March 9, 2009
President Obama has lifted the ban on embryonic stem cell research enacted by Bush, but I'm left feeling that this intervention came many years too late.
Pledging that his administration will "make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology," President Obama on Monday lifted the Bush…
March 9, 2009
I have just finished taking my last major exam of medical school - Step 2 of the boards (including Step 2 Clinical Skills, or CS, which costs 1200 bucks, requires you to travel to one of a few cities in the country hosting it, and is sealed by a EULA that forbids me from talking about what the test…
March 1, 2009
Is he being purposefully obtuse? Once again the ombudsman decides to defend George Will, but only on a single point.
A key paragraph, aimed at those who believe in man-made global warming, asserted: "According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels…
February 26, 2009
And I breathe a sigh of relief. Working nights my schedule is a tad goofy, but I wake up today to see this guy describing the changes in the new budget:
This is Peter Orszag the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is a nerd and I instantly like him. I was not surprised to…
February 23, 2009
It's almost like a bad Yakov Smirnoff joke, "In America you test therapies in animals before giving them to humans, in Russia..." All I can do is wonder, what were they thinking? Injecting stem cells into a kid's spinal fluid to correct a genetic disorder? Are they insane?
Stem cells, in…
February 20, 2009
I'm heartened to see a broad disgust with George Will's lies about climate science. After all it's pretty extraordinary when a major syndicated columnist repeats a lie about science, not once, not twice but three times despite being corrected.
PZ wishes he too could just make up his own facts, and…
February 18, 2009
What to say about psychiatry that isn't already completely covered by television and movies? It's unique among the specialties for its coverage in the media. Maybe because we're such social animals, or maybe because such shows about psychiatry or therapy appeal to a voyeuristic impulse in us to…
February 17, 2009
Dan MacArthur has started a big discussion on whether or not the relationship between IQ and race should be studied. Inspired by a pair of essays for and against the idea it has created a pretty healthy debate among the sciencebloggers including Razib with whom I will likely never agree on this…
February 16, 2009
We'll have to add Scientology to Pal's list of disease-promoting groups. Via Screw Loose Change I learn that as part of their bizarre hatred of psychiatry, they've now taken to saying that 9/11 was caused by psychiatrists in addition to the holocaust. Apparently, Osama was just a regular guy…
February 16, 2009
One would think given recent findings that antarctic warming is robust for instance, that the canard of antarctic cooling would go away. Or, that based on the round dismissal of the myth of 1970s global cooling warnings we'd stop hearing about that in the media too. But instead I'm watching TV…
February 14, 2009
For those artistic evilutionists out there, Burning Man, the yearly festival celebrating freedom, expression, and self-reliance, is sponsoring art based on this year's theme of Evolution. The details for getting a grant to support your artwork are here.
So, come up with some ideas for…
February 10, 2009
I have to admit I'm somewhat surprised (even if Orac isn't). We all knew that Andrew Wakefield's research was bogus and the link between vaccines and autism was engineered by ideologues who fear vaccines irrationally. But fabrication of data? Sloppy research is one thing, but the need for cranks…
February 6, 2009
What do this cartoon and the latest edition of PLoS One have in common? Well, reading Bora's blog this week I saw an article entitled, Risks for Central Nervous System Diseases among Mobile Phone Subscribers: A Danish Retrospective Cohort Study and my ears perked up. We have been mocking the…
February 4, 2009
The process of choosing a medical specialty, and applying for residency programs is nearly complete as I have returned from my tour of the West Coast and am nearly done with interview season. This is when medical students travel the country at great (and unreimbursed) expense to find their future…
January 7, 2009
Not infrequently, science butts heads with culture as the data scientists collect about issues of the day may conflict with cultural perceptions and deeply-held beliefs. Attitudes and perceptions about homosexuality are, not surprisingly, a source of denialism as certain overvalued ideas about…
January 6, 2009
Welcome to the new year, and now that I'm back from a little family vacation I'd like to applaud PAL for the excellent job he did summarizing our thesis, and the job he's done in general in the last year. I'm busy doing my last 3rd year clerkship in neurology (even though I'm graduating in 2009 -…
January 6, 2009
I couldn't be more thrilled to see that Rebecca Skloot has joined scienceblogs. I remember reading her article on HeLa cells and thinking it was the best science writing I'd ever read.
So, sorry for the late announcement and welcome to Rebecca!
December 18, 2008
Please check out this week's skeptics' circle at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes.
Of note, I liked Dr Austs' post on the human toll of HIV/AIDS denialism, it is stirring. I also found the Skeptic's field guide particularly interesting. I would have two suggestions. One would be to prioritize by…
December 12, 2008
Aside from taking 4th year medical school classes it's also the time of year that medical students who plan to graduate in 2009 (like me) are applying to residency programs across the country. This is an interesting process and one that many people outside of medicine are unfamiliar with, and…
December 9, 2008
It seems Obama didn't get Nisbet's memo. Just watching on CNN, future president Obama says:
The time for delay is over, the time for denial is over. We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now, that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be…
December 8, 2008
I was reading two articles on disparate subjects and found them oddly linked in my mind. The first former terrorist Bill Ayers' explanation of why he didn't respond when Obama was smeared by association and the second P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker writing for the WaPo about the escalation in…
November 27, 2008
Well, Nisbet has replied to Mike, Orac and me (not to mention PAL). However his reply leaves something wanting, like, intellectual honesty.
Nowhere in any of these reasoned replies is there "name-calling". What we are arguing is for the preservation of accurate labeling of arguments that fail to…
November 25, 2008
Ever since we began writing here about denialism we've emphasized a few critical points about dealing with anti-science. For one, denialists aren't interested in legitimate debate - they are not honest brokers and the tactics they use exist to artificially extend discussion of settled scientific…
November 24, 2008
One of the great things about science is that it is open, international, and celebrates the free exchange of ideas. However, during the last 8 years we've seen some odd things at the National Institutes of Health - the premier governmental scientific institution in the world. The paranoia of the…
November 7, 2008
I would beg everyone who reads the scienceblogs and cares about science to contact the transition team in the Obama administration as Orac has requested.
It should be clear by now to readers of this blog that pseudoscience is not a problem of just the right. The left wing areas of pseudoscience…
November 7, 2008
It's that time of year, 4th year medical students (like me - kind of) are choosing their future careers and starting to interview all over the country in their residency programs of choice. I've been notably quiet - subsumed in work, study and applications - but I am catching up on writing about…
November 6, 2008
I've been busy, as you might imagine, with work, study, and applying for medical residency. However, I thought it was about time to get people up to date with some of the clerkships I've finished in the meantime before letting you guys in on some of the decision-making processes involved in…
October 18, 2008
This will be Orac's new favorite show, perhaps the best reality show ever made.
Meet Shirley Ghostman. The UK's premier psychic who is mounting a search for the UK's next psychic superstar.
Watch his students cry as he channels Lady Di!
Watch as he brings forth a evil serial killer in the…
September 1, 2008
Yes, there is. This time for maker of an "all natural" penis enhancer Steve Warshak (and some family members as well) who was sentenced for 25 years!
Steve Warshak, 42, founder of Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, also was ordered to pay $93,000 in fines. He was convicted in February on 93 counts…
August 22, 2008
A fellow medical student once asked me why I thought people become hostile to science-based medicine. Certainly our own failures contribute. When we have no treatments for a disease, or if the treatments themselves may also incur significant morbidity, it is understandable that patients will…
