Denialism

Month: March 2008

  • Just another cult

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    MarkH
    in

    My pager went off at about 7 p.m. I had already finished rounding at the hospital, gone home, showered off the day, and sat down with a cup of tea. It was my senior resident. We had admitted a psychotic young woman to the hospital, and her parents were trying to sign her out against…

  • New Skeptics’ Circle is Up

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    MarkH
    in

    …at Mike’s Rant, and quote-mining is the rule of the day…don’t miss it!

  • Speaking out against quacks

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    by

    MarkH
    in

    In light of recent discussions in this corner of teh intertubes, I’ve been thinking about anti-quackery writing. To what extent does our debunking actually feed the ducks? Many of us don’t link to crank sites—that makes sense, since click-throughs probably put money in their pockets. But speaking out works. Most people don’t know medicine. It’s…

  • In bizarre religions ritual, cult members murder their child

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    MarkH
    in

    Hat-tip to PZ for shining some light onto local idiocy. The basic story is an old one—family kills kid by refusing medical care for a curable condition. In this case, it’s a child with type I diabetes. This hits close to home for two reasons: I’m an internist, and my nephew is a type I…

  • Science—the only way to view reality

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    by

    MarkH
    in

    Science is the investigation of reality. Reality is, by definition, everything. It is all we can see, all we can measure. It is, for all practical purposes, a god; it is omnipresent, omnipotent. The only tool that successfully measures and describes reality is science (including mathematics). So why the desire to placate theologians and theocrats…

  • Cult medicine vs. professional medicine

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    MarkH
    in

    So-called alternative medicine beliefs are an interesting and perhaps inevitable phenomenon. They make use of uniquely human qualities such as our intelligence, our pattern-recognition abilities, and our tendency to over-estimate how well we understand things. Most “science”, including medicine, relies on similar human qualities, but modern science has made some improvements. Medicine used to be…

  • Herb prevents sudden death–or your money back!

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    by

    MarkH
    in

    I gotta admit, this is one of my favorites. I was browsing around the alternative health corners of the web when I came across a lovely site peddling “alternative” remedies. My gaze was immediately drawn to a link for “shock and emergency: rescue remedies”. For a physician, shock means something in particular–something very bad. Shock…

  • Flu woo, immuno-woo, and vaccine woo–all in one!11!

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    MarkH
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    Once again, I’m migrating more popular posts from the old blog. If this is a repeat for you, sorry. –PalMD Wow. I mean, wow. I was googling some flu information, and one of the first hits was so fundamentally wrong about all matters medical that I actually felt ill. The dangerous title is “Building a…

  • 4000 means nothing

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    MarkH
    in

    It means nothing to those who have lost someone. One is the only number that matters. The one brother my friend lost. The one son my patient lost. The one child a nameless Iraqi mother lost. People say they find solace in God. Bullshit. People say they find solace in heroism and valor. Bull-fucking-shit. Those…

  • What a horrible idea

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    by

    MarkH
    in

    This idea is so bad that I might even agree with a Scientologist about it (OK, not really). A company I will not name or link to has developed a home genetic test for bipolar disorder. What could be so horrible about making it easier for people to diagnose diseases? Well, first there is a…