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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Someone didn’t nail the coffin shut: Andrew Wakefield returns to the public eye

He’s baa-aack. You knew he couldn’t stay gone for long, I’m sure. He’s just like the zombie who rises again just as the hero turns his back, thinking the zombie dead, or the blond terrorist in Die Hard who appeared to have met his end hanging from a chain only to appear later in the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

The intellectual dishonesty of the “vaccines didn’t save us” gambit

If there’s one thing about the anti-vaccine movement I’ve learned over the last five or so years, it’s that it’s virtually completely immune to evidence, science, and reason. No matter how much evidence is arrayed against it, it always finds a way to spin, distort, or misrepresent it to combat the evidence. Not that this […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Entertainment/culture History Humor Medicine Movies World War II

Utter defeat and devastation at the hands of science

As far as silly Internet memes go, given my interest in World War II history, I have a weakness for Downfall parodies, which have grown up on YouTube like kudzu over the last couple of years. I also thought it was only a matter of time before someone did something like this and wondered why […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Evolution Medicine Physics Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Hostility towards scientific consensus: A sign of a crank

It has often been written on this blog and elsewhere that the mark of a true crank is hatred of the scientific consensus, be it consensus regarding the theory of evolution, the science that says homeopathy is impossible, anthropogenic global warming; various areas of science-based medicine; or the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Perhaps the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Quackery

2010: Another bad year for the anti-vaccine movement, as the Special Masters rule

Perhaps you’ve heard of the case of Poul Thorsen. Perhaps not. Either way, that anti-vaccine movement was making a huge deal over this Danish psychiatrist and researcher for two reasons. First, he has become embroiled in some sort of scandal involving research funds at his former place of employment, Aarhus University, leading the ever-hyperbolic Robert […]