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The 102nd Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle: Evil Incarnate

‘Tis a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, I am happy that the 102nd Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle has landed over at Bing McGhandi’s place. Not only is it chock full of excellent skeptical blogging, but the story is amusing, as evidenced by this little taste: BM: Next, Orac from Respectful Insolence has sent […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Winning friends and influencing people the Handley way

You may have noticed that I’ve been laying off the antivaccination movement recently. Indeed, it’s been over two weeks since I last mentioned the topic, and then I only did so by briefly citing a post by Steve Novella. For this blog, aside from vacations, that has to be a record. Truth be told, periodically […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

When faith in “alternative medicine” endangers children…

When confronted with skeptics who refuse to stay silent in the face of quackery–I’m sorry, “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), a large proportion of which is unproven if not outright quackery–shruggies frequently ask, “What’s the harm?” I can reply that so many of these modalities are no more than elaborate placebos reinforced with magical thinking. […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Tong Ren: An unholy union of acupuncture and voodoo

After four years and five days of nearly continuous blogging about skepticism, quackery, science- and evidence-based medicine, and a variety of other topics, you’d think there wouldn’t be much that I haven’t seen before. Certainly, lately, I’ve been wondering lately if there was anything left that could surprise me or horrify me anymore, and jaded […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Taking woo in the military to a whole new level: Deploying acupuncturists to Iraq

Several months ago, I wrote a post about the experimentation with acupuncture by an Air Force physician, Col. Robert Niemtzow. In the post, I started with an admittedly exaggerated vignette–a story, if you will–of a soldier whose leg was shredded by a mortar in battle. When the medic came to treat his wounds and get […]