Sense about Science: Join our talks on science, scepticism and free speech (Garner et al)

Dolphin

Dolphin

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
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Dear friend,

Critical thinking, open inquiry and the freedom to question have been fundamental to the development of the scientific method and the expansion of knowledge. To explore these ideas further, we’re pleased to invite you to a series of lectures and discussions we are running in partnership with the Free Speech Union.

In Science, Scepticism and Free Speech, Professor Alan Sokal and Professor Paul Garnerwill make the case for why we should care about science but also question it, concluding with our director Tracey Brown and Toby Young discussing the relationship between science, the public and democratic decision-making.

Events will take place at 7.30pm on 27 March, 27 April and 29 May at the Art Workers’ Guild in central London. Tickets include a glass of wine, and each event will include plenty of time for audience questions.



If you can’t attend in person, we will send you a Zoom link to join online, free of charge, shortly before each event. Please put the dates in your diary now.

Best wishes,

Mina

Communications Officer
 
I thought SaS was serious. Were they always like that? Toby Young is a right-wing troll, no serious person would have anything to do with this fool.

It says that Garner is on the board of trustees of SaS. That really makes it a clown organization. And these people present themselves as skeptics? This is as impressive as the climate change conference run by oil countries where they openly made deals. It's incredible how corrupt humans are, we are destroying ourselves and the future of our species over petty self-interest.

Also it says that Garner is "developing further research on post-viral syndrome", which would be news to even us, as he has not done that. His talk will also "share noteworthy examples where an insistence on robust evidence and research has led not only to scientific breakthroughs but to the exposure of malpractice", which is just incredible. I guess people can simply write anything in their bio, even emeritus professors of medicine. The death of expertise is truly complete.
 
This freedom-to-question rang a bell, so I went looking.

And indeed, it reminded me of a bit from the opinion piece by the Oslo chronic fatigue consortium a while back, which was co-authored by Garner, as at the time thàt strongly reminded me of a common tactic by the far right, climate change deniers and other disinformation spreaders when they encounter pushback to their bullshit - calling for "reason" and complaining about limitations on their their "freedom"; positioning themselves as victims and restricted in their freedom of speech when their harmful nonsense is not accepted.

the Oslo chronic fatigue consortium said:
We call for change. Specifically, we propose that doctors and health professionals should feel free to discuss and express different understandings of these illnesses. They should also be free to recommend any evidence-based treatments that offer a realistic hope of improvement and even recovery.
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Of course this has nothing to do with their "freedom" (given their firm dominance in the last 30 years their posturing in the above quote is preposterous as well) and everything to do with wanting to be able to continue to use their psychiatric model and the accompanying treatment they profited from unhindered despite them being exposed as bullshit.

See also: the famous Public Service Announcement cartoon (image below)
 

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Using that painting as illustration is the cherry on the probable mud cake btw. :emoji_cherries:

I've read a lot of old ME- and ilness -related psychiatry stuff in the last three years, and what I came across regularly is that these men presented and saw themselves as some sort of visionary pioneers that were exploring new frontiers and bringing knowledge to the ignorant (physicians who adhered to the present day medical model of illnesses), while in my opinion they were very obviously fucking about in a rather dumb, prejudiced and potentially very harmful way. (When I saw Stockton Rush giving a tour of Titan I was struck by the similarities.)

As far as I have seen, Garner seems to be similar since he found bps-religion

So adding this painting -Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition by Cristiano Banti (1857), depicting a visionary scientist being prosecuted by dogmatic unbelievers who did not want to accept Galileo's knowledge and genius- seems just so illustrative of how they see themselves.
 
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That's Paul Garner who makes contentious tweets in which he champions his psychosomatic ideology about ME, but only tweeters designated by him can reply on those twitter threads of his.



And prominent 'Free Speech' advocate Claire Fox (Director of The Academy of Ideas, formerly The Institute of Ideas who run the 'Battle of Ideas' events) who supports Michael Sharp's statements about ME and the patients, whilst pre-emptively denigrating ME sufferers who may respond, framing us as unreasonable, as "a particular zealous cohort of intolerant, trolling campaigners who distort and disrupt scientific research".






The tweet:
Claire Fox, 18th of March 2019:

"Brilliant interview with @profmsharpe this morning on @BBCr4today
Depressing that it was due to the distortion and disruption of scientific research by a particular zealous cohort of intolerant, trolling campaigners (no doubt some of whom I am about to encounter)"



Edit add: So that's how Claire Fox describes sick patients with ME who exercise their Free Speech to criticize the damaging so called 'treatments' of CBT/GET and who have to campaign for biomedical research because the MRC and NIHR had given most of the research funding to Professor Sharpe and his colleagues.

NB, Claire Fox, along with sister Fiona Fox (CEO of The Science Media Centre) along with Dr Michael Fitzpatrick (who trashed the new NICE Guideline and denigrated ME patients while positioning himself as 'the victim' of sick ME patients in 2 Telegraph articles when NICE was published) all have a background in the Revolutionary Communist Party (1970s Trotskyist splinter group) which produced the contentious online magazine Living Marxism, which is now the online magazine Spiked. Far left libertarian gone far right libertarian.

.
 
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Trish said:
Wessely has influence in Sense about Science, and they awarded him their John Maddox prize in 2010 specifically for his ME/CFS work and standing up for science against attacks. The whole thing's a bad joke.
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I just sort of assumed this was because of the weird blind spot medicine has for ME. Almost all skeptics fail that test. This seems like a whole higher level of losing the plot.

As a general rule, and I have never once seen it fail, anyone bringing 'free speech' into scientific issues is not a serious person. Free speech is an entirely different issue, and in fact in the case of ME, there is a very real and systemic trampling of our right to free speech. It's exactly like religious fanatics who go on about 'freedom of religion'. Their religion, and only their. Claire Fox in the tweet above frames it as a free speech issue, about someone who has deliberately attacked the actual free speech of patients.

Real experts have no issue with criticism of their work and can defend it easily. They also adapt and learn when faced with contradictory evidence, especially if it affects people's lives. What we see in the case of psychosomatic ideology is the opposite, and there is a broader trend in medicine, we see it plainly in regard to 'herd immunity' and the whole pandemic debacle, where any bit of mild criticism is immediately framed as an attack, as defamation or worse.

They simply don't have any real evidence or scientific arguments, and immediately resort to personal attacks, while framing criticism of their work as attacks. Pure sophistry. Anyone who uses this argument is not serious and has no real defense of their work, is simply trying to push their personal beliefs and opinions that lack any basis in truth.
 
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What really sickens me about all this is the insistence that what they are doing is in the best interest of patients. It takes a whole other level of delusion and arrogance to insist you are helping when those same patients are telling you the opposite.
 
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Trish said:
Wessely has influence in Sense about Science, and they awarded him their John Maddox prize in 2010 specifically for his ME/CFS work and standing up for science against attacks.
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Sense About Science US had a fight with SAS UK because the US entity published Rebecca Goldin's smack-down of PACE after I'd published my investigation. The Brits were very upset about that and made angry noises to the US arm. Sharpe wrote to them directly complaining about the piece because they also ran an editorial slamming PACE.
 
Arvo said:
(When I saw Stockton Rush giving a tour of Titan I was struck by the similarities.)...

As far as I have seen, Garner seems to be similar since he found bps-religion
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Hah! It is the same utter certainty that they are correct, and nobody has the right to hinder their glorious endeavours.

Maybe 20 years ago I saw a doco on cable TV about Charles Darwin and Wessely stuck his head up pontificating about the cause of Darwin's lifelong health problems. No prizes for guessing how Sir Simon viewed them.

The relevant bit is that he was utterly certain and definite, had absolutely no hesitation, left no margin of error. Not just the words, but the whole body language and tone of voice.

Remember that Darwin had been dead for over a century by this stage.

Same utter certainty that Garner has, and Stockton Rush had, and which I also saw in an interview with the problematic but influential psychologist Hans Eysenck near the end of his life. You won't be surprised to learn that Wessely has defended Eysenck's dodgy work.

Point of this is that I had the same visceral reaction to all of them, my blood ran cold. It is genuinely terrifying stuff. At least when you deal with a fraud you what they are after and that they are aware they are doing something wrong. But these guys were all something far worse, far more dangerous: people who believe absolutely that they are doing good and therefore have the right to impose their beliefs on others.

In the case of Rush it only hurt a small number. In the case of the other three, a lot more than that

rvallee said:
As a general rule, and I have never once seen it fail, anyone bringing 'free speech' into scientific issues is not a serious person. Free speech is an entirely different issue, and in fact in the case of ME, there is a very real and systemic trampling of our right to free speech. It's exactly like religious fanatics who go on about 'freedom of religion'. Their religion, and only their. Claire Fox in the tweet above frames it as a free speech issue, about someone who has deliberately attacked the actual free speech of patients.
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The twisted logic of people who have long standing and unfettered access to far more prominent and influential fora than we patients ever will, including mainstream media, and medico-legal and policy advisory roles, complaining that they are the ones being suppressed.

Irony really is dead.

dave30th said:
The Brits were very upset about that and made angry noises to the US arm. Sharpe wrote to them directly complaining about the piece because they also ran an editorial slamming PACE.
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And they endlessly portray us patients as snowflakes in denial, and in need of an Expert™ to help us get back in touch with the reality of own bodies. :rolleyes:

Probably best they don't look too deeply into any nearby mirrors. Might not like what they see.
 
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