Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Humor Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Beyond butt reflexology

Egads! You remember my fun little post about a Sokal-type hoax perpetrated by John C. McLachlan, when he completely fooled the “scientific review” committee of a complementary and alternative medicine conference with a hilarious Sokal-inspired hoax in which he created, in essence, butt reflexology. I thought it was an amusing and fairly original bit of […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Elizabeth Edwards and Kim Tinkham: A tale of two victims of breast cancer

Two women died of breast cancer yesterday. One was named Kim Tinkham. One was named Elizabeth Edwards. In some ways, these women were similar. True, one was older than the other, but both of them died far sooner than they should have, one at age 53, the other at age 61. Both engaged in activism […]

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Cancer Medicine Quackery

A horrifying breast cancer “testimonial” for “holistic” treatment, finale

(NOTE: The videos of Robert O. Young’s interview with Kim Tinkham have been removed, as I predicted in this post that they would be. Fortunately, I downloaded copies before he managed to do that. Part 6 appears to be still there–for now.) (NOTE ADDED 12/7/2010: Kim Tinkham has died of what was almost certainly metastatic […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine

The Age of Autism counterattack against Skepchick Elyse begins

Remember Elyse? She’s one of the Skepchicks, and a couple of weeks ago she did a most excellent skeptical thing. She organized a campaign to complain to the theaters that had, according to the anti-vaccine propaganda group SafeMinds and the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism, accepted the advertisements, which SafeMinds were “framing” to be […]

Categories
Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Anti-fluoridation crankery? How quaintly 1960s! I only wish it weren’t on ScienceBlogs

No, no, no, no, no! I hate it when a fellow ScienceBlogger goes astray! Fortunately, it’s been a long time indeed since I felt obligated to administer a dose of Insolence, Respectful or otherwise, to a fellow ScienceBlogger. It’s been even longer (as in, I think, never) that I’ve ever seen one whose resource I […]