The Skeptical OB

I’ve been writing for years about the way that science has been misused to support ideological movements like natural childbirth, lactivism and attachment parenting. I’ve been writing most recently about the way that science is being misused to support ideological movements like gentle parenting and neuroparenting. Both are scientism, not science. What’s the difference? Science […]

One hundred years ago the people who Americans now refer to as the “Greatest Generation” were children and young adults. That was the generation that lived through a massive financial depression and grew to fight an existential war against Nazi Germany. In contrast, if we were to characterize the contemporary generation of children and young […]

A joke: First Fish: “How’s the water?” Second Fish: ”What the hell is water?” What applies to fish and water also applies to humans and culture. When you’re surrounded by it, you are often unaware that it is there. Hence most of us are oblivious to the culture of therapeutic parenting within which we have […]

I spend my days wrangling with science denialists on the Skeptical OB Facebook page. I don’t really argue with them since a doctor can no more argue science with a denialist than a mathematician can argue calculus with a four year old. Neither denialists nor four year olds know enough to come to grips with […]

One of the most amazing traits of human beings is the ability to empathize with others. We don’t have to lose a parent to imagine how devastating the loss of a parent could be and therefore we offer our support. We don’t have to experience a divorce to imagine how devastating the end of a […]