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Entertainment/culture Evolution Medicine Popular culture Quackery Science

Choprawoo returns, this time with help from Bruce Lipton

Remember Deepak Chopra? He’s the physician (yes, physician) whose grasp on real science is so tenuous and whose ability to abuse multiple scientific disciplines, ranging from quantum physics to astronomy to genetics to medicine, simultaneously in the service of woo is so amazing that a few years ago I once coined a term representing the […]

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Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Damn those microfascists demanding evidence-based medicine!

Orac note: Grant season is in full swing, and that’s what I spent my weekend doing: writing grants. Consequently, here’s a rerun from, hard as it is to believe, four and a half years ago. It’s the first appearance of one of the most hilarious “alt-med” attacks on science-based medicine I’ve ever seen, calling us […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Another reason why NCCAM can never be truly scientific

I’ve frequently been critical fo the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) for funding dubious studies of pseudoscience and, in essence, promoting unscientific quackademic medicine (is there any other kind?) by giving it the patina of seeming respectability. I can’t recall how many times I’ve seen promoters of woo justify their woo by […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Detoxifying fashionably

How many times have I read or heard from believers in “alternative” medicine that some disease or other is caused by “toxins”? I honestly can’t remember, but in alt-world, no matter what the disease or condition under discussion is, there’s a good chance that sooner or later it will be linked to “toxins.” It doesn’t […]

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Homeopathy Medicine Quackery Religion

Taking the “e” out of homeopathy

It’s been a rough week. No, it hasn’t been rough here on the blog; personally I think I’ve managed to serve up heaping’ helpings of the usual expected Insolence–and then some–if I do say so myself. Rather, it’s been a bit rough at the old job. Ah, well, it can’t all be sweetness and light. […]