“…I think the Catholic Church was too much blamed in the case of Galileo – he was just a victim of peer review.” (Eric J. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, 1991)

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair)

I stumbled on the Lerner quote this morning, and thought it would be a nice way to introduce a subject in need of examination, PSA, or the prostate specific antigen, discovered by Richard Ablin in 1970. It has been his life’s work to inform the public on the true nature of the PSA test. Peer review, or enforced mediocrity, plays a large part in preventing the truth about various forms of quackery from seeing light of day. Ablin’s work against PSA does not stand the withering criticism of his peers, who are in it for the money.  PSA testing, followed by unnecessary biopsies and prostatectomies, is big business. Ablin doesn’t get it.

Albin co-wrote the book, The Great Prostate Hoax: How Big Medicine Hijacked the PSA Test and Caused a Public Health Disaster. Since it was he who discovered PSA, he has a right to speak up. (I fear, however, that in the U.S. the best place to hide something is in a book. )

Continue reading “Deadly cures” →

“We have managed to transfer religious belief into gullibility for whatever masquerades as science.” (Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan)

Via the Internet and a blog, now called the Montana Post (formerly called Intelligent Discontent), I got to know a man named Don (who goes by the nickname Pogie.) Don frequently assailed critics by quizzing them on their use of sources. If something came from the New York Times, OK. If not, if from something less ‘reputable,’ Don would smugly dismiss both the person and the opinion. 

Don’s blog posts repeat one theme only, that Democrats are splendid public servants and Republicans scoundrels. It is unnerving to see this as a “thoughtful” outlook on our landscape. I have traveled only sparingly to his site in these past few years, and only bring it up now to make this point: Don doesn’t think for himself. He relies on authority figures and sources.

Continue reading “Intelligent discontent, or rigid orthodoxy?” →

It is time now to release the prisoners. If you were banned here recently, and your name is not Skink, you are welcomed back. I know on your end it feels like an injustice. It is. I had a private email exchange with B Muller, and told her that I was not comfortable banning her, so I just asked her to deal with the injustice, as we adults often must do, and she would soon be back in business. I saved her quarantined comments, and will release them now. What harm?

Continue reading “2019 begins!” →

Dear readers,

Immediately below is one of the finest posts ever put together for this blog, actually a book that Tyrone McCloskey had written and then allowed us to publish. I am not going to publish anything of my own for a while, and while glancing over JFKTV this morning thought, man, this is good writing.

If you’ve never read it before, read it now. If you have read it before, follow me in reading it again. It is long … and gripping.

And Merry Christmas to all who support, write, comment, sneer at, criticize and critique POM. We need you all. Well, maybe not the sneering.