Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The Huffington Post adds another antivaccinationist to its roster

I’ve been very critical of The Huffington Post since shortly after its formation three years ago, when (I believe) I was the first blogger to notice a proliferation of antivaccination propaganda at the then brand new group blog. It is a situation that the HuffPo has maintained to the present day. Indeed, on that day […]

Categories
Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Saturday morning mailbagl: How could natural selection “do it” without some intelligence?

Orac gets e-mail. Most of it’s just brief notes with a link that someone thinks I should check out (and possibly blog about). Even though I occasionally make sarcastic remarks about being deluged with one story or other from time to time, I actually do appreciate those. Many have been the times when I didn’t […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Autism in the Presidential debate?

Was it just me, or did anyone else find it jarring when suddenly John McCain interjected special needs children and autism into the debate last night? As you may recall, a few months ago he was tripped up by the antivaccine fearmongers who think, despite an absence of scientifically compelling evidence supporting their view, that […]

Categories
Biology Medicine

Obesity and diet: The first law of thermodynamics doesn’t entirely apply?

Remember Sandy Szwarc of Junkfood Science? It’s been a long time since we’ve last encountered her. Indeed, it was last year when there developed a debate on whether her posts were suitable for the Skeptics’ Circle. At the time, I was conflicted. In many ways, Ms. Szwarc seemed to be a skeptic–at least, when it […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Framing vaccines, revisited: The “empathy” gambit

NOTE: This post, which is related to a discussion of Dr. Paul Offit’s Book Autism’s False Prophets, originally appeared over at The ScienceBlogs Book Club. However, now that the book club for this particular book has concluded, I am free to repost it here for those who may not have seen it and to archive […]