Category: Humor
Integrative Medicine is the Butt of a Sokal-Type Hoax
In 1996, Alan Sokal got a bogus paper published in the journal Social Text. It was a parody full of meaningless statements in the jargon of postmodern philosophy and cultural studies. The editors couldn’t tell the difference between Sokal’s nonsense and the usual articles they publish. Now a British professor of medical education, Dr. John McLachlan, has perpetrated a similar hoax on...
Nosodes Redux: “I hate those meeces to pieces!”
Life and medicine generate facts and experiences that require conceptual frameworks that aid in understanding. It is no good have a pile of facts if they cannot be understood within a broader understanding. The practice of Infectious Diseases, while certainly aided by understanding anatomy, physiology, microbiology, chemistry and the other sciences that form the core of medicine (referred to in Medical School...
How not to consult your biostatistician before doing an experiment
A friend of mine at work sent this video to me in great amusement. I just hope he wasn’t making a comment on my behavior when it comes to dealing with our biostatisticians. I have, of course, seen investigators approach biostatistians this late in the game. Not that I’ve ever flirted with this sort of behavior, of course. At least the researcher...
Risibility. The Superior Therapeutic Intervention?
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis. ~Jack Handey, “Deep Thoughts“ We have a saying in medicine that you can’t kill a jerk. Not that we try to kill anyone, but that particularly unpleasant individuals, rife with psychopathology, survive whatever illness comes their way. The corollary is that particularly nice...
The Weekly Waluation of the Weasel Words of Woo #10
The W^5/2 Hits Double Figyiz! OK, I gotta admit that my friend Orac moved me to render this Special 10th Edition of the W^5/2™ (after a brief hiatus) by mentioning it today in the context of an article that used, er, the topic of our venerable game to great advantage! Some of it is brilliant, unprecedented even: Perhaps most tellingly, the U.S....
In honor of World Homeopathy Awareness Week 2010
Today, April 10, is the first day of World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW), or, as I like to call it, World Sympathetic Magic Awareness Week. This week long “celebration” runs from today until April 16. Now, given the dim view of homeopathy which, I daresay, each and every blogger here at SBM shares, you’d think I wouldn’t want people to pay attention...
Our fearless leader Steve Novella gets the best responses to his posts!
You may recall that Steve has been criticizing a certain homeopath named John Benneth for his incredible flights of–shall we say?–fancy used in defending homeopathy. As a result, Mr. Benneth (whose website is called The Science of Homeopathy) has produced a series of amazing videos that he’s posted on YouTube. Although we have a very serious mission here at SBM, we are...
Cartoon: The Omnipresence Of Pharma Advertising
Happy April Fool’s Day everyone. Here’s a cartoon that I made a few years back… Enjoy!
$10,000 reward not offered for scientific proof of supplements and alternative medicine therapies and effectiveness
Inspired by a post today In conjunction with UNaturalNews, the non-profit Consumer UnWellness Center has publicly not offered a $10,000 reward for any person, company or institution who can provide trusted, scientific evidence proving that any of the supplements or alternative medical therapies being offered to Americans right now are both safe and effective. Supplement or alternative medical therapies promoters keep citing...
Oppose “Big Floss”; practice alternative dentistry
We survived almost all of human history without it. Yet in the last 100 years people have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by a huge corporate conspiracy into believing that we “need” their products. They cite studies and claim we don’t understand science; they ignore ancient folk wisdom and have no respect for our intuition. They peddle their products without regard to...