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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

“Piltdown” medicine: Andrew Wakefield’s scientific fraud was worse than previously thought

Pity poor Andrew Wakefield. 2010 was a terrible year for him, and 2011 is starting out almost as bad. In February 2010, the General Medical Council in the U.K. recommended that Wakefield be stripped of his license to practice medicine in the U.K. because of scientific misconduct related to his infamous 1998 case series published […]

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Biology Clinical trials Evolution Medicine Physics Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Is the “decline effect” really so mysterious? (revisited)

Back in December, I took issue with a highly irritating article by someone who normally should know better, Jonah Lehrer, entitled The Truth Wears Off: Is There Something Wrong With the Scientific Method?, so much so that I wrote one of my typical long-winded deconstructions of the article. One thing that irritated me was contained […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The annals of “I’m not anti-vaccine,” part 4 (End of 2010 edition)

Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. I realize I say these things again and again and again, but they bear repeating because together they are a message that needs to be spread in as clear and unambiguous a form as possible. First, whenever you hear someone say, “I’m not […]

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History Medicine

The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt

It’s the week between Christmas and New Years, and, oddly enough, I’m feeling exceptionally lazy. For one thing, it’s a slow “news” time; nothing much is happening to blog about, at least nothing that’s motivated me to rouse myself from my declining food-induced coma to lay down some not-so-Respectful Insolence today. For another thing, I’m […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

I love the smell of irony in the morning. It smells like…schadenfreude

This being Christmas Eve and all, I hadn’t planned on blogging. However, sometimes things happen that demand a change in plans. Consequently, although I don’t plan on doing one of my usual logorrheic treatments of this issue, I do plan on mentioning something, because sometimes schadenfreude is a most excellent Christmas gift. Remember Dr. Rolando […]