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How exciting! Real kudos! Sad to say mine were boring immigrants. Wait a minute, shouldn't all Australians with non-aboriginal ethnicity get seasick often? That is, all of those whose ancestors arrived before there were planes?

Given that our ancestors going back a hundred years or more probably all had pretty ghastly, dangerous, insecure, violent, death-filled, and highly unpredictable lives, I would imagine that if trauma were intergenerational, the human race would be so messed up we would have died out long ago!

I'm immediately suspicious of the results of this study, because they immediately break them down by gender without stating up-front that gender and gender interactions are likely to be important. My suspicion is that there were no overall effects, so they went fishing by comparing different...

Oh, okay. Point taken.

That's true. There's no guarantee that the primary researchers are any good either. I don't think the PACE psychologists and psychiatrists received a very strong training in psychological methodology (the psychiatrists would have received none, and the psychologist - Trudie - trained under one...

I think that's a little unfair. That's not at all what I said. I've seen many times on the forum people placing unreasonable expectations on statisticians - saying that because the PACE trial had statisticians, those people didn't do their job well and must have been really shit. I'm not a...

I would say its unreasonable to expect a statistician to understand the psychological factors that may influence outcomes - recall bias, confirmation bias. They also can't be expected to know the nuances of what sort of research designs are best to use to address specific questions, or what sort...

One other point. The study hypothesis is never a theory or and idea. Its always a specific outcome of a specific study. So the PACE authors weren't testing the hypothesis that PwMEs are deconditioned. That's not a hypothesis in the experimental sense. It might be a proposal, a theory, or a...

I will try to explain as best as I can. Traditional scientific methodology is based on the idea of hypothesis testing. You come up with a hypothesis for your study. For example, your hypothesis might be that people's recall of words from a list will be poorer if they have recently drunk a...

Oh, this is a name I've heard. He has some interesting things to say. ie. actual genuine expertise in research methodology. He's interested in open, reproducible science, and has been a voice for change and reform in research practices. But I do seem to recall him defending the PACE trial. At...

Fair question, deserves a considered answer. "... a hitch in cell danger response, natural cellular reaction to harm" sounds to me very nonspecific. Would it ever be possible to pin down this claim so that we could test it? Is there any opposing possibility? Or does it boil down to a vague...

Whoa, my bullshitometer just went into overdrive! Anyone else get that reaction? Or is it just me?

I've had similar musings myself! Surely, if its all about verbal thought, then the very intelligent should more prone to depression than the stupid. Or at least the verbally gifted more than the inarticulate... and so on, and so on. Its definitely not the case that smart people are more prone...

I read the comments section of the original Times article, and was shocked by the number of self-declared FM sufferers who bought into the idea that psychological stress/trauma may have triggered the onset of their illness. I cannot imagine many of us here giving lip service to these sorts of...

What we think we know about other animals - and don't - is almost as huge as what we think we know about mental illness - and don't. To put it simply: what we think we know about everything is way, way much bigger than what we actually do know.

Lakens is an important figure in the movement for the improvement of psychological science (SIPS). He has great statistical skills, and has proposed some very significant innovations that I think have great promise for improving research quality. There aren't that many people I can say I truly...

Hell yea, its like a Wessely mini-me!

Yes, this is my suspicion too. Emotions are at the core of cognition and drive everything. Our thoughts, our feelings, our experience, our judgment, our decisions. Not the other way around.

Good for you, @Jonathan Edwards! You are not being at all unfair. The relationship between thought and language is in fact my area of expertise. More than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Pretty sure additional therapies were only offered after the trial endpoint (52 weeks/12 months). Those wishing to find evidence of "cheating" in the form of swapping patients between arms pre-52 weeks are probably going to be disappointed. There may have been some, but there may not, and no way...