Trial By Error: My Brief Encounter with Professor Crawley

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
At noon last Friday, at the University of Exeter’s Mood Disorders Centre, Professor Esther Crawley gave a talk called “What is new in paediatric CFS/ME research.” When I saw a notice about the event the day before, I felt it might be my one chance to ask her directly about her concerns regarding my work and her accusation that I was writing “libellous blogs.” (If she were American, she would presumably have accused me of writing “libelous–one L–blogs”).

I also hoped to gain insight into some other issues that have troubled me: why she still believes PACE was a “great, great” trial, why her prevalence studies use “chronic fatigue” as a proxy for “chronic fatigue syndrome,” why she is not concerned about bias given that she conducts non-blinded studies relying on subjective rather than objective primary outcomes, etc.

So many questions!
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http://www.virology.ws/2017/11/20/trial-by-error-my-brief-encounter-with-professor-crawley/

ETA
 
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David Tuller, rock star!

I expect that as EC’s talk was on what’s new in pediatric ME/CFS, she mentioned the recent pediatric primer? No?

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Diagnosis and Management in Young People: A Primer
Peter C. Rowe1, Rosemary A. Underhill2*, Kenneth J. Friedman3, Alan Gurwitt4, Marvin S. Medow5, Malcolm S. Schwartz6, Nigel Speight7, Julian M. Stewart8, Rosamund Vallings9 and Katherine S. Rowe
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2017.00121/full

Also, I note that the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome wikipedia talk page had some stimulating discussion over the past few days, initiated from an IP address in Exeter.
 
Well looks like it's the same response to any critique of methodology or claims.

Ether Crawley just resorts to mud slinging and bullying her way out of answering polite questions.

Not much you can do with that unfortunately. Hopefully once NICE have rejected PACE fully we can have an enquiry That will give recommendations on how to avoid wasting public money on badly designed research in the future.
 
Remember leave to leave comments, information & links on the Virology blog. :)

Edit: David Tuller does take notice of your comments. Information I've passed on to him has featured in his blogs.

A large part of his work has come from facts & data pointed out by the patient community.
 
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We seem to be getting a confused and confusing message.

On the one hand we have the tales of the wish to emulate the heroic derring-do of her ancestors.

On the other we have someone apparently fearful of a civil question from an academic.

No Lysanders for her.
 
It really does seem to be the case that many of those in 'soft' science see debate, questioning and calls for transparency as 'harassment' and 'abuse'.

It baffles me, but I think that it is a culture we're going to need to try to understand.
 
PeeWee said:
@Esther12
Why?

As in, why do we need to understand self-serving willful misunderstanding of simple things as anything more than what it is?
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It is so widespread amongst people with power and influence, and we need to win more of those people over if we want to make speedy progress. Also, I don't think that it's as simple as them just being calculatingly self-interested. I think that many of them have a genuine sense that they're in the right, and people like Tuller are behaving badly.

PS: Welcome to the forum!
 
Esther12 said:
It really does seem to be the case that many of those in 'soft' science see debate, questioning and calls for transparency as 'harassment' and 'abuse'.

It baffles me, but I think that it is a culture we're going to need to try to understand.
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But we should remember that Crawley is quick to attack work she does not agree with. I'm not sure what the 'soft' sciences are but I've seen vigourous debate between psychologists and economists. I think some academics feel threatened by questioning and transparency from those outside of their field. The great unwashed shouldn't comment on high thinking!
 
Adrian said:
But we should remember that Crawley is quick to attack work she does not agree with. I'm not sure what the 'soft' sciences are but I've seen vigourous debate between psychologists and economists. I think some academics feel threatened by questioning and transparency from those outside of their field. The great unwashed shouldn't comment on high thinking!
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I was thinking of the criticism of how people like Andrew Gelman have been critical of Amy Cuddy, eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/magazine/when-the-revolution-came-for-amy-cuddy.html

There, it almost seems like it was thought mean for high-thinking methodologists to criticise a mere researcher who was following 'the rules'.

It does seem that with the CFS stuff, and especially in the UK, there seems to be some snobby disgust at the idea that patients should be picking apart the work of mainstream researchers.
 
Esther12 said:
There, it almost seems like it was thought mean for high-thinking methodologists to criticise a mere researcher who was following 'the rules'.
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I do think some people (including myself) think different amounts of criticism should be given according to the status of the person. So I think a senior academic such as a professor should be able to justify everything they do. But with a junior researcher or a PhD student I sometimes think strong criticism is not right as they have often been directed in an approach. Sometimes its better to have a quiet word suggesting other directions or literature they should also consider. Or criticize the senior person running the project instead.
 
Adrian said:
I do think some people (including myself) think different amounts of criticism should be given according to the status of the person. So I think a senior academic such as a professor should be able to justify everything they do. But with a junior researcher or a PhD student I sometimes think strong criticism is not right as they have often been directed in an approach. Sometimes its better to have a quiet word suggesting other directions or literature they should also consider. Or criticize the senior person running the project instead.
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I agree that it's often better to start by criticising people in a gentle way, and to try to be as helpful as possible. I might try to do that regardless of status.

It can also be hard to know what 'status' someone has. What if a mere PhD student ends up becoming a media sensation based on spun junk-science and refuses to engage with their critics? Or someone with no research background who just has a big audience?

I think it's sensible to prioritise criticising the poor behaviour of those with the most power and influence... but I also know that I've spent plenty of time and effort criticising the arguments of random anonymous accounts on the internet. If someone is promoting unreasonable claims, or failing to properly defend their position, then I don't have a problem with relentless criticism of them for that, regardless of their status.

Having said that, as I age I'm feeling rather less relentless about these things myself. Hopefully a new generation will be rising up to relentlessly criticise me for all my errors!
 
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