Category: Science and Medicine
Fever Phobia
Should you be afraid of your child having a fever? It depends, but probably not.
Disingenuous: Deconstruction of a naturopathic white paper
Science is the Concept by which we measure our reality I don’t believe in magic I don’t believe in I-ching… I just believe in science…and that reality. John Lennon. Sort of. As regular readers of the blog are aware, I am science/reality based. I think the physical and basic sciences provide an excellent understanding of reality at the level of human experience....
Energy Medicine – Noise-Based Pseudoscience
So-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is largely philosophy-based medicine rather than science based. There are a few core concepts that are endlessly recycled in various forms, but it is mythology and culture, not grounded in the rigorous methods of science that allow us to tell the difference between our satisfying fantasies and hard reality. Sometimes proponents of such philosophies try to...
Support Science-Based Medicine
Next month is the 5 year anniversary of Science-Based Medicine. We have published 1575 articles so far, with 72,400 comments. We are getting about 475,000 views per month, and SBM has attracted the attention of the mainstream media, government agencies, peer-reviewed journals, and even television and movie producers. Over the last five years we have endeavored to be a valuable resource for...
Fun With Statistics
Statistics is the essential foundation for science-based medicine. Unfortunately, it’s a confusing subject that invites errors and misunderstandings. We non-statisticians could all benefit from learning more about statistics as well as trying to get a better understanding of just how much we don’t know. Most of us are not going to read a statistics textbook, but the book Dicing with Death: Chance,...
Anecdotes: Cheaper by the Dozen
A loan officer sets up a meeting with an aspiring entrepreneur to inform him that his application has been denied. “Mr Smith, we have reviewed your application and found a fatal flaw in your business plan. You say that you will be selling your donuts for 60 cents apiece. “Yes” says Mr. Smith, “that is significantly less than any other baker in...
Blonde Blood: Hydrogen Peroxide Infusions
Two scientists walk into a bar The first one says “I’ll have some H2O.” The second one says, “I’ll have some H2O too.” Then he dies. I have come to believe in my own version of The Secret. The Secret describes the law of attraction as a natural law that determines the complete order of the universe and of our personal lives...
CAM Docket: Functional Endocrinology
One of the signature abilities of CAM practitioners is the creation of new diagnostic methods and treatments which convincingly demonstrate they have only a superficial understanding of human physiology. Here at SBM, posts have addressed such sterling examples of this phenomenon as cranial sacral therapy, applied kinesiology and chiropractic neurology. Now we have a new one on the horizon: functional endocrinology. I...
“Moneyball,” the 2012 election, and science- and evidence-based medicine
Regular readers of my other blog probably know that I’m into more than just science, skepticism, and promoting science-based medicine (SBM). I’m also into science fiction, computers, and baseball, not to mention politics (at least more than average). That’s why our recent election, coming as it did hot on the heels of the World Series in which my beloved Detroit Tigers utterly...
The Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy: Equivocal as Predicted
The ill-advised, NIH-sponsored Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) is finally over. 839 human subjects were randomized to receive Na2EDTA infusions; 869 were randomized to receive placebo infusions. The results were announced at this weekend’s American Heart Association meeting in Los Angeles. In summary, the TACT authors report a slight advantage for chelation over placebo in the “primary composite endpoint,” a combination...