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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Yawn…another overhyped acupuncture study

Never let it be said that Orac doesn’t give the people what they want. Well, most of the time, anyway. What I’m referring to is a recent German study about acupuncture for low back pain that’s been making its way around the media. I had actually been planning on commenting about it yesterday, but Iranian […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Acupuncture and hot flashes in breast cancer patients: No effect

I used to be of the opinion that there might just be something to acupuncture. No, I never thought there was anything to the notion that acupuncture “works” by somehow rerouting the flow of a magical life force (qi) that no scientific instrument can detect and that no practitioner of acupuncture (or other practioners “healing […]

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

Creationists muscling in on my territory

Alright, now they’ve gone too far. I thought I’d seen every specious and fallacious argument and example that creationists could throw out there to annoy scientists and be gobbled up by the credulous, but I was wrong. They’re muscling in on my turf now! No, they’re not making fallacious arguments about how chemotherapy resistance says […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Would you like a liver flush with that colon cleanse?

I have to apologize for last week’s Dose of Woo. No, I’m not apologizing for the subject matter (the obsession that reigns supreme among some alties with “cleansing” one’s colon to “purge toxins” and achieve the super-regularity of several bowel movements a day). Rather, I’m sorry I didn’t point out just how disgusting one of […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Quackery

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Spiritually guided surgery

Let’s get one thing straight. There’s just no way on earth that I can imagine topping last week’s Your Friday Dose of Woo. I can only be as good as my source material lets me be (well, maybe a bit better), and Toby Alexander and his “DNA Activation” represented such unbelievably potent, bizarre, and concentrated […]