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Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Straw men and projection: Tools of quacks and conspiracy theorists to deflect critical thinking

As hard as it is for me to believe sometimes, I’ve been at this blogging biz a long time–well over six years now. However, I’ve been engaged, in one form or another, in combatting pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and crankery online since the late 1990s. Although I try hard not to fall into the same cognitive traps […]

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Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Progress mixed with hype in personalized medicine

“Personalized medicine.” You’ve probably heard the term. It’s a bit of a buzzword these days and refers to a vision of future medicine in which therapies are much more tightly tailored to individual patients than they currently are. That’s not to say that as physicians we haven’t practiced personalized medicine before; certainly we have. However […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

The wonderfully Orwellian Free Speech About Science Act of 2011 (H.R. 1364)

“Health freedom.” It’s a battle cry frequently used by supporters of “alternative” medicine against what they perceive to be persecution by the medical and scientific establishment that uses the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and other federal agencies charged with regulating pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics, and medical devices in order to protect the […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

SB 31 versus “health freedom” in North Carolina

After having been away for four days, it always takes me a little time to get back into the swing of things when it comes to blogging. Actually, it takes some time to get back into the swing of things at work, too. Sometimes it takes starting on something not too difficult and then working […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Gobsmacked by germ theory denialism. Again.

People believe a lot of wacky things. Some of these things are merely amusingly wacky, while others are dangerously wacky. Among the most dangerously wacky of things that a large number of people believe in is the idea that germ theory is invalid. Perhaps a better way of putting it is that among the most […]