IiME letter to Mark Baker (NICE) re: CBT & GET as recommended treatments

Some non scientific people don't understand biases, fallibility of memory or non objective measures. They go by their intuition of right and wrong. Then again he might just be trolling.

 

My guess is the former @Barry, I don't think Reddit is the place psychiatric researchers go to discuss trials - maybe they'd go there for interesting case study source material (have you seen some of those sub-reddits??)!

Edited to remove n't

 

Yes, I did wonder if it is just a wind up.

 

I think what he meant was:

Biased self reporting shouldn't be invoked easily, especially if the results are very clear.

Clearly this person lives in cloud cuckoo land. Where there is room for subjective bias in science there will always be as much bias as those involved think they will get away with. It is called human nature. Sometimes even called psychology. Anyone who does not know this about science was born yesterday.

And in this case the patients were told to bias their reporting. That is what CBT is supposed to do - bias your thoughts and reports (behaviour).

Doh!!

 

I wonder whether there might not be a little bias in that assessment, and what attempt has been made to refute the conjecture.

 

I was referring to that person and not a global statement but i will edit

 

Sorry @Jonathan Edwards but I think I'm being a bit dense here. I understand all your words, but seem to be losing something in how they go together .

Edit: Sorry, more accurate to say your one word invoke, which still doesn't clarify things for me in this context.

 

The problem is the kind of logic that says:

"Just cos you cant prove something scientifically doesn't mean it don't work".

Usually there is already a belief in the thing in the first place, like homeopathy or faith healing, or psychic mediums or cosmic ordering or positive thinking or reiki etc etc.

Such people usually get annoyed when such things are put to the test and they don't work in the test. When they are unable to put up logical reasoning for or against how the trial was conducted you are just dealing with believers from start to finish.

They then often fall back on new age words like, wellness etc if they are asked to explain their claims.

So boring!!

 

He does remind me very much of a troll that many of us encountered elsewhere. He would superficially base his arguments on science, but without apparent understanding of trial methodology, and a steadfast refusal to distinguish good methodology from poor methodology.

He had formed a biased view of ME/CFS during the XMRV saga, and we became his poster-child for crazy patients messing up science, mentioned occasionally in that context in his blog. Instead of later admitting that anything ME/CFS patients say about science could ever be correct, he would keep repeating the spin over and over.

There's absolutely no chance he'll come to his senses, but it's decent practice for dissecting spin. And someone else might come along and read it, and learn something.

 

This is the internet age, they just google it and post a "study" done by a quack

 

From what I've seen of that user, exactly this. They will never be convinced by any counter argument put forward, so engaging with them more becomes for the benefit of anybody else reading the exchange .who is either undecided or who is of the same mind set but is more open to logic.

 

Yes usually its the inability to understand the difference between "science" and observing whether the the scientific method was followed.

If its been done by scientists, "its science Bro".

 

As @Valentijn points out, it's a useful way to possibly clarify things for others.

 

I think he is saying that the results of PACE should not be easily dismissed on the grounds that the reporting was biased - because the results were clear cut.

I agree there is no logic there. I was trying to sort out the fact that his original sentence does not even make sense.

Maybe it was me being dense.

 

Yes, I was impressed by your parrying to the left and thrusting to the body there. The rapier against the bludgeon - always a pleasure to watch.

 

No, I think it is rational people trying to fathom the irrational.

 

When I was teaching, I would regularly put up some sort of claim as a poster in the classroom, then wait for the squeals of protest.

"9 out of 10 people here say that Maths is the best subject."

At first they would claim that I was making it up etc., but after a little while they would start asking real questions, like, "How many people did you ask?" - 10, of course. "Who did you ask?" - well, there were 8 of us teachers in the maths department, and a couple of pupils came to ask for some help with their homework. You get the picture.

But the point is that the kids pretty soon homed in on the faults, and knew it was rubbish. Why is it that so few adults seem capable of understanding that? Why is it that beliefs become so entrenched that they cannot question the evidence?

Anyone with a solution to this and to other deep philosophical questions, please write a book. A cheap one that we can afford to give away to idiots.

 

Critical thinking is implicitly discouraged, sit and do your work and absorb this and regurgitate on the test. Do up to two decades of this.

I can't, cognitive dysfunction (not kidding on either count)

 

This is side-stepping the issue a bit, but to be honest the rot started with the introduction of the National Curriculum. Suddenly instead of just having targets (GCSEs, A-level etc.), every step of the way was specified, and it was a knowledge/skill based syllabus. I could ignore it to an extent, being an established teacher, and continue to encourage kids to challenge my statements, but for newer staff, it was all they had known. I gather Scotland and Wales have a less prescriptive curriculum where the aim is to produce useful thinkers.

 

Perhaps because it is not in the interests of the "establishment" to have an informed population able to make up their own minds and question decisions. It is only the would be elite who need such an education.

My grandfathers view, learned in the trenches, was: "It's a free country. You're free to do as you're told."