Website of the Week: What's The Harm?

I gave up on this (WotW) endeavour for a while, due to a substantial lack of free time, but the very recent news from the skeptical front (as described in my recent posts: here and here) gave me a gentle nudge to plug in this Web site:

What's The Harm

As described there:

We are all confronted with new information daily. It comes to us via newspapers, radio, television, websites, conversation, advertising and so on. Sometimes it seems like a deluge.

Not all information is created equal. Some of it is correct. Some of it is incorrect. Some of it is carefully balanced. Some of it is heavily biased. Some of it is just plain crazy.
It is vital in the midst of this deluge that each of us be able to sort through all of this, keeping the useful information and discarding the rest. This requires the skill of critical thinking. Unfortunately, this is a skill that is often neglected in schools.
This site is designed to make a point about the danger of not thinking critically. Namely that you can easily be injured or killed by neglecting this important skill. We have collected the stories of over 670,000 people who have been injured or killed as a result of someone not thinking critically.
We do this not to make light of their plight. Quite the opposite. We want to honor their memory and learn from their stories.
We also wish to call attention to the types of misinformation which have caused this sort of harm. On the topics page you will see a number of popular topics that that are being promoted via misinformation. Many of them have no basis in truth at all. A few are based in reality, but veer off into troublesome areas. We all need to think more critically about these topics, and take great care when we encounter them.
Many proponents of these things will claim they are harmless. We aim to show that they are decidedly not.
Please check out the list of topics and read what interests you.

[What is this site?]

As stated above, we are under a deluge of uncritical thinking. We run into people trying to get out money, even if it means hurting us. We all see it in our daily lives, sometimes without even noticing it. We all know not to trust a "car salesman", because that's what our experience tells us (they are there to make money), but we trust anyone who appears to try to sell us a book about healthy living, a revolutionary dietary supplement, or an incredible new therapy which cures it all. We might go to a doctor, who seems to have all the proper education, training and experience, but at some point he or she had dived into some sort of alternative medicine. Some of them might do it for profit, some out of honest belief that they are helping us. But belief alone, while providing a nice placebo in some instances, will not cure a real ailment, and if we give ourselves blindly to such beliefs, they just might kill us. Learning form other people's mistakes could save our wallets, health and maybe even our life.

Website of the Week: Science-Based Medicine Blog

Science-Based Medicine Blog is a site to put very high on you daily reading list. There are a few good reasons for that.
The first one is their lineup of authors, which include clinical and academic doctors from various specialties, pharmacologists, veterinarians, current medical students and educators. Such a diversity and wide array of knowledge, ensures that all the medical information presented on the Science-Based Medicine Blog comes from the best sources and can be trusted.
The second reason I love this blog is the frequency of posts. You can be sure to have an interesting, well researched and informative article almost daily, not only bringing you the most recent developments in the world of medical knowledge, but also keeping a watchful eye on the mainstream media and its well known inability to report scientific news correctly (most of the time, at least).
Now that you know, put it on your reading list too!!!

Website of the Week: Respectful Insolence

This week, one of the best sources for medical knowledge, funny (and sometimes scary) commentaries on current medical and skeptical topics, occasionally a place for some controversial exchange, always a great read: Respectful Insolence by Orac.

I've been a big fan of Orac's blog for a few years now, and while you can find the same information in a few other places on line, no other place will give you the same package of information and entertainment. And, what's hard to come by on the interwebs, it's the information you can always rely on!!!

As Orac says about himself:

Respectful Insolence™ is a repository for the ramblings of the aforementioned pseudonymous surgeon/scientist concerning medicine and quackery, science and pseudoscience, history and pseudohistory, politics, and anything else that interests him (or pushes his buttons). Orac's motto is: "A statement of fact cannot be insolent." (OK, maybe it can be just a little bit insolent. Sometimes. OK, fairly often. Orac tries to keep his insolence respectful most of the time, but readily admits that he sometimes fails in cases of obvious quackery and pseudoscience, responding to personal attacks on him, examining poor critical thinking skills, bigotry or racism, and just general plain stupidity. When the stupidity to which Orac is responding reaches a certain very high level, he just can't help it and makes no apologies. You will know this is happening when Orac uses the phrase "the stupid, it burns" or some variant thereof.

Go, get your dose of insolence today...

Website of the Week: The Skeptic's Dictionary

In order to promote rational thinking, I decided to spread the news about cool, interesting and useful websites. I'll try to do it on a weekly basis, but that will depend on my other workload, which tends to be highly unpredictable.

This week: The Skeptic's Dictionary

As the main page states:

The Skeptic's Dictionary is a website and a book. Each features definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, and provides a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on things supernatural, paranormal, and pseudoscientific.

Dozens of topics in logic, perception, science, and philosophy are also covered to help explain the appeal and popularity of occult beliefs and to provide a guide for critical thinking. » More about the SD & Reader comments on the SD
The Web site was created in 1994 - thanks to the Davis Community Network - and is still evolving. The book was published in 2003 by John Wiley & Sons, thanks in large part to literary agent Ted Weinstein and former Wiley editor Jeff Golick.

I find The Skeptic's Dictionary to be one of the most authoritative source of anti-woo information, with references, notes and amusing reader comments, which serve as a great introduction to research on any given topic.
It is also one of the best places to send your "on-the-fence" friends for more information on any given, skeptical topic.