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Biology Cancer Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The complexity of cancer

About a week ago, there appeared a story in the New York Times about recent discoveries in cancer research written by George Johnson and entitled Cancer’s Secrets Come Into Sharper Focus. Overall, it was a better-than-average article for the lay press about recent discoveries in cancer research that go beyond just the cancer cell and […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Quackademic medicine invades Cancer

I don’t know if I should thank Peter Lipson or condemn him. What am I talking about? Yesterday, Peter sent me a brain-meltingly bad study in so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” that shows me just how bad a study can be and be accepted into what I used to consider a reasonably good journal. I […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The Yale Journal of Medicine & Law blows it big time on alternative medicine

It’s always frightening when lawyers delve into the realm of medicine. It’s even worse when pre-law students and political science majors do the same. Such was the thought running through my mind when I came across the most recent issue of the Yale Journal of Medicine & Law. The result is what I would most […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine

Better late than never: The Dunning-Kruger effect meets an incompetent anti-vaccine “analysis”

It never ceases to amaze me just how ignorant of very basic principles of science anti-vaccine activists often are. I mean, seriously. Every time they try to post something, whether they know it or not, they end up making themselves look so very, very stupid–or at least ignorant. The Dunning-Kruger effect takes over, and people […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

“Integrative medicine” further evolves into “evidence-based complementary medicine.” Nothing changes

One of these days I’m going to end up getting myself in trouble. The reason, as I’ve only half-joked before, is that, even though I’m not even 50 yet, I’m already feeling like a dinosaur when it comes to “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or, as it’s called more frequently now, “integrative medicine” (IM). These […]