Category: Critical Thinking
In which we are accused of “polarization-based medicine”
A little over a month ago, I wrote about how proponents of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), now more frequently called “integrative medicine,” go to great lengths to claim nonpharmacological treatments for, well, just about anything as somehow being CAM or “integrative.” The example I used was a systematic review article published by several of the bigwigs at that government font of...
Building a Case for CAM
[Editor’s note: Mark Crislip is taking a well deserved vacation from blogging, and James Thomas has kindly agreed to provide another guest post to fill the gaping need left in all of your lives. Enjoy!] According to the Orwellian-named National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, roughly 33% of adults aged 18-44 and about 37% aged 45-64 use some form of CAM....
Quackery: The 20 Million Dollar Duck
The publisher recently sent me a review copy of Quackery: The 20 Million Dollar Duck, by Tony Robertson. My first thought was “Do we really need another book on this subject? Don’t I know all this stuff already?” I was very pleasantly surprised. Robertson has ferreted out an impressive array of facts and details that I wasn’t aware of; and yes, we...
Statistics Done Wrong, And How To Do Better
Statistics is hard, often counterintuitive, and burdened with esoteric mathematical equations. Statistics classes can be boring and demanding; students might be tempted to call it “Sadistics.” Good statistics are essential to good research; unfortunately many scientists and even some statisticians are doing statistics wrong. Statistician Alex Reinhart has written a helpful book, Statistics Done Wrong: The Woefully Complete Guide, that every researcher...
Use of Dental Appliances in the Management of Tourette Syndrome
Editor’s note: This Science Based Medicine blog post is another collaborative effort between Grant Ritchey and Clay Jones. Not only have they previously co-authored an SBM post on fluoride, their partnership has recently expanded into other areas of science journalism. Since the departure of Dr. Jason Luchtefeld as co-host of The Prism Podcast, Clay has joined Grant as the new co-host. To...
Fooling Myself
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool. –Richard Feynman I like to think of myself as a rational person, but I’ve been fooled by my own experience again and again. I’ve made bad decisions and wasted time and money believing what I was seeing, instead of being objective and looking...
“Integrative” medicine versus “alternative” medicine
I’ve written a lot about the language issue with respect to alternative medicine. As I like to put it (at least in shortened form), first there was quackery. Quacks did not like that name at all, and thus was born alternative medicine. And the quacks did think it good—for a while. There was a problem, however. “Alternative” medicine implied (correctly, of course)...
Chiropractic- Ignoring the Precautionary Principle Since 1895
Bleh. I turned from a short trip to the city of angles with a bad man cold that just isn’t going away. Those who do primary care all tell me that whatever is going around lasts 2-3 weeks. Great. I am not sick enough to get out of work but I am not well enough to have any enthusiasm to do anything....
Functional medicine: The ultimate misnomer in the world of integrative medicine
Functional medicine. It sounds so...scientific and reasonable. It's anything but. In fact, functional medicine combines the worst features of conventional medicine with a heapin' helpin' of quackery.
About Herbs: an app to avoid
Medicine has an intellectual hierarchy. Supposedly the best and the brightest are in the academic medical centers and are the thought leaders in their field. Those of us lower in the hierarchy are well aware of some of the warts present on our betters, but I would expect those at the top would adhere to the highest intellectual and ethical standards. People...