Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Quackery Surgery

The homeopathic treatment of burns: The ultimate in valuing symptomatic treatment over all else

I had been planning on either discussing a study or analyzing another cancer cure testimonial, but things have been (mostly) too serious around the ol’ blog the last few days. What with depressing posts about the return of whooping cough thanks to antivaccine idiocy, more evidence that Andrew Wakefield is a despicable human being, and […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Does thinking make it so?

Last week, I wrote about how advocates of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integtrative medicine” (IM), having failed to demonstrate efficacy for the vast majority of the unscientific, anti-scientific, and/or pseudosciencitific treatment modalities, many based on prescientific concepts of how human physiology and disease work, have started trying to co-opt placebo effects as their […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Naturopathy Surgery

Naturopaths vs. “stayin’ alive”

For all the good things about my life there are, there is one bad thing, and that was that I was born so that I reached high school age right at the height of the disco era. At least, that’s the way I viewed it at the time because at the time, like many teenaged […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The antivaccine crankosphere rallies around its hero, and Brian Deer strikes back

When I wrote last week about the latest legal thuggery against an opponent of antivaccine pseudoscience, this time by hero of the antivaccine movement, who sued investigative reporter Brian Deer for defamation, there was one thing about the case that confused me, one aspect that didn’t add up to me. Part of it was why […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Physics Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

A profound misunderstanding of the significance of cranks in science

I’ve spent a lot of time over the years looking at cranks, examining crank science (i.e., pseudoscience), and trying to figure out how to inoculate people against crankery. Because I’m a physician, I tend to do it mostly in the realm of medicine by critically examining “alternative” medical claims and discussing the scientific basis of […]