Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Skies are falling in Canada

The god of science is mad at Canada for picking a quack for Minister of Science & Technology. What's with conservatives everywhere always appointing utterly unqualified people to high positions?



It turns out that Canada's conservative prime minister picked a chiropractor and acupuncturist for the Minister of Science & Technology. Now, I'm sure that some of what acupuncturists and chiropractors do is helpful and may relieve pain (and there is some scientific evidence for it), but for the most part it is NOT medicine and it is NOT science. Both these fields tend to avoid evidence-based practice and essentially claim that their technique treats everything. It's dangerous not so much because of possible side effects, but because it keeps people with diseases that can otherwise be easily treated from seeing a real physician. So to all you new-agey people: Most of you are (otherwise) pretty intelligent. So, next time you are skeptical of western medicine go to pubmed and do a quick search to see if your skepticism is warranted. And next time you want to treat your kid's Lyme disease or broken femur with the extract of some plant or acupuncture, again, check the literature to see if there isn't a better way.

... and Canadians, please don't try to become like the US. This meteor was just a warning.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

What the hell is a blog?

I'm always late to everything... but since Google lets me have a free blog, I'll go ahead and try it. Not sure what it'll be about, but we'll see soon (I guess).