Guardian Article on NICE pause

Yes, it's not really comparable to the climate change "debate" in that the pro-CBT/GET studies are in high-profile journals that continue to defend them, and high-powered academic institutions behind these investigators. Journalists are not really equipped to adjudicate these complex disputes, even "science" reporters.

 

this has seemed to me to be a huge part of the issue--not just among journalists, but among other academics/scientists in UK, who feel unable or not in a position to challenge these august people.

 

No. they could easily be referring to the stakeholder version.

 

Is it really that complex or is it that they have no fundamental understanding of science?

There are literally no scientific counter arguments in any of the articles I read, yet the journalists still seem to throw in the usual nonsense as a balance. I thought the difference between the arguments was clear but I don't think they can see it. But that doesn't make it complex, it means they are ill equipped to recognise pseudoscience.

 

It may not be entirely relevant to this article, but, my wife and I were talking about PACE the other day (oh yes, livin' the dream, we wasted energy talking PACE) and it struck me that if Chalder, Wessely and co. who did PACE were so confident in their findings and that they could replicate the results in a way that would stand up to scrutiny, wouldn't they seek to do the whole thing again?

I know there have been other GET-related studies, but if they were that sure, they'd put their reputations on the line to prove beyond reason, that GET and CBT worked.

But of course, they won't. Because, I'd suspect they'd struggle to get it signed off in 2021, would they get the funding and ethical approval, one would assume not, so they cling onto their discredited results and keep bandying out the same old lines, coming across oh so reasonable.

When Miller was on R4 the other day, before Sonya C from A4ME, he sounded so reasonable to the untrained ear, and that's what I suspect comes across to journalists. These experts are so nice and cuddly, they are the 'doctors' so they must be believed, where-as these patients who are getting agro on Twitter etc..not sure we want to delve too deep into why they are so angry.

I'm eternally grateful to Charles Shepherd and Jonathan Edwards et al for continuing to fight our corner, trying to put across why we very sick people are so angry.

 

I fear it is a lack of common sense, which, as Bertrand Russell said, is not that common.
The issues with these trials are easy for anyone on this site without scientific knowledge to follow. You just have to have some basic experience of how human beings behave and a bit of joined up thinking.

 

Schrödinger’s ME patient - simultaneously to be believed and not believed….

 

I love it when people cut through the BS:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1432303174661165058


It's sad how few people are able to truly exercise critical thinking. If even half the journalists covering this issue applied 1% of Godwin's critical thinking we'd be so much farther along. As much as medicine has systematically faceplanted dealing with this complex issue, journalism has generally been just as poor at covering it. And the professional "skeptics" as well, boy did they drop that ball hard.

Godwin is an attorney. It doesn't even take basic training in medicine or journalism to see how these ideologues are self-serving and dishonest to the bone. It takes a truly credulous mind to accept their claims at face value.

 

That is a fairly incisive reply from Godwin.

Sharpe may come to regret that tweet.

 

Mike Godwin you made my night

 

I wonder what the inspired mid-field pass from @Healthy_Control was?

 

I wish the Gruniad would get it's facts right....

I don't think Forward is a Charity Group is it?
"The ME community in the UK is served by a considerable range of charities, with even the largest being relatively small. Recognising the benefit of being able to speak with a louder voice, Forward-ME was established as a coordinating body to provide a unified and perhaps louder voice for the ME community to reach key influencers and stakeholders – government, medical bodies etc".

 

It is strange because images like the one I have pasted below are all over social media with people liking them in copious amounts.

Yet a jounalist can't seem to spot this sort of stuff when it's under their nose.

 

The only thing on which I would disagree is that most good science is done by mavericks working in isolation:

Einstein
Newton
Leibniz
Descartes
Galileo
Darwin
Pasteur
Lister
Jenner
Curie
Crick and Watson
...

 

Informed consent becomes an important aspect now that there is acceptance of both lack of benefit and harm .

 

"Uses flawed methods with unrepeatable results"

Or as with CBT/GET, pseudoscience can also have perfected the flawed methods to such a degree that the results are reproducible (but still wrong).

PS: in practice science is also dogmatic and unyielding. It often takes a while for new ideas to become accepted.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1431550455017086979

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1432303174661165058


Since this brilliant tweet is from the very creator of Godwin's law, I suppose an application of that law could exceptionally be acceptable.
So, here to comment on Sharpe's idea that we are the ones preoccupied with benefits rather than science, not them: