I’m saddened to read that Lindsay Beyerstein’s father died yesterday, less than a month past his 60th birthday. I actually hadn’t realized they were related: I was only aware of Barry Beyerstein as the best sort of skeptic, casting a critical eye on the grand claims of alternative medicine without ever lapsing into dogmatism—open-minded, as the old dictum has it, but not so open minded one’s brain falls out. He also did important work fighting hysteria and abuse in the name of the War on Drugs. You can hear interviews with him here on perverse incentives in pharmaceutical research and here (in the second half) on alternative medicine. Reading Lindsay’s post, it sounds as though he was an exemplary father and human being too—a genuinely inspiring and at the same time seriously humbling man.