S

Skeptical Raptor

skepticalraptor.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2013

A science blogger writes about vaccines, medical myths, and pseudoscience, critiquing alternative medicine claims and anti-vaccine sources.

What HN saysHN commenters link it to rebut claims on chronic Lyme disease and vaccine research, citing its critiques of scientists and journal articles.
19HN people shared it
18linked it in comments
1stories submitted
6story points
3 years agolast shared
2013people per year2026

Most-shared posts

  1. 1
    Pseudoscience psychopathy
    2 people · first shared 2014
  2. 2
    Evidence indicates long Covid could be a brain injury
    1 people · 6 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
  3. 3
    Peter doshi anti vaccine false authority
    1 people · first shared 2020
  4. 4
    Cancer prevalent usa another myth debunked
    1 people · first shared 2015
  5. 5
    Vaxxed guide wakefield fraudulent film
    1 people · first shared 2019
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
    Antivaccine lies peanut oil vaccines
    1 people · first shared 2017
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
    Colon detoxification myth vs science
    1 people · first shared 2017
  13. 13
    Chronic lyme disease myth reviewing the evidence
    1 people · first shared 2017
  14. 14
  15. 15
    Marijuana cancer what facts smoke
    1 people · first shared 2013

What HN people wrote when they linked it

worldsayshi · 2017-03-07
From what I know, there's no sure way of diagnosing Chronic Lyme. There is no real proof that it exist. That doesn't mean that the symptoms attributed to Chronic Lyme doesn't exist. http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/chronic-lyme-di… Now, attributing any symptoms like this to hypochondria should of course only be done by a licenced medical doctor. However I also think that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about hypochondria. I believe that hypochondria is quite akin to synesthesia. It's not really by choice as it affects the perception. Emotional or mental states feed back into the perception in a way that can't be distinguished from "real" perceptions. The pain is felt, not "imagined". But triggered in an unconscious way by the imagination. It might be an evolutionary artefact from developing ways to identify bodily problems in moments of distress. And when the cause of the distress is hard to identify it is attributed to something close by.
wololo · 2014-02-02
> This is a classic example of poor scientific journalism and I believe it became so popular due to widespread deficits in scientific literacy. You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to see that there are huge problems with his story. You simply have view this story objectively have a healthy dose of skepticism without quickly deferring to the authority figure. There are simple questions which are never addressed here. What experiment was being done during each PET scan? If the psychopaths and Dr. Fallon were both completing a morality task and they both had low activity in certain regions, THEN that would be something more tangible. This is simply showing a brain picture and not asking questions. We know that people are much more likely to believe something if there is a brain picture associated with it and this is further proof. -- http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/pseudoscience-p…
russholmes · 2020-10-26
The BMJ is not a credible source, it is the Daily Mail of medical journals. The author of that article, Peter Doshi, has form: "I think the first thing we to review is who is Peter Doshi? And why is he so insistent on getting this data? Peter Doshi received his BA in anthropology from Brown University, MA in East Asian studies from Harvard University, and Ph.D. in history, anthropology, and science, technology and society from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Those would be fine credentials for someone who is going to teach history or anthropology." https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/peter-doshi-an…
daeken · 2019-03-22
They conveniently don't share a key point: those on public healthcare or food stamps were required to vaccinate. This particularly affected those with special needs, e.g. autism, thus completely skewing the numbers. The vaccines didn't cause autism in these populations; the autism caused vaccines. Additionally, linking to vaxxed is like linking infowars: https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaxxed-guide-w…
Ivoirians · 2019-02-26
It's pretty absurd to ignore broad scientific consensus (which includes a pretty large number of Harvard immunology PhDs) while buying into the lies of a single authority who happens to argue what you like to hear. Cherrypicking one discredited scientist out of a million who backs up your beliefs is very clearly "anti-science". Just to address the actual article, which is filled with demonstrable lies, see the "What else does Tetyana Obukhanych say?" section here: https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/appeal-to-fals…
not2b · 2019-02-21
They'll take anyone's money. I got a sponsored ad (meaning Facebook got paid) from a notorious antivax organization, these people: https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/physicians-for…
tstactplsignore · 2017-06-04
If you care about what's true and what's not true, please downvote this. There is no peanut oil in modern vaccines. Even if there were, there are almost always no peanut allergens in peanut oil. This is completely wrong and dangerous propaganda. [1] http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-… [2] http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/antivaccine-lie…
7sigma · 2016-12-31
" point to the 'overwhelming evidence' that proves GMOs and roundup is safe" You can't prove with absolute certainty that any food is safe, only what the risks are. And yes there is a lot of real scientific and independent evidence that GMOs are no more risky than other foods. http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/the-solid-gmo-s…
smt88 · 2016-06-11
> There's an article online by a researcher who studied psychopathy through neuroimaging and discovered he possessed this neural marker. You are referring to James Fallon, of TED Talk fame, and his science is not sound: http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/pseudoscience-p… > the majority of psychiatrists can spot those a mile away. And DSM or no DSM, most psychiatrists see them as a distinct group That's impossible to know for sure. If you don't have reliable diagnostic criteria (and the ability to thoroughly examine the subject), these people can't test their belief that someone is a psychopath. It's just not science.
scott_s · 2015-10-05
My understanding is that European countries do have regulation which prevents this kind of pricing, so the drugs are reasonably priced in your market. See point 3 in this piece on the price increase from the former hedge-fund guy: http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/skyrocketing-pr…
maxerickson · 2015-01-29
You linked a crap paper published in some open access journal. It was written by anti-vaxers with little or no research credentials. http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/antivaccination… In addition to impugning the credibility of the authors (which maybe we can wave our hands in the air and say isn't fair), that blag says silly things like this: For example, for the Verstraeten study, the Geiers reference an article that is more of a summary, and complain that it shows no data. In fact, the real Verstraeten study, published in Pediatrics, included all of the data. The Geiers absolutely cherry-picked a short summary of the Verstraeten study rather than examining the fully published article.
mhurron · 2015-01-02
> Cancer has risen dramatically recently Has it? All I can find is http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/cancer-prevalen… and http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/all.html The first says it's basically holding for everyone but the very old who weren't well represented 100 years ago, and the second seems to show a slight decline in the past ~20 or so years with a peak in 1975 and holding almost steady after that. Basically what you would expect with improved diagnosis.
rmason · 2013-12-13
You are making an emotional and anti-science argument. Even having to quote from a Lyndon LaRouche website. Here's a few articles that counter your argument: http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/bad-science-che… http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_g… People have done seed breeding since the days of Mendel. The only difference today is that we have better tools.
tokenadult · 2013-09-24
Better data on the issue you bring up: "How vaccination saves lives" http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/pages/vaccination-saves-live… "How vaccines saved millions of lives" http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccines-saved-… "Vaccines bring 7 diseases under control" http://www.unicef.org/pon96/hevaccin.htm "Gates Foundation Annual Letter 2011" http://www.gatesfoundation.org/who-we-are/resources-and-media/annual-l…
illuminate · 2013-04-14
http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/marijuana-cance… It's not the cure-all you think it is, regardless of the douchebags in charge.
spadez · 2021-06-13
Some time back I came across these articles.. https://sciencewithdrdoug.com/2020/11/27/will-an-rna-vaccine-permanent… https://sciencewithdrdoug.com/2021/02/15/breaking-study-sheds-more-lig… I tried to find some "debunking" articles, but so far I could only find [1] which does not appear to do a good job of responding to the concerns raised in the article, and just reiterate what has been said already. It also appears that similar question has been asked in Quora and there are people there that concludes. >So is it theoretically possible to integrate the mRNA vaccine, but we know such integrations are extremely rare events. This is like worrying that a meteor will fall on your head and kill you - possible but so unlikely r we can ignore it. [1] https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/doug-corrigan-… [2] https://www.quora.com/Re-COVID-MRNA-Vaccines-knowing-that-the-human-bo…
tjradcliffe · 2015-03-14
It's also extremely suspect that a completely irrelevant measure ("hypocampus shape") was selected for this correlation rather than memory function. In the absence of a randomized trial, the dose-response relationship is one of the most important tools available for teasing out causality. If you can't show that increased dose strongly correlates with increased response, you likely are looking at population variables, not drug/lifestyle effects. It turns out that almost everything that gets people's hands wringing from fatty foods to chemicals with complicated names have almost flat dose-response curves. The ones that stand out as having strong dose-response curves are alcohol and especially smoking, which meets all of the causal criteria you want to see in a correlative relationship: http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/correlation-doe…
coldtea · 2017-01-26
>In the bottom comment I provided links to resources dealing with food toxicity. You just provided general resources about food and nutrition (based on the links I'm familiar with -- others could be pseudo-science). Give some specific excerpts about "toxins" and we can discuss them. All food has side effects (e.g. too much sugar and diabetes, micro-allergies, cured meat and cancer, etc). This is not the same as some unspecified BS "toxins". It also has nothing to do with "I eat less calories and I get fatter compared to eating more" which was the original claim we disputed -- which is absolutely incorrect. http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-detox-scam/ http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/colon-detoxific… https://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/the-detox-delusi… http://firstwefeast.com/eat/2014/12/sorry-but-theres-no-such-thing-as-… http://www.livescience.com/34845-detox-cleansing-facts-fallacies.html https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-detox-scam-how-to-spot-it-and-how… http://skepdic.com/detox.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detoxification_(alternative_medicine)

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