I'm so sorry about what happened to you, and I hope you have found or will find peace & healing.

...It's not Jezebel's job to support the public perception of cops. It's Jezebel's job to report on issues relevant to women.

But Jezebel isn't a special-interest forum/publication for issues to do with cops or even current affairs. Jezebel is a special-interest forum for issues to do with women. It does publish stories when, say, a police force starts a major new initiative to tackle rape or violence against women, but frequently the reason…

Mark actually does make a crack in that "50 things" article about how he guesses he's included, since they didn't say "straight men". I'm not disagreeing with your point, just pointing out that Jez does occasionally make it too.

Thank you! I believe it a little more than I used to. He also is more awesome (and much more attractive) than he gives himself credit for. I could've gone on, but you did say "something", not "an epic paragraph".

Because it speaks of an arrogance about the importance - nay, centrality - of your own intelligence. You're basically saying, "How can I possibly deal with someone who has the nerve to not be interested in the things I'm interested in, which I have decided means they're Not Smart? Why must I live in a world where I…

He thinks I'm so much more incredible than I give myself credit for.

Sure. I'm certainly not arguing that there aren't selfish, ill-intentioned, shitty people (and groups) in the world. But there's generally more incompetence and inefficiency than there is malice, so Halon's Razor holds. Wakefield's actions cannot be adequately explained by incompetence - you can't "accidentally" end…

The link you've provided is primarily about the cost of developing a drug from scratch and bringing it to market. That, yes, takes billions, and it's possible to spend as much as you like on a clinical trial, especially a large and complex one (and a new drug requires multiple rounds of intensive trialling before it…

Sure; nobody sane would have any problem with people paying attention to their doctor's advice on specific contraindications. People on blood thinners, for instance, generally shouldn't take aspirin.

You don't have to tell your dog anything; that's not (solely) how the placebo effect works. Seriously, read up on it some time; Daniel Moerman, Dylan Evans. It's fascinating.

But that's not the same irritation that Ari mentioned. His frustration was with people who choose to ignore or distrust the reams of evidence that, say, ibuprofen IS safe and DOES work. While I'm sure doctors get irritated with people who require a lot of reassurance, it's reasonable, as you say, to explore the…

I have mixed feelings. Part of me thinks that, hey, if a homeopath listens to you and reassures you and gives you some sugar pills, and you take them and feel better, you feel better, so great, and there definitely won't be any serious side-effects. Doctors have known placebos can be helpful for at least a hundred…

Sure, some people are unscrupulous and manipulative. Wakefield definitely was. He was an entirely capable researcher who knew what he was doing. But he's not "the government", he's one man; the larger the group, the less likely it can keep any kind of secret, much less a huge conspiracy.

You can elicit a placebo response in a dog; why wouldn't you be able to elicit one in a two-year-old? Two-year-olds are very sensitive to their adult caregivers, after all; being given something medicine-like by a trusted caregiver in a confident and comforting way is almost guaranteed to elicit a placebo response.

"My roommate is no longer eating foods with any chemicals in it,"

Oh my God, "toxins" and "detoxing". Sigh. To maintain my sanity, I think of it (as suggested by Ben Goldacre in Bad Science) as a universal cultural metaphor - rituals of purification and cleansing. But mostly I just try not to say... well, anything, to people who believe this stuff, because what's the point.

Why would it be annoying that people want to know that garlic is a) safe and b) works?

[looks down at pint]

I am jealous that you are an astrophysicist. Rock on!