A sad twist in the story of XMRV

Compare and contrast
[Via Respectful Insolence]

I’ve spent nearly seven years and an enormous amount of verbiage writing about the difference between pseudoscience and science, between cranks and skeptics, between denialists and scientists. Along the way, I’ve identified a number of factors common to cranks and denialists. For example, two of the most prominent characteristics are a tendency to cherry pick studies and evidence and–shall we say?–a major “inconsistency” in how they deal with data. If a study appears to support their viewpoint, it doesn’t matter how small it is, how preliminary it is, how poorly designed it is, or how weak its conclusions are. It agrees with their pre-existing beliefs; so it must be a good study. In marked contrast, if a study, no matter how big, no matter how well-designed and exquisitely executed, no matter how clear cut its results, doesn’t conclude what cranks want it to conclude, to the crank it’s utter crap (at best), the result of unyielding dogma, or the result of a conspiracy to suppress The Truth (at worst). Often it’s declared to be a combination of all three.

We just saw this very phenomenon yesterday in the way that Katie Wright castigated a perfectly fine little pilot study with a provocative result about neuron counts in the prefrontal cortex in autistic children. If you listened to the anti-vaccine contingent, you’d think that the study was not only horrible science but carried out by Satan himself “sacrificing” autistic children to get their brains. In contrast, when a real crap study (namely the “monkey business” study by Laura Hewitson) was published, anti-vaccine cranks treated it as though it were the “smoking gun” demonstrating that thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autism. When the study was withdrawn, it was treated as though a conspiracy had “silenced” Hewitson. Then, of course, there’s the biggest, baddest example of this of all, namely Andrew Wakefield himself. His original study published in The Lancet in 1998 was a 12 subject case series with no control group that later shown by Brian Deer to have been fraudulent. Even before it was known that the study was fraudulent, however, it was obvious that at best this was a small, preliminary study whose results wee not all that convincing. Yet this study was the beginning of the MMR scare in the U.K. that drove MMR uptake rates to levels well below that needed to maintain herd immunity and made Andrew Wakefield a star in the anti-vaccine movement. When this paper was finally retracted due to fraud, the anti-vaccine movement turned Wakefield into a martyr many times over. He remains to this day a hero of the anti-vaccine movement.

Given that background, it’s rather interesting (to me at least) and, I daresay, educational to compare two different scientists in trouble with the law and how anti-sciencecranks have reacted to this situation. The reason this comes up is because a scientist who rose to prominence in the cranksophere due to her highly questionable findings is now finding herself in trouble with the law. I’m referring to Judy Mikovits, a researcher who published a report two years ago linking the XMRV retrovirus to chronic fatigue syndrome. If you click on the link, you’ll note that the study, which was published in one of the highest impact journals there is, Science, was retracted. In July 2011, the editor of Science issued a statement of concern that stated:

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I wrote about this when the first paper came out. And when I started writing about the problems others were having repeating the work, I had many commenters defending the authors.

Now the paper is on the way to being retracted, reasonable evidence has been produced demonstrating that contamination is responsible, yet the authors have reacted thusly:

Of course, it’s not so much that Mikovits was wrong. Scientists are wrong all the time. Mikovits was very likely wrong about XMRV having a relationship to the etiology of CFS. (Either that, or something is going on that all the scientists trying to replicate her work are missing, which is highly unlikely.) That’s OK, though. That’s part of science. There’s no shame in that. What isn’t OK and is shameful is what Mikovits did with her results and how she behaved afterward. She extended them to autism (even going so far as to speak at the anti-vaccine conference Autism One), blaming XMRV for autism and other conditions. Even worse, she attacked scientists personally who couldn’t replicated their results, accusing them of, in essence, incompetence and of intentionally designing their experiments to minimize the chances of detecting XMRV in their samples. She also accused insurance companies of trying to sully the findings of her study in much the same way that anti-vaccine zealots and alt-med mavens like to claim that big pharma is trying to keep you from finding out The Truth and the government of trying to undermine her research because it fears an outbreak of XMRV.

She is now attempting to commercialize a diagnostic for the virus, even though so many researchers have negated the work that Science is now concerned about it.

When researchers start claiming a conspiracy preventing others from repeating their work, we can usually infer that their work simply does not withstand the scrutiny.

But it gets even worse:

In a stunning twist, Mikovits was arrested on Friday, and spent five days in a California jail cell, held without bond. She was released Tuesday after an arraignment hearing, according to court records. An arrest warrant issued by University of Nevada at Reno police listed two felony charges: possession of stolen property and unlawful taking of computer data, equipment, supplies or other computer-related property.

She was fired in September, and this month her former employer filed a lawsuit alleging she had wrongfully taken lab notebooks, a computer and other proprietary data. Other researchers have discredited her work, and the journal Science, which published her study, is investigating whether the data were manipulated.

Climate change denialists invoke a global conspiracy of researchers in order to explain why the data does not match their ‘reality’. We see similar responses here by those who support XMRV – that a worldwide conspiracy is behind all of this, including the arrests.

As long as these sorts of arguments are made, the science behind all of this will stay confusing.

In all other cases of confusing, paradigm-shifting science that I have seen in my life that turned out to be correct – such as RNA enzymes or antibiotics for ulcers – the true response to controversy is to attack the criticisms with better science, not to attack those who present the criticisms.

That is how paradigms are overturned. Not by commercializing the research before all the results are in.

Dealing with a denialist as told by bunnies

Yes! The religion and science conflict, only cuter!
[Via Pharyngula]

Here is a perfect illustration of the debate. Bottom line: never trust anyone who speaks in pink word balloons.

(via My Confined Space)

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The cutest depiction of talking with a denialist. Critical thinking are not one of their attributes.

Death from above – for sea urchins

Like a deadly lightning bolt made of treacle
[Via Pharyngula]

Somebody clone Attenborough, quick — the British nature program must continue forever! His latest documentary is Frozen Planet, and all I’ve seen of it is short clips on youtube and various other sites…which just makes me want to see more.

Here is a time lapse video of a brinicle forming: a column of cold water descending from the surface which is saltier than the surrounding sea, so it both sinks and remains liquid as it oozes downward, but it freezes the less briny water around it. It’s slow, but if you’re a slow-moving echinoderm, it’s like the icy finger of a vindictive god reaching down to destroy you.

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Great time lapse. Watching the sea stars and sea urchins run for their lives is kind of sad since they have no idea why the water is freezing.

What people of faith have to say about the Davis pepper spraying incident

Occupy Wall Street Protests, Police, and Pepper Spray: Nothing to Sneeze At | Catholic Moral Theology Occupy Wall Street Protests, Police, and Pepper Spray: Nothing to Sneeze At |
[Via Catholic Moral Theology]

As a theological ethicist who also used to work in law enforcement, I feel obligated to comment on the latest incident involving police using pepper spray on Occupy Wall Street protesters. Garance Franke-Ruta over at The Atlantic provides, I think, a fair account of this, including most recently the one at the University of California-Davis. In my view, based on the videos and the reports available to date, the spraying of kneeling students by Lt. John Pike was unjustified; it was excessive force and an example of police brutality. Most law enforcement officers are pepper-sprayed as part of their training so that they know what it feels like whenever they use it (plus, often when it is employed, some blows onto the officer, so s/he had be prepared beforehand for what it feels like). I remember being out of commission for a whole day following being sprayed directly in the face during training–it is very painful and incapacitating. Indeed, Fox’s Megyn Kelly should try it before making the silly comment that it’s “a food product, essentially”.

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A very worthwhile read. This is an important point:

Police are supposed to serve and protect all citizens, including those they regrettably have to arrest. For the latter, though, any force necessary to subdue the suspect should be proportionate (i.e., similar to the moral reasoning found in the Catholic just war tradition–just enough necessary to accomplish the job and in the least harmful way, if possible, given a constellation of available options).

Misdemeanor trespassing is what the pepper-sprayed students were charged with. Pepper spray – a level 5 tool just one step below lethal force – was not proportionate to the crime.

But the student’s response, as mentioned in another article on faith, was not only proportionate the pepper spray but also a much more sustaining approach than the violence of the officers. The campus minister, Rev. Kristin Stoneking, helped defuse the situation following a press conference by helping negotiate this response.

Those 3 minutes of silence from angry students, as they adopted the same positions as the students from the previous day, is pretty amazing. The only sounds come from reporters who have to be reminded that something important is happening.

The fact that it was the campus chaplain who helped negotiate this response serves to demonstrate that people of faith still have a tremendously powerful role. Here is some of her firsthand account:

Once inside, and through over an hour of conversation, we learned the following:

• The Chancellor had made a commitment that police would not be called in this situation
• Though the message had been received inside the building that students were offering a peaceful exit, there was a concern that not everyone would hold to this commitment
• The Chancellor had committed to talk with students personally and respond to concerns at the rally on Monday on the quad
• The student assistants to the Chancellor had organized another forum on Tuesday for the Chancellor to dialogue directly with students

What we felt couldn’t be compromised on was the students’ desire to see and be seen by the Chancellor.  Any exit without face to face contact was unacceptable.  She was willing to do this. We reached agreement that the students would move to one side of the walkway and sit down as a show of commitment to nonviolence.

Before we left, the Chancellor was asked to view a video of the student who was with me being pepper sprayed. She immediately agreed.  Then, he and I witnessed her witnessing eight minutes of the violence that occurred Friday.  Like a recurring nightmare, the horrific scene and the cries of “You don’t have to do this!” and students choking and screaming rolled again.  The student and I then left the building and using the human mike, students were informed that a request had been made that they move to one side and sit down so that the Chancellor could exit.  They immediately complied, though I believe she could have left peacefully even without this concession.

I returned to the building and walked with the Chancellor down the human walkway to her car.  Students remained silent and seated the entire way.

I have to say that Katahi showed some real strength of character to make that walk. She was a student in Greece during the early 70s when students rose up and helped topple a military regime. She knows firsthand the destructive power of angry mobs.

To walk among them like that must have been hard, and perhaps it needed to be in order to begin reconcialiation. Stoneking has a keen knowledge of how to do this.

The silent walk demonstrates not only the ability of people willing to have a discussion to find creative solutions, but also the importance of dealing with anger without succumbing to it.

Why did I walk the Chancellor to her car?  Because I believe in the humanity of all persons.  Because I believe that people should be assisted when they are afraid.  Because I believe that in showing compassion we embrace a nonviolent way of life that emanates to those whom we refuse to see as enemies and in turn leads to the change that we all seek.  I am well aware that my actions were looked on with suspicion by some tonight, but I trust that those seeking a nonviolent solution will know that  “just means lead to just ends” and my actions offered dignity not harm.

I believe Jesus Christ  – whether God or man – was a great teacher because he described the path out of the revenge cycle of violence so common to many religions and cultures. Anger against the other creates violence which engenders anger in the other that creates violence which produces anger…

Whether it is the New Commandment to love one another, the Second Great Commandment to love our neighbors, turning the other cheek in response to evil, or how to love one’s enemies, His teachings show a path that breaks cycles of violence that often reverberate during times of change and strife.

Perhaps more of us can follow that silent path towards reconciliation and healing. It is the only way to reconnect the divided threads of our country.

More worried about the facilities than the students

Athens Polytechnic comes to UC Davis
[Via Crooked Timber]

A Greek friend has sent me lots of information on links between the suppression of dissent at UC Davis and similar events in Greece from the days of the military junta to the present. Here’s a video commemorating the 1973 uprising centred on Athens Polytechnic, which led to the downfall of the military junta the following year[1].  the last title says “The Polytechneio lives on. In struggles today.” Link

Among the legacies of the uprising was a university asylum law that restricted the ability of police to enter university campuses. University asylum was abolished a few months ago, as part of a process aimed at suppressing anti-austerity demonstrations. The abolition law was based on the recommendatiions of an expert committee, which reported a few months ago (report here, in Greek). There’s an English translation here, but it doesn’t work well for me.

Fortunately, my friend has translated the key recommendations

University campuses are unsafe. While the [Greek] Constitution permits the university leadership to protect campuses from elements inciting political instability, Rectors have shown themselves unwilling to exercise these rights and fulfill their responsibilities, and to take the decisions needed in order to guarantee the safety of the faculty, staff, and students. As a result, the university administration and teaching staff have not proven themselves good stewards of the facilities with which society has entrusted them.

The politicizing of universities – and in particular, of students – represents participation in the political process that exceeds the bounds of logic. This contributes to the rapid deterioration of tertiary education.

Among the authors of this report – Chancellor Linda Katehi, UC Davis. And, to add to the irony, Katehi was a student at Athens Polytechnic in 1973.

fn1. The fall of the Greek junta, only a year after Pinochet’s coup in Chile was, in retrospect, a historic turning point, after which rule by generals became steadily less common.

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The world is a strange place. And a Greek student from 1973 seems to be reliving history, because she feels a major part of the administration is to protect facilities, not students. I wonder if she ever thought she would be on the same side of student protests and suppression of dissent as the military junta of her youth.