Category: Science and the Media
Antivaxxers on Facebook
Facebook is trying to stop anti-vaccine misinformation on its platform. How's that going?
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. hosts a trainwreck of an antivaccine forum in Harlem
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. reached out to the African-American Community in Harlem with his antivaccine message. It didn't go so well. First, Rev. Al Sharpton, whose National Action Committee was going to host it, bailed due to negative publicity. Then RFK Jr. was kicked out of his venue during his speech because the event went way over time. RFK Jr.'s efforts do,...
The Scientific Integrity Act: Protecting science from politics
The proposed federal Scientific Integrity Act supports science and the scientific process as the basis of public policy and aims to protect it from politics, ideology, and financial conflicts of interest.
Americans still (mostly) trust scientists and doctors, but there are some troubling warning signs
Given all the denial of the science behind vaccines, GMOs, evolution, and climate science, you might think that Americans in general distrust scientists and physicians. It's actually not true. Trust in scientists and doctors remains high, but there are still areas where mistrust of scientists is a significant problem. What can be done?
Is today’s generation of children “the sickest generation”?
Presidential candidate and New Age self-help guru Marianne Williamson has been repeating a claim that over half of our children have chronic illness and implying that the expansion of the vaccine schedule since the late 1980s is responsible. But is it true? Are over half of our children sick? Is this "the sickest generation"?
Zapping Antipsychiatry ECT Nonsense
These days people's perceptions of electroconvulsive therapy have a fictionalized understanding of what it is, and its harms. The reality is quite different.
Chronic Lyme disease: Fake diagnosis, not fake disease
Believe it or not, an encounter on Twitter actually changed Dr. Gorski's mind. Chronic Lyme disease is a fake diagnosis, not a fake disease.
Is Dentistry Science Based?
A recent article in The Atlantic claims that dentistry is not science-based. Is it right? Nah.
The NORI protocol: An unproven fruit-based nutritional treatment for cancer sold by a self-proclaimed “expert”
Mark Simon is the founder of the Nutritional Oncology Research Institute. He doesn't have an MD, DO, nor PhD. (He doesn't even have an ND!) Yet he claims to have discovered a dietary protocol that can cure cancer. Can it? (I think you know the answer to this question.)
A world-renowned placebo researcher asks, “Does placebo research boost pseudoscience?”
Professor Fabrizio Benedetti is the most famous and almost certainly also the most influential researcher investigating the physiology of placebo effects. In a recent commentary, he asks whether placebo research is fueling quackery, as quacks co-opt its results. The answer to that question is certainly yes. A better question is: How do supporters of science counter the placebo narrative promoted by quacks,...