Skeptical Scalpel

A couple of recent articles about dying by well-known physician-authors attracted a lot of media attention. In October 2014, 57-year-old Ezekiel J. Emanuel, writing in The Atlantic, gave a number of reasons why he hoped he would...

Two weeks ago, I posed this question, “Does anyone really read anything online?” Based on some data from various sources, I concluded that not many do. I also noted that many links I tweeted were passed along by...

Not long ago, I tweeted a link to a very long story. Within 60 seconds, it received three retweets. Since the article would have taken at least 10 minutes to read, it is highly likely that those who retweeted it did not read it....

You may find this story hard to believe, but it’s true. A 75-year-old non-smoking man with no serious medical problems and a relatively low-risk family history [father, a life-long smoker, died of a stroke at age 76] has...