Eysenck on Cancer blog by Tomasz Witkowski and Maciej Zatonsk Jan 31, 2020

[ladycatlover]

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-...-26-articles-by-legendary-hans-eysenck-shows/

This is quite long, and I haven't managed to read all of it yet. But even the bit I've read makes some interesting points!

It is currently estimated that at least one in four readers of this article will die of cancer. This rather simple statistic leads rational readers to consider such cause of their death as quite likely. As a result, some of us will make conscious efforts to follow certain lifestyle that could potentially minimize the above risk. The fact is that we are not able to influence the vast majority of known factors that contribute to our individual risks of developing cancer, not mentioning the causes that still remain unknown. Despite the progress made in medical oncology in the last two decades, many of us will receive a death sentence long before it will be actually carried out. Unlucky diagnosis of certain malignancies, or other currently untreatable and unmanageable conditions, can constitute such a sentence for many of us. In such moments, support that we receive from those that surround us is of exceptional importance. Some of us consider doctors to be oracles, and we can often be inclined to perceive capabilities of physicians as superhuman; at the right moment, a nurse can transform into an angel of hope.

In such life and death circumstances, psychologists – as people thought to be able to soothe the souls of the afflicted and fuel their hearts with positivity – become the bearers of hope for the sick, as well as their families. Many psychologists have dedicated their entire careers to helping people diagnosed with cancer. They have even developed a new field of expertise that deals with topics such as the links between cancer progression and psychological factors. This emerging discipline is called “psycho-oncology”. It is defined as an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of physical, psychological, social, and behavioral aspects of the cancer experience. It researches emotional reactions of patients at various stages of cancer progression, including emotional impact on patients’ families and on the medical personnel engaged with them. Psycho-oncological “knowledge” is applied to help patients in an appropriate manner depending on the treatment phase and/or stage of the disease. The main forms of aid are: psycho-education, support, attitude changing, and “debunking” of myths associated with cancer. This is achieved using methods and techniques applied in psychotherapy.

Why has this stood unchallenged for so long?
Why are those made up and improbable results repeated, quoted, and implemented in hospitals around the world? Because they claim extraordinary results at virtually no cost (apart from hefty prices of experts involved in giving away ineffective leaflets). There might be another reason – a dependency created between a psychologist and a vulnerable patient, which later fuels the need for further interactions: a self-sustaining loop of demand for services designed to solve only the problems it created. Significant sums of money often follow the newly created, yet unnecessary, needs. Are there better ways to spend limited healthcare budgets? We leave the answer to the readers. One thing we know for sure – Eysenck appeared to have quite robust business intuitions, as we will show in later in the article.

I'm finding this article heavy going (been trying to finish reading it for 3 days now - but lack of sleep may have something to do with that), but it seems indicative to me how Psychology cheats.

 

[Louie41]

Oh, this looks so interesting, and I could only manage two minutes!

 

[rvallee]

Although many prominent scholars practice and research psycho-oncology, the field is contaminated with suspicious pseudo-scientific constructs, claims made by self-appointed gurus, and fraudulent (as recently proven) research results coming from the most distinguished scientists.

Sometimes those prominent scholars are the self-appointed gurus making extraordinary claims. Those same experts are also "thought leaders" in mental health, which frankly makes it very likely that most of mental health research is so flawed as to be entirely meaningless.

The exact same reaction as we see here will inevitably happen for much of the BPS/FND/psychosomatic crap. The foundation is also the same: extraordinary claims with no evidence. Just a thought but maybe we shouldn't be doing that anymore, it literally never works.

In the global rating of most cited scholars across all social sciences Eysenck ranked third, following only Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.

Also important: the "experts" can't tell the difference when it comes to illness and the role psychology plays. They even sometimes promote blatant pseudoscience. That is the literal reason why we developed the scientific method, because even the smartest scientists can lie to themselves, sometimes unwittingly and for their whole career.

In their publications [Eysenck and Grossarth-Maticek] claimed no causal connection between tobacco smoking and development of cancer or coronary heart disease, and attributed those outcomes to personality factors

I often wondered what happened to the "scientists" who published the research denying the link between smoking and cancer. Turns out one of them became the 3rd most-cited academic of all time. Maybe people who deliberately contribute to massive public health crises should have consequences. Just a thought.

The cancer-prone personality was described as generally passive in the face of stress from external sources. Those who were heart disease-prone were unable to leave from an unsatisfactory situation by themselves, which in turn made them increasingly violent and hostile. In contrast, a “healthy” personality was autonomous, with a positive outlook on life and its challenges.

Familiar tripe. Literally the same stuff our BPS researchers are saying about us. Literally the exact same tripe found in PACE and in the recent Chalder IBS/IBD iCBT paper.

The greatest hits in the album of suspicious publications are articles where the authors “demonstrated” that they can effectively “prevent cancer and coronary heart disease in disease-prone probands”. In one of their projects, 600 “disease-prone probands” received a leaflet explaining how to make more autonomous decisions and how to take control over their destinies.

Those are literally some of the core principles behind the MUS movement all its various acronyms. LITERALLY. I'm so sick of this nonsense.

One important point: if this happened today it would unfold exactly the same way because the field of clinical psychology is essentially still operating with the same beliefs and assumptions. Which should be sobering. Here is a massive failure being looked as a failure in hindsight while nearly identical stuff is hailed as extraordinary claims despite lacking any evidence.

Let’s take a closer look at Eysenck’s already-mentioned “business” intuitions. Suspicions raised with regard to accuracy and honesty of the research conducted by Eysenck were flagged not only by the scientific community. In 1996, The Independent published an article uncovering payments made by a clandestine American tobacco fund and other the largest tobacco manufacturers to Eysenck in excess of £800,000 (worth approximately $1.3 million USD at 1996 exchange rates). The secretive fund, known as Special Account Number 4, released millions of dollars to mostly American scientists who were carefully chosen by tobacco industry lawyers because their research results could be used to protect tobacco companies from claims raised by victims of tobacco-related lung cancers.

Always follow the money.

In his response to those revelations, Eysenck stated that he has never heard of the Special Account Number 4. He could not also recall from where the millions of British pounds for his research came. When asked directly about his opinion about his engagement with the tobacco industry lawyers in the process of selecting and screening academics to lead research projects, he responded briefly: “As long as somebody pays for the research, I don’t care who it is”.

After humiliating degradation and after losing his job Diedrik Stapel published a particular memoir of a fraudster, where he described a rather accurate characteristics of the academia of psychologists. He emphasises virtually complete lack of any structure of control or self-correction: “Nobody ever checked my work. They trusted me.” They will continue to trust even more once the fraudster will secure a strong position in the academic hierarchy and seal it with titles, degrees, prizes, awards and honoris causa doctorates.

Oh, we know. Trust me, we know all about this but nobody listens to us.

 

[rvallee]

I decided to leave a comment pointing out to the people who think they would do any better today that they are, in fact, doing the exact same mistake:

Most of the BPS model, FND and other current psychosomatic models are built on similar claims and flawed methodology. Those problems are not in the past, research as bad as Eysenck's is growing in influence along with the MUS ideology that is trying to explain away most chronic health problems to personality flaws, almost exactly the same claims as Eysenck's research, just as flawed, claims just as extraordinary and still lacking any evidence.

So to the question of whether clinical psychology would do any better today with such claims, the answer is a clear and resounding: NO. In fact it appears that the field is drifting even deeper into woo territory, with the main innovations being over being deceitful to patients and a major theme in the field being over how to persuade those whose personality is being blamed for their illness. All steps in the wrong direction that are hailed as groundbreaking, something that should be a familiar pattern to the topic being discussed here.

Eysenck's research was obviously bad, but it was hailed as groundbreaking at the time. Right now almost identical claims are being hailed as groundbreaking. Most of the people commenting here would likely have aggressively defended him at the time, just as they likely defend the new apostles of the same ideology, people like Simon Wessely who considered Eysenck's work at the time as possibly one of most important breakthroughs in cancer research.

The heirs of Eysenck are very influential in UK medicine today and pushing the same ideology with disastrous results that are inexplicably hailed as a success, despite being denounced as flawed and misleading by those whose personality is, yet again, being blamed for their illness. Food for thought.

 

[InfiniteRubix]

I often wondered what happened to the "scientists" who published the research denying the link between smoking and cancer. Turns out one of them became the 3rd most-cited academic of all time.

Do we have a source for that statement? It is extremely powerful.

Sorry, if it's in the article, too much for me to read just now.

 

[rvallee]

Do we have a source for that statement? It is extremely powerful.

Sorry, if it's in the article, too much for me to read just now.

Which part? About being the 3rd most cited academic?

Eysenck was one of the most renowned and influential psychologists of all time. When he died in 1997, he was the most cited living psychologist and the third-most cited of all time, just behind Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget. In the global rating of most cited scholars across all social sciences Eysenck ranked third, following only Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.

If you mean the whole sentence it's just me.

 

[Sly Saint]

I decided to leave a comment pointing out to the people who think they would do any better today that they are, in fact, doing the exact same mistake:

just so you know, although we all understand and use BPS to mean biopsychosocial, most in medical circles, in the UK anyway would equate it with the British Psychological Society.

 

[InfiniteRubix]

Which part? About being the 3rd most cited academic?

If you mean the whole sentence it's just me.

Ah. I'd read it as him being the third most cited in relation to that specific topic of cancer and smoking, which would have been quite, even for him