Category: Science and Medicine
A Year of Science-Based Medicine
On January 1, 2008 I wrote the first blog entry on Science-Based Medicine introducing the new blog. Now, by coincidence, I have the privilege of writing the last entry of 2008. It seems like a good time to look back over the last year and reflect on our little project. I am happy to write that by all measures SBM has been...
Egnorance is Bliss
A few years ago, at a skeptics conference in Los Angeles, Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch had just finished giving a talk and was fielding questions from the audience. Someone asked, “why don’t you ever talk about how dangerous regular medicine is?” Dr. Barrett, with a look of bewilderment in his face and a tone of exasperation in his voice, replied: “This is what I...
Defending Science-Based Medicine
Science-based medicine is more than a website. It is a philosophy of medicine that is actively vying with other philosophies for dominance in the world of medicine. We believe that medicine should be based upon the best science available, according to a single universal standard of rigorous methodology and valid logic and reason. Others desire a double-standard, so that they can be...
Santa Visits the Hospital
Since Val has broken the ice, I thought I would offer some more Christmas humor. The following is a Narrative Summary (a report of a hospitalization) that was circulated at the Plattsburgh Air Force hospital where I worked in 1986. I published it in my memoirs, Women Aren’t Supposed to Fly. Unfortunately I don’t know who wrote it, so I can’t give...
Put your fears in perspective
I’m having a helluva Sunday. My father-in-law’s in the hospital, it’s 2 degrees out with a wind chill of 40 below, my clothes all smell like latkes, my daughter is having a melt-down, and I screwed up the .xml file for my podcast. The last part reminds me of something—science is hard, and when we step out of our areas of expertise,...
Quackery tolerance – a learned response
Academic politeness turns to the vicious This is more on the theme of academic and postmodern roots of sectarianism-quackery’s advance on medicine. I illustrate through the personal experience of a noted combatant – Mary Lefkowitz – in the front lines of the war with intellectual and academic buffoonery passing as scholarship. The joke is not in the buffoonery, though. The joke is turning...
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December 18, 2008
The Syndrome Syndrome
Have you ever heard of heavy leg syndrome? I hadn’t, until I read this BBC article about it – the British are apparently amused at this peculiarly French medical malady. Heavy leg syndrome is a common diagnosis in France, which alone consumes one third of the world’s drugs for this diagnosis. Diseases certainly vary from population to population based upon genetics, environment,...
How SHOULD We Discuss Quackery with Innocents and the Not-so-Innocent?
Recents posts by Drs. Albietz and Gorski have highlighted questions that are recurrent on SBM. We are convinced that medicine should be based on real knowledge, to the extent that it exists, and that physicians should be honest; these are matters of science and ethics. How do we reconcile that with heartfelt, if misguided beliefs of patients, their families, and others? When Dr. Albietz...
Now there’s something you don’t see on TV every day…
I rather like Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Unfortunately, I seldom get to watch, mainly because I usually show up at work sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 AM, and I don’t like watching more than a few minutes of video on my computer. However, Hugh Laurie, star of House, was interviewed by Conan and revealed himself to be not unlike me in...
Credulous medical reporting
Science and medicine reporting is hard. In this space and otherswe’ve dealt with some of the problems that arise when “generalist” reporters try to “do” science and medicine. And now, CNN has shut down its science unit. Given the increasing complexity of medical and scientific knowledge, this is very bad news. As a fine example of poor medical reporting, let’s look at...