We skeptics spend a lot of time critiquing non-science and too little time promoting science itself. Science is awe-inspiring and fun, and any effort to communicate that to our children is worthwhile. A new book by Sean Connolly, The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science: 50 Experiments for Daring Young Scientists, serves that goal well. Connolly
The Living Matrix: A Film on the New Science of Healing is an atrociously bad movie that falls squarely in the tradition of What the Bleep Do We Know? In his book Nonsense on Stilts, Massimo Pigliucci characterized the “Bleep” movie as “one of the most spectacular examples of a horribly tangled mess of science
Alternative practitioners constantly claim that conventional medicine treats only symptoms while they treat underlying causes. They’ve got it backwards. Chiropractors, homeopaths, naturopaths, acupuncturists, and other alternative medicine practitioners constantly criticize conventional medicine for “only treating the symptoms,” while alternative medicine allegedly treats “the underlying causes” of disease. Nope. Not true. Exactly backwards. Think about it:
The Graston Technique® is a modification of traditional hands-on soft tissue mobilization that uses specifically designed instruments to allow the therapist to introduce a controlled amount of microtrauma into an area of excessive scar and/or soft tissue fibrosis. The hope is that this will invoke an inflammatory response that will augment the healing process. It
Warning: If you are offended by humor that depends on psychiatric and medical diagnoses, read no further. Disclaimer: Before anyone complains (and in this age of exaggerated political correctness, someone surely will), let me make it clear that I mean no disrespect to people suffering from the illnesses mentioned below. I have the greatest empathy
An article written by 3 chiropractors and a PhD in physical education and published on December 2, 2009 in the journal Chiropractic and Osteopathy may have sounded the death knell for chiropractic. The chiropractic subluxation is the essential basis of chiropractic theory. A true subluxation is a partial dislocation: chiropractors originally believed bones were actually out
Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon whereby a random image or sound is perceived as significant. It is the basis for seeing Jesus on a tortilla and for the EVP electronic voice phenomenon where people interpret random noise on an audio recording as voices from the spirit world. There is a YouTube video with a hilarious
Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) is a somewhat nebulous diagnosis with unknown etiology and no effective treatment. To make the diagnosis, bacterial infection must be excluded and the symptoms must last at least 3 months. Symptoms include pain in various locations (between rectum and testicle, in the testicles, at the tip of the penis,
Oprah Winfrey is not a skeptic. She enthusiastically promoted Rhonda Byrne’s book The Secret. She believes we create our own reality. She lets the medical misinformation and nonsensical opinions of celebrity guests like Suzanne Somers, Christiane Northrup and Jenny McCarthy go unchallenged. Her endorsements of potentially dangerous pseudoscientific health advice have been widely criticized, for
Nasal irrigation with salt water is recommended by 87% of family doctors as an adjunctive treatment to relieve the symptoms of nasal congestion and sinusitis. The simplest method is to hold salt water in your cupped hand, block one nostril while you inhale the water into the other nostril, then blow your nose. The high-tech
