienceBlogs did something it hasn’t done before. ScienceBloggers were given screener DVDs of a new movie by one of our own, Randy Olson of Shifting Baselines. The movie was Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, and the idea was to get as many of us as possible to review the movie and post […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

A ghoul descends upon the corpse of Tony Snow

I was contemplating how to get back into the swing of things as far as getting the blogging juices flowing again after the unfortunate events of the last few days, given how much my last post drained me. I suppose I could have dived into the infamous PZ versus the cracker incident, but, quite frankly, […]

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Announcements Cancer Friday Woo Medicine Personal Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo will be on hiatus for a while

It’s been a week now since my wife and I learned that our beloved dog, whom we’ve had for eight years, had terminal cancer. At the time I was so sad and down that I just couldn’t even imagine getting myself into the appropriately light-hearted frame of mind that I try to maintain. In the […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

When faith healers attack

While I’m taking some time to rag on TV news for its ludicrously credulous reporting of various “alternative” medicine claims, take a gander at this puff piece on a faith healer. Where’s James Randi when you need him? True, the story mentioned that not one of this faith healer’s “healings” could be independently verified with […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Medical ethics, children, and chelation therapy for autism

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. J.B. Handley, that bull-in-a-china-shop general in the mercury militia who detests me intensely, is about as ignorant as they come when it comes to science and clinical trials. Yesterday, he provided yet more evidence of his cluelessness in his latest piece posted to that repository for […]