Category: Book & movie reviews
Philosophy Meets Medicine
Note: This was written as a book review for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and will be published in its Jan/Feb 2014 issue. ————– Medicine is chock-full of philosophy and doesn’t know it. Mario Bunge, a philosopher, physicist, and CSI (Center for Skeptical Inquiry) fellow, wants to bring philosophy and medicine together for mutual benefit. He has written a book full of insight and wisdom, Medical Philosophy:...
Faith Healing: Religious Freedom vs. Child Protection
We have written a lot about people who reject science-based medicine and turn to complementary/alternative medicine (CAM), but what about people who reject the very idea of medical treatment? Faith healing is widely practiced by Christian Scientists, Pentecostalists, the Church of the First Born, the Followers of Christ, and myriad smaller sects. Many of these believers reject all medical treatment in favor...
Chiropractic Abuse: An Insider’s Lament
There is a new book critical of chiropractic: Chiropractic Abuse: An Insider’s Lament. The author, Preston Long, DC, PhD, is a chiropractor who says he made a big mistake when he chose chiropractic as a career. He has written an intriguing book explaining his mistake and the experiences that resulted from it during 3 decades as a chiropractor and a critic of...
Brainwashed: Neuroscience and Its Perversions
Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld have written a new book, Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience. Its purpose is not to critique neuroscience, but to expose and protest its mindless oversimplification, interpretive license, and premature application in the legal, commercial, clinical, and philosophical domains. The brain is a wondrous thing: “…the three pound universe between our ears has more connections than...
The facts of the alternative medicine industry
People have been living on earth for about 250,000 years. For the past 5,000 healers have been trying to heal the sick. For all but the past 200, they haven’t been very good at it. – Dr. Paul Offit Twenty years is a long time in medicine. I celebrated my 20th pharmacy class reunion last weekend. Of course reunions are time to...
What Doctors Feel
Doctors are often accused of being unfeeling technicians who treat their patients like cases of disease rather than people (think Dr. House). We were taught in medical school to remain detached, not get too close to patients, and not show our emotions. That attitude was epitomized in William Osler’s essay Aequanimitas. But doctors have feelings like anyone else, and no one is...
The Business of Baby and the Monkey Business of Margulis
A correspondent asked for my opinion of a new book by journalist Jennifer Margulis that is apparently getting a lot of attention in some circles: The Business of Baby: What Doctors Don’t Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Before Their Bottom Line. I got a copy from the library and read it....
Visiting a Victorian Duckpond
click to enlarge Ever heard of George Augustus Scott? Probably not. Although he was once touted as “Man of the Century,” he was actually a charlatan who sold electric hairbrushes. (No, an electric hairbrush isn’t a device that will brush your hair for you; it’s a hairbrush that supposedly produces a “permanent electric current” to cure everything from baldness to headaches.) He...
“Sense and nonsense” about alternative medicine in USA Today
Sometimes, between blogging, a demanding day (and night) job doing surgery and science, and everything else, I embarrass myself. Sure, sometimes I embarrass myself by saying something that, in retrospect, I wish I hadn’t. More often, I embarrass myself by letting things slide that I shouldn’t. For instance, when friends send me a prepublication copy of their books, I should damned well...
Progressive Mythology
In their book Science Left Behind: Feel-Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti-Scientific Left, Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell counter allegations of a Republican war on science by pointing out how political progressives are equally anti-science. According to Berezow and Campbell, progressives hold opinions that are not based on physical reality, and claim that their beliefs are based on science even when...