There is nothing wrong with people asking questions and being sceptical. People should be able to express their opinions with out fear of a writ from lawyers of people who do not want to be held to account. On the other hand bigots should not be allowed to pass off their prejudices as scepticism because the right to freedom of speech will suffer because of it.
Simon Singh was in Kingston on Monday night speaking to the Kingston Humanist Society. As all the skeptics I have challenged refuse to debate me in public, I thought I would go down and give a clinicians explanation of Evidence Based Medicine to a physics scientist. (more of that in my next blog post)...
MEDICAL experts have called on Canberra to shut down a university chiropractic clinic aimed at children amid claims the theories behind the practice are "no better than witchcraft" and using it on children is akin to child abuse. More than half a dozen experts, many of them professors with international reputations, have written to...
A common them in this blog has been the attitude of so called “Skeptics”, some are genuine skeptics who ask good question. Others (the majority )are simply prejudiced against anything that does not conform to their belief system around a peculiar interpretation of “Evidence based practice”. The same type of prejudice I encountered from...
Ten years ago while doing my masters in health promotion I applauded David St George, Consultant/Senior Lecturer in. Clinical Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London when he said ”The time has come for complementary medicine to turn away from the need to obtain legitimacy from orthodox medicine by...
I don’t normally use research studies to make a point, but as skeptics are very fond of them and have been ignoring this one, I thought I would give it a mention. Skeptics like Edzard |Ernst were widely quoted in the media in 2007 when a study showed spinal manipulation performed by unskilled practitioners...
Some skeptics have a very highbrowed view of a “scientist” and “scientific research” and did not like the fact Neals Yard would call these ladies scientists. Edzard Ernst calls them FAME for Female, Middle Class, Educated (cant remember the A) and they use Complementary Medicine. Whoever made this complaint will not be happy about...
James Delingpole is a journalist who I believe appeared on Horizon a few days ago questioning whether Global Warming was being exaggerated. I disagree with his views but I have the same opinion I had with Simon Singh no matter how ill-informed his views are he is perfectly entitled to express them. Our...
Edzard Ernst tweets his followers that he has published an update of his systematic review of reflexology (below) In February the professor stated in Pulse that systematic reviews" “have to include a strong element of critical evaluation of the primary studies. If, almost by definition, the primary studies can never be negative, and if...
The latest news from Professor Ernst in his Pulse column is hardly new, just more anecdotes being regurgitated for his ill-informed disciples as new. The “political correctness” Ernst is referring to came out of the recommendations of the Bristol Inquiry in 2001 where a lance was put through the paternalist “doctor knows best approach...
Skeptic Andy Lewis announced on Twitter yesterday how the Chiropractic & Osteopathy journal had recently changed its name, with the comment “Ideal for conflating evidence”. He criticises the chiropractic profession for a lack of evidence, then when some try do do something about it. Its not to be take seriously as if medical research...
