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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Relying on prayer instead of medicine

This happened last week when I was feeling under the weather, and somehow I never got around to it. Fortunately, however, I’ve learned that there may indeed by justice in the case of Madeline Neuman, the 11-year-old child whose parents let her die of diabetic ketoacidosis. This story was widely reported thusly: “We just believe […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Selling homeopathy to pediatricians

I’ve never been able to figure out how anyone who claims to be devoted to science and scientific medicine can take homeopathy the least bit seriously. None of it makes any sense scientifically. Its basic principal of the “Law of Similars” has far more basis in the concepts of sympathetic magic than anything that science […]

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Biology Evolution Humor Religion Science

Richard Dawkins and the Age of the Machine

Hilarious, particularly “big-pimpin’” Daddy Dennett: I can’t make up my mind if it’s meant to skewer Dawkins or whether it’s meant ironically as a way of making fun of ID creationists and how they view Dawkins…

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

Vox Day: Mindlessly parroting antivaccination myths again

I tell ya, I get sick for a few days, and the antivaccination cranks come out of the woodwork. This time around, it’s über-crank Vox Day entering the fray (or, as I like to call him Vox “hey, it worked for Hitler” Day). We’ve seen him in action before. Be it using the example of […]

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Anti-Semitism Biology Entertainment/culture History Holocaust Intelligent design/creationism Movies Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The Dawkins-Myers incident: Sometimes it’s necessary to break the frame

I really didn’t want to get involved with the whole “framing” debate again. For whatever reason (and they are reasons that I’ve failed to understand), the very mention of the word seems to set certain members of the ScienceBlogs collective into rabid fits of vicious invective that leave rational discourse behind. And, yes, I know […]