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Biology Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Overselling preclinical results

As part of my ongoing effort to make sure that I never run out of blogging material, I subscribe to a number of quack e-mail newsletters. In fact, sometimes I think I’ve probably overdone it. Every day, I get several notices and pleas from various wretched hives of scum and quackery, such as NaturalNews.com, Mercola.com, […]

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Biology Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Science

Epigenetics does not mean that thinking makes it so

You know, I really, really hate the way quacks abuse molecular biology. I know, I know. I’ve said it before, but certain quacks have a way of willfully misunderstanding the latest advances in genomics, molecular biology, and biology in general. Of course, this isn’t limited to just medicine, unfortunately. After all, we have Deepak Chopra […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery

Homeopathy and “plausibility bias” versus science

One of the things that distinguishes evidence-based medicine (EBM) and science-based medicine (SBM) is how the latter takes into account prior probability that a therapy is likely to work when considering clinical trials. My favorite example to demonstrate this difference, because it’s so stark and obvious, is homeopathy. Homeopathy, as regular readers of this blog […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Just what Dr. Egnor wanted for Christmas: Some not-so-Respectful Insolence!

It’s Christmas Eve. I know, I know, it’s all supposed to be Peace On Earth, Good Will Towards Men (and Women), and all that jazz. Really, that’s exactly what I had intended for today and tomorrow. Indeed, my plan was to do nothing more than a quickie post today and a maybe a couple of […]

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Clinical trials Medicine

Another reason why I’m leery of meta-analyses

The single most necessary task for a physician practicing science- and evidence-based medicine is the evaluation of the biomedical literature to extract from it just what science and the evidence support as the best medical therapy for a given situation. It is rare for the literature to be so clear on a topic that different […]