My autismcauses.info website is intended to be about the science, but some readers will inevitably start speculating what are my thoughts and attitudes to the various personae involved in the autism disputations world. So in moments when I'm not up to doing anything better, I'll make a start on presenting here my view of some of the principal actors in this very much drama of our times.
First I should say that I see three entrenched camps into which many or even most researchers or campaigners fit. That is (1) the autism-pride /neurodiversity people who claim autism cannot be a problem so cannot need any therapy or cure; (2) those who are convinced that the autism increase has been caused by vaccines in one way or another; and (3) the medical corporate establishment who have long denied there was an increase, and while that position has started to fracture, now still deny that mercury had anything to do with it, or that chelation could help to remedy it.
My involvement in autism research pre-dates all those factions, and sadly I have to disagree with all of them. It would be so nice to have a group of like-minders among whom I could enjoy mutual admiration sessions (and obviously more). But as befits a rare first-rank scientist, my mind is driven less by social conformities and more by the unrelenting truth. Well, at least, for better or worse I've had more than sufficient hardening to situations of standing alone for my views.
I should also point out that I hold a peculiarly superior position from which to view the other participants in this drama. That's because I have absolutely zero personal interest or investment in it other than just one thing. Namely my 1993-published theory paper, and the fact that I have some seriously brilliant ideas to follow on from it. I'll clarify this a bit further.
The only hand I have in this game is my ideas and inferences, such as those I expressed decades ago in my 1993-published theory paper. Unlike others involved in science, a person who is only a theorist is in the unusual position that all his cards are displayed on the table of published papers. I have no privileged access to information that is not also available to all the principal actors supporting those other positions (or none). Everyone can see for themselves my ideas and the evidence and reasoning I advance to support them. If I am to have any credibility, it depends not on any authoritarian status labels, nor on any assertions of special expertise I make, but only on such truthfulness, soundness and unbiased objectivity as may be contained in my writings. If I err from the path of such truthfulness, soundness and unbiased objectivity, then I will quite certainly be torn to pieces by the plentiful supply of those who preoccupy themselves with making a professional art of such hostilities. It follows that my only hope of gaining anything personally from the autism-causes drama is in confining myself to careful competent honest work under a constant guard of self-criticism. Only thereby I can hope that the praise that was bestowed on my ideas by Rimland (r.i.p). and by Eysenck (r.i.p) will one day be bestowed by others too.
So if my ideas have been mistaken in some way, my only way forward will be to recognise my error and move on to a better understanding. What possible point could there be in my doing otherwise?!
Continuing this preface, I now turn to the widespread assertions that one faction is telling the truth, while another faction is engaged in deliberate criminal deceits. I shall shortly explain why I find at least some of the actors to be indeed unworthy in both methods and aims. But first it should be made clear that just about all non-first-rank scientists (and others) make substantial mistakes, and for instance delude themselves there is a conclusive proof where there is nothing of the sort, or forget information that doesn't fit their preconceptions. In this context, many people insist on making a false inference that person A states so many things that are obviously untrue, and commits such idiotic logical errors, that it follows that they must be engaged on a crooked mission of deceit. I reject, as a general rule, this false inference for the following reason.
Many people pigheadedly maintain and advance viewpoints in gross defiance of evidence, and do so even though they have, at least initially, no possible corrupting motive for so doing. For instance, there are innumerable people who will reveal to you as some stupendous proven conspiracy, that the WTC7 building "fell down in its own footprint", and did so even though there was no honest reason for it to do so. They'll show you certain videos as supposed proof that Silverstein personally arranged for WTC7 to be a "controlled demolition" job.
And yet you can easily find on the web the ample proof that WTC7 was extremely damaged by a huge fragment of WTC1 or 2, and that it was subject to enormous uncontrolled fires, and that it didn't fall into its own footprint anyway. And further that arranging a controlled demolition takes weeks of preparation that would be impossible to conduct secretly in a functioning building. And it didn't resemble a controlled demolition anyway (and I could go on and on here!!!).
But if you try pointing this information out to these muddled people you won't find them calling you back to thank you for showing them the error of their ways!
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Dr Andrew Wakefield
Dr Wakefield appears to have become the world's most famous (or infamous) scientist despite the wishes of a small many. There has of course been a heated exchange of allegations, on the one hand that he has committed fraud and other abuses, on the other hand that his accusers are the real deceivers. In this sort of situation it can be difficult for an outsider to tell fact from fiction. However, there is now more than sufficient self-incrimination in the words of those who have set about persecuting Dr Wakefield. On the basis of evidence freely available on the web, there is now sufficient proof that the pseudo-journalist Brian Deer, the health-fascist GMC, and the BMA's advert-filled trade rag (the BMJ) are devoid themselves of the credibility required to properly undermine the credibility of Dr Wakefield.
I have seen nothing that challenges a view that Dr Wakefield is an honest, honourable and courageous person. He's also built up an impressive knowledge of the autism literature in recent years, and speaks far more sense than certain others who are supposedly the "leading experts".
I do however think he greatly over-estimates some of the evidence concerning vaccines.
Firstly, his notion that a significant association of autism with MMR could be shown by the Japan study of Honda et al. This study involved a relatively small number of autistics and only nine years of time. I don't consider that it shows anything more important than some statistical turbulence relative to the general upward trend. And the fall in the last two years is just the normal underestimation due to delay of diagnosis.
Secondly, his citing of primate studies. But the vaccination schedule was speeded up by four times the human. And there's no reason to believe that mercury is metabolised four times faster in the primates. And we already have huge human epidemiological evidence of introduction and removal of vaccines in other countries.
Thirdly his citing the study that supposedly shows a "changepoint" at about 1988. In reality there is a smoothly-increasing curve already starting by 1980; as I explain at www.autismcauses.info.
Nevertheless, Dr Wakefield and myself are in concurrence that the question of vaccines as a small part of the causation of autism is still an open one, neither proved nor disproved.
His main errors are in not recognising the relevance of my 1993 theory paper, and of not seeing the centrality of dental amalgam in causation of the autism increase. But then almost the entire rest of the human race share with him in that error, so that's no big deal!
Papers replicating the findings of Wakefield 1998
(I have not read all the above; you have to judge their merits for yourself.)
Video of Dr Andrew Wakefield in his own words
A quasi-response video by Brian Deer.
Note how Mr Deer has set comments to disabled, so that it is impossible to post any challenges to (or verifications of) his assertions. Preventing such discussion is in my experience characteristic of those who are in the business of promoting falsehoods rather than truths.
New BMJ article:GMC case against Wakefield’s colleague was “superficial,” says appeal
I have seen nothing that challenges a view that Dr Wakefield is an honest, honourable and courageous person. He's also built up an impressive knowledge of the autism literature in recent years, and speaks far more sense than certain others who are supposedly the "leading experts".
I do however think he greatly over-estimates some of the evidence concerning vaccines.
Firstly, his notion that a significant association of autism with MMR could be shown by the Japan study of Honda et al. This study involved a relatively small number of autistics and only nine years of time. I don't consider that it shows anything more important than some statistical turbulence relative to the general upward trend. And the fall in the last two years is just the normal underestimation due to delay of diagnosis.
Secondly, his citing of primate studies. But the vaccination schedule was speeded up by four times the human. And there's no reason to believe that mercury is metabolised four times faster in the primates. And we already have huge human epidemiological evidence of introduction and removal of vaccines in other countries.
Thirdly his citing the study that supposedly shows a "changepoint" at about 1988. In reality there is a smoothly-increasing curve already starting by 1980; as I explain at www.autismcauses.info.
Nevertheless, Dr Wakefield and myself are in concurrence that the question of vaccines as a small part of the causation of autism is still an open one, neither proved nor disproved.
His main errors are in not recognising the relevance of my 1993 theory paper, and of not seeing the centrality of dental amalgam in causation of the autism increase. But then almost the entire rest of the human race share with him in that error, so that's no big deal!
Papers replicating the findings of Wakefield 1998
(I have not read all the above; you have to judge their merits for yourself.)
Video of Dr Andrew Wakefield in his own words
A quasi-response video by Brian Deer.
Note how Mr Deer has set comments to disabled, so that it is impossible to post any challenges to (or verifications of) his assertions. Preventing such discussion is in my experience characteristic of those who are in the business of promoting falsehoods rather than truths.
New BMJ article:GMC case against Wakefield’s colleague was “superficial,” says appeal
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Paul Offit betrays his serious aversion to honesty
The trouble with authoring a big book is that unless you are painstakingly conscientious (or unreflectingly honourable anyway), you could in any one of the thousands of sentences unwittingly betray an unworthy mentation you would prefer to keep hidden. Let's now take a look at Exhibit A, namely pages 57-59 of "Autism's False Prophets".
You can click on this weblink below, then click the "look inside" picture of the book, and then use the search box to find the word "paternalism".
http://www.amazon.com/Autisms-False-Prophets-Science-Medicine/dp/023114637X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294342611&sr=1-1
You can then read pages 57-59 of his masterwork. Note halfway down page 58 where Dr Offit quotes the words of Richard Horton:
"The public is entitled to know as much as possible."
Now note how Paul Offit deals with these words. Does he express any agreement with the concept? No, not the slightest. Does he instead express any disagreement with the concept? No, not the slightest agreement or disagreement, or approval or disapproval is expressed by Dr Offit. Or does he present any argument against Horton's claim that "the public is entitled to know as much as possible"? No, not the slightest (and almost certainly because there is no defensible argument that could go there). One does have to wonder whether he could be feeling shy of saying what his actual attitude is here. But, in what looks to me like an attack of writer's panic at those Holy Words of Honesty shining embarrassingly out of his page 58, he also fails to hide his true attitude in these pages, as I will now explain.
Offit immediately follows Horton's quoted words with the word "But...". That doesn't exactly come across as a ringing endorsement. But it gets worse. That "But" is the first word in a sentence which contains two brazen falsehoods. Firstly it refers to "Wakefield's history of holding press conferences". Here Offit is misrepresenting Wakefield's one press conference on Crohn's disease into a "history of holding press conferences" in the plural. Secondly, it refers to "ignoring the warnings of an accompanying editorial". But it was the very same Lancet editor Richard Horton who commissioned and published that editorial which Offit is here blaming him for "ignoring". Not satisfied with a double falsehood in his first sentence, Offit then goes on hypocritically to declare that "The loss of public trust that followed was entirely predictable." But wouldn't a more honest accounting for loss of public trust be that so many people involved have failed to honour Horton's principle that "The public is entitled to know as much as possible"?
Offit provides the final coup-de-grace to his own credibility with the way that he avoids commenting on Horton's message but immediately sets about a vitriolic condemnation of its messenger in the several hundred words that follow it. And also precedes it with a pageful of more dis-enthusiasm against that messenger.
It is impossible for any sane person to study these pages without seeing that Offit has some major personal problem with Horton's concept that "The public is entitled to know as much as possible". Offit fails to make any direct comment on it, no approval, no agreement, no argument against it, but instead that "But" and two falsehoods immediately following on as part of an extended raging expression of utter contempt for the messenger.
So now we can only conclude that Paul Offit does not work to the principle that "The public is entitled to know as much as possible." Which raises the question of what he thinks we should not be told. And of what point there is in reading a book written by someone who prefers that we should only be told a censored account of the scientific evidence.
Via the link at the end here you can see my account of some of the extreme falsehoods deployed in Offit's book, and his book's outstandingly peculiar system for hiding which of his assertions are completely unsupported by any citations of evidence. These falsehoods are deployed in such a way as to prevent readers identifying what caused and is continuing to cause the stupendous autism catastrophe, and such as to prevent the victims from obtaining the chelation treatments they desperately need.
And yet the medical establishment and their various blogging enthusiasts proclaim Offit as the High Priest wonderful hero of autism science writing, and this as supposedly the most truly excellent book (since Mein Kampf?).
http://www.autismcauses.info/2010/10/autisms-false-prophets-autisms-false.html
You can click on this weblink below, then click the "look inside" picture of the book, and then use the search box to find the word "paternalism".
http://www.amazon.com/Autisms-False-Prophets-Science-Medicine/dp/023114637X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294342611&sr=1-1
You can then read pages 57-59 of his masterwork. Note halfway down page 58 where Dr Offit quotes the words of Richard Horton:
"The public is entitled to know as much as possible."
Now note how Paul Offit deals with these words. Does he express any agreement with the concept? No, not the slightest. Does he instead express any disagreement with the concept? No, not the slightest agreement or disagreement, or approval or disapproval is expressed by Dr Offit. Or does he present any argument against Horton's claim that "the public is entitled to know as much as possible"? No, not the slightest (and almost certainly because there is no defensible argument that could go there). One does have to wonder whether he could be feeling shy of saying what his actual attitude is here. But, in what looks to me like an attack of writer's panic at those Holy Words of Honesty shining embarrassingly out of his page 58, he also fails to hide his true attitude in these pages, as I will now explain.
Offit immediately follows Horton's quoted words with the word "But...". That doesn't exactly come across as a ringing endorsement. But it gets worse. That "But" is the first word in a sentence which contains two brazen falsehoods. Firstly it refers to "Wakefield's history of holding press conferences". Here Offit is misrepresenting Wakefield's one press conference on Crohn's disease into a "history of holding press conferences" in the plural. Secondly, it refers to "ignoring the warnings of an accompanying editorial". But it was the very same Lancet editor Richard Horton who commissioned and published that editorial which Offit is here blaming him for "ignoring". Not satisfied with a double falsehood in his first sentence, Offit then goes on hypocritically to declare that "The loss of public trust that followed was entirely predictable." But wouldn't a more honest accounting for loss of public trust be that so many people involved have failed to honour Horton's principle that "The public is entitled to know as much as possible"?
Offit provides the final coup-de-grace to his own credibility with the way that he avoids commenting on Horton's message but immediately sets about a vitriolic condemnation of its messenger in the several hundred words that follow it. And also precedes it with a pageful of more dis-enthusiasm against that messenger.
It is impossible for any sane person to study these pages without seeing that Offit has some major personal problem with Horton's concept that "The public is entitled to know as much as possible". Offit fails to make any direct comment on it, no approval, no agreement, no argument against it, but instead that "But" and two falsehoods immediately following on as part of an extended raging expression of utter contempt for the messenger.
So now we can only conclude that Paul Offit does not work to the principle that "The public is entitled to know as much as possible." Which raises the question of what he thinks we should not be told. And of what point there is in reading a book written by someone who prefers that we should only be told a censored account of the scientific evidence.
Via the link at the end here you can see my account of some of the extreme falsehoods deployed in Offit's book, and his book's outstandingly peculiar system for hiding which of his assertions are completely unsupported by any citations of evidence. These falsehoods are deployed in such a way as to prevent readers identifying what caused and is continuing to cause the stupendous autism catastrophe, and such as to prevent the victims from obtaining the chelation treatments they desperately need.
And yet the medical establishment and their various blogging enthusiasts proclaim Offit as the High Priest wonderful hero of autism science writing, and this as supposedly the most truly excellent book (since Mein Kampf?).
http://www.autismcauses.info/2010/10/autisms-false-prophets-autisms-false.html
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)