David Tuller - Trial By Error: A Post About Andrew Lloyd

[Barry]

Agreed about 'lied'. Some may have noted I pointed out Sharpe 'made false and misleading statements'. I have purposely not accused him of 'lying'.

I agree with this. There are many cases where someone tells an untruth even though they sincerely believe they are telling the truth. Ironically, the most common reason for this is when sincerely repeating untruths that others have oh-so-convincingly told them - the one that starts the domino-effect of untruths is typically someone who intends just that effect.

But even when you are very confident a certain person is lying, it can often be more effective to state they are telling untruths, because that is invariably much easier to nail down and prove ... because it is objective not subjective . Gives less wriggle room also. Later, if/when it gets to court, the motivation for telling untruths can be dug deeper into.

 

[Alvin]

For the above reasons I'd actually avoid talking about 'lies', even when it's clear that someone is promoting self-serving falsehoods. It's very difficult to be certain that someone is lying rather than just misguided, and accusations of 'lies' can be a distraction from what can be readily proven.

Normally i would say we should not be afraid of calling a duck a duck but in this case i understand where your coming from.
They change measures to get their desired outcomes and ignore evidence they don't want to know, even if they are not consciously aware of these actions they are well documented and becoming even more well known (thanks @dave30th).
If changing a word to describe actions will make a big difference thats no big deal, i won't act deferential to an injustice but using a slightly different term is acceptable to me. Though fraud doesn't seem to go over well so what term is more appropriate?

 

[Esther12]

Though fraud doesn't seem to go over well so what term is more appropriate?

I think it depends on the specifics and I can struggle to find the right terminology sometimes. I find that working on when to use which term can be helpful for reminding oneself of exactly the problems with the claims they've made, and what can be proven.

When they've said something which is provably false, can just say it's 'false'. More cautiously: inaccurate? not true? For claims that are merely misleading, 'misleading'. Sometimes they say things that are not clearly false, but are unjustified, and pointing that out can be helpful. Over the last few years I've pick up a lot of different ways of politely describing quackery!

I think that matter of factly stating 'that claim is not true' and explaining why is usually more powerful than saying something is bullshit or nonsense.

 

[oldtimer]

misrepresentation?

 

[Alvin]

When they've said something which is provably false, can just say it's 'false'. More cautiously: inaccurate? not true? For claims that are merely misleading, 'misleading'. Sometimes they say things that are not clearly false, but are unjustified, and pointing that out can be helpful. Over the last few years I've pick up a lot of different ways of politely describing quackery!

Thats the thing, being polite is a favour to them, commit an injustice and cause suffering, well we don't want to be impolite in return...

I think that matter of factly stating 'that claim is not true' and explaining why is usually more powerful than saying something is bullshit or nonsense.

I can't agree, if calling someone a liar is too strong the question is too strong for what, they are causing harm, thats strong action. I won't disagree that when we are being monitored we have to be careful but screw being polite. If a better term matches the injustice i'm all for it but politeness is a luxury we can't afford because it gives cover to those harming us

misrepresentation?

Yeah, i'm not a fan of polite. Alternative facts may apply, though even when it was invented the interviewer was being polite, its a falsehood intead of saying its a lie which was proven with photographic evidence. Politeness won't defeat fraud, lies, doublethink or whatever we end up calling it otherwise they would already be defeated.

 

[Esther12]

Thats the thing, being polite is a favour to them

I think it's the opposite. Politely explaining why they don't deserve to be respected is a more effective way of undermining them, and that's no favour for them. If they know what's good for them they want us to be as rude as possible. Do you see someone like Vogt drawing attention to tweets that calmly pick apart the problems with his claims, or the ones that he can present as personal attacks?

 

[Alvin]

I think it's the opposite. Politely explaining why they don't deserve to be respected is a more effective way of undermining them, and that's no favour for them. If they know what's good for them they want us to be as rude as possible. Do you see someone like Vogt drawing attention to tweets that calmly pick apart the problems with his claims, or the ones that he can present as personal attacks?

By challenging them we are being impolite, they don't handle well being challenged or funds raised to reveal the truth of their malfeasance. That said perhaps we are not completely disagreeing here, i am a big fan of measured and thought out responses, lashing out without a plan or in a way that can be spun against us are not things i advocate.
Sometimes i think successfully fighting injustice is like a finely played game of chess.

 

[Sean]

Though fraud doesn't seem to go over well so what term is more appropriate?

Come on down, Sir Humphrey...



And one demonstrating the outcome measurement technique favoured by the BPS school.

 

[Amw66]

Brain waves ... that'll be it .

Better get my tin foil hat out if the cupboard

 

[Alvin]

Come on down, Sir Humphrey...



And one demonstrating the outcome measurement technique favoured by the BPS school.

In the end thats the thing, i have no real problem with calling GET/CBT lies or fraud because it demonstrably is. There is little threat implied in calling a proven lie a lie though its not polite.
And the second video shows how you can manipulate people (though i have no idea what they were actually talking about).

 

[Amw66]

I don't think anyone here wants deference to those who do us harm, but I do think that a lack of caution from patients has done more harm over the years than too much caution.



Would things like this really be likely to benefit us?

A lot of the issues around ME/CFS/PACE are really complicated, as well as being really frustrating and upsetting. Getting caught up in expressing anger and frustration without an excellent understanding of all the details can easily be used against oneself. David is one of the few people I'd have confidence in being able to back up their frustration through really sustained and challenging debate.

While I might express my frustration quite casually here, if I'm communicating with someone outside of the ME/CFS world I always try to tone myself down as much as possible in order to reduce the risk of giving them something that can be used against us. It is irritating that progress has been so slow over the long time since problems with CBT/GET were being pointed out (which happened as soon as the research first emerged), but I think that the progress we've made recently is largely down to people taking a cautious and restrained approach. The PACE defenders love to try to distract people's attention from the real issues with stories of angry and unreasonable patients, and that's not a narrative that benefits us.

The need is to get things into wider awareness. We ate great sounding boards, but unless we find a means to disseminate an argument/ convey experiences to a wider audience , nothing changes.

I can appreciate that for many there can be serious consequences, and therefore the " don' t rock the boat" scenario plays out, but if we are a community, we have to take things forward for people.

As i am lucky that school have effectively backed off, and one teacher who works part time has mild ME lends a bit of credence to our experience, i can pop my head above the parapet a bit.

Two educational staff agreed to watch unrest over the Easter hols and i have sent links to some of jane colby' s tweets describing the effects of " treatment" and virology blog .We will see what pans out next week when school returns- hoping to get an agreement for unrest to be screened in school.

When chatting to other parents they are rightly gobsmacked and outraged at the whole cbt/ get and forced treatment scenarios that happens elsewhere.
If people know, they are shocked- it is getting the info out there- media coverage in last year has been better, but we need a push from " joe bloggs" too.

May 12th gives a focus, but it needs to be kept in public discourse thereafter.

Perhaps S4ME can play a part. ( I don' t quite know how )

 

[Barry]

I think it depends on the specifics and I can struggle to find the right terminology sometimes. I find that working on when to use which term can be helpful for reminding oneself of exactly the problems with the claims they've made, and what can be proven.

When they've said something which is provably false, can just say it's 'false'. More cautiously: inaccurate? not true? For claims that are merely misleading, 'misleading'. Sometimes they say things that are not clearly false, but are unjustified, and pointing that out can be helpful. Over the last few years I've pick up a lot of different ways of politely describing quackery!

I think that matter of factly stating 'that claim is not true' and explaining why is usually more powerful than saying something is bullshit or nonsense.

I think it is much easier, and potentially more subtly powerful, to state what is objectively discernible fact. Once you start making accusations of someone's reasons for doing or saying something, then that is subjective and much harder to prove, and much much easier for the person to reject as being a personal attack on them. So if someone publicly states that they caught a fish weighing a ton, you can either state that they said they caught a 1-ton fish, or state that they lied about catching a 1-ton fish. The former is indisputable if it is on record, but whether it was truly a lie needs deeper and more tricky investigations, possibly with legal interventions.

@dave30th is very good at getting this right. Often stating untruths that are clearly evident to all, allowing readers to make their own inevitable inferences of people's motivations for stating their untruths.

There is another powerful bit of psychology here, that I myself have realised over the years. Effective communication is the overall goal, which involves not just transmitting of information, but effective receiving of that information, along with effective processing of it. That latter bit - processing the information - is a crucial final step in the chain of communication. And a very effective way of achieving that is to get the reader/listener to actively engage in the information-exchange process, give them something to do. This means not handing them every single morsel of information to them on a plate. Instead, motivate them to think about what is being said, and then mull it over themselves, think about it and come to some of their own conclusions. Stating the clear truthful facts, without actually stating people's motives, forces people to think about people's motives, and realise there have been lies told.

This of course is what the 'other side' do, but with far less integrity. They state partial facts, that by omission amount to their readers inevitably inferring falsehoods. Their readers then, based on strongly implied untruths, infer that people like us are liars, vexatious agitators, etc. But we have truth on our side, which the BPS crew are rightly scared of, and so we need to just use the same basic strategy, but based on the whole truth - that is very powerful, and something the other side have no real defence against. e.g. "Have you actually read the paper?"