"A statement of fact cannot be insolent." The miscellaneous ramblings of a surgeon/scientist on medicine, quackery, science, pseudoscience, history, and pseudohistory (and anything else that interests him)
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One reason I (and most people involved in cancer research) don't like the frequently used term "cure for cancer." The reason is simple. Embedded within this term is the assumption that cancer is...
I'm a bit envious of Dawn Crawford. Why am I envious? She has a badge of honor I have yet to obtain.
Jenny McCarthy has blocked her on Twitter.
Darn. I'm going to have to see if I can...
One of the claims of the anti-vaccine movement that most irks me is that their actions do not risk harm to anyone other than their own unvaccinated children. Given that vaccination against many...
About a year ago in Wisconsin, an 11-year-old girl named Madeleine Neumann died of diabetic ketoacidosis thanks of the irrational religious beliefs of her parents, who prayed for her but did not...
I know I've been writing a lot about the Daniel Hauser case, and forgive me if I may be beating a dead horse, but cases like these reprsent supreme "teachable" moments that don't come along that...
It's time for another installment of that venerable (gasp!) blog carnival of skepticism, science, and critical thinking, The Skeptics' Circle. This time, it's the 124th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, and it's finally landed, late but still brimming...
A lesson that's worth learning. Of course, I only wish people ignored vaccine denialists; unfortunately, enough people don't that vaccines are a frequent blog topic for me:
Read the comments on this post...
As I discussed in detail when I analyzed them, the new USPSTF recommendations for screening mammography for breast cancer have sparked a debate that has degenerated from a scientific and public policy debate into pure emotional rhetoric. When last I...
I knew when I first heard about them that the new United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations on breast cancer screening would be controversial. I tried to discuss these guidelines and the issues involved in a calm and...
"Early detection saves lives."
Remember how I started a post a year and a half ago saying just this? I did it because that is the default assumption and has been so for quite a while. It's an eminently reasonable-sounding concept that just makes...
