Denialism

Category: Best of

  • Fountain pens

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    MarkH
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    I love fountain pens, but I’m far to busy for the regular ritual of cleaning, filling, etc. Most of my day is spent scrawling notes or typing on a keyboard. But there is one task for which only a fountain pen will do.

  • Naturopathy

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    MarkH
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    My little post on naturopathy was more controversial than I had anticipated. Some of the commenters gently (and otherwise) suggested that I should learn more about the subject, so I’ve been doing a little reading. Here are the basic questions: what is naturopathy, and what might it have to offer that “conventional” medicine lacks?

  • Deus ex machina

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    MarkH
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    Many of you were too busy trying to ace organic chemistry to know what a deus ex machina is. For those of you who managed to squeeze in a classics course, please stick with me anyway. Deus ex machina (“god from the machine”) is a literary device. In ancient Greek literature, a complicated dilemma was…

  • Can’t get into med school? Legislate your own doctorate!

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    MarkH
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    I guess it’s not just doctors watching this one—an alert reader and a fellow SciBling both picked up on this one. Apparently, in my neighboring state of Minnesota (really, check the map), home to Greg Laden, PZ Myers, and lutefisk, doctor wannabes have legislated themselves into “doctorhood”. You see, there is this entity called a…

  • On being a doctor—humility and confidence

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    MarkH
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    The practice of medicine requires a careful mix of humility and confidence. Finding this balance is very tricky, as humility can become halting indecision and confidence can become reckless arrogance. Teaching these traits is a combination of drawing out a young doctor’s natural strengths, tamping down their weaknesses, and tossing in some didactic knowledge. I…

  • A little HIV knowledge

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    MarkH
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    A few months ago, I gave you a short primer on the immunology of vaccines. It’s time now for another short, oversimplified primer, this time on the immunology of HIV. This was originally up on the old blog, but it will provide some necessary background for upcoming posts (I think). HIV denialists form a persistent…

  • Journalist becomes the story: Discover Magazine luvs teh denialists.

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    MarkH
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    HT erv. This is truly annoying because it is so patently wrong. It’s wrong in lots of different ways, but I’ll help point out some of the major flaws. What happens when journalist becomes the story, rather than reports it? You see, there is this journalist, Celia Farber, who apparently has been following the HIV…

  • Never say “hopeless”

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    MarkH
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    I can’t tell you the number of people who complain to me about having their hope taken away. Exactly what this means, though, isn’t always clear. Sometimes an oncologist will tell them (so they say) that they have a month to live. Sometimes their cardiologist tells them (so they say) not to travel to their…

  • Why hospice matters

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    MarkH
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    I recently lost a close family member to cancer. She was old, she had been ill a long time; it still hurts. But in her dying, she made some wise choices. She was a very bright woman, and retained her mental capacities right up until the end. This gave her the opportunity to decide how…

  • Try and beat this one, alties!

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    MarkH
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    I’m not going to lie to you. This post contains some actual science. WAIT! Don’t click away! I’ll make it palatable, I promise! It’s just that this is such an interesting story, and I can’t help sharing it. It is a shining example of one of the great successes of modern medical science, and stands…