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Edward Shorter reviews SO'S book It's All in your Head

Dx Revision Watch

Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
Messages
3,061
Location
UK
When I was reading some of Shorter's writing, I quite liked his outspoken writing style...

Hip.
Please.
Read.
This:

http://www.freezepage.com/1424484834CZFJDNHSFV

And ask yourself why is Coyne promoting this man, his books, his blogs?
Why is Coyne attempting to silence significant numbers of international advocates who disagree with his views?

I have nothing more to say in this thread.
I am utterly exasperated.

Edited to add: Thank you, Nielk, for your post above this one.
 
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@Wildcat wrote:
"Coyne has demonstrated that he is as likely to antagonise other professionals as to convince them about the methodological problems in the Pace Trial Economic Analysis paper, or persuade Plos to insist on the release of that Paper's data...."



@Hip responded:
"For me, your above consideration is the only one so far that I think has validity in this discussion on the effects of Professor Coyne's involvement in extricating the psychosomatic pseudoscience from ME/CFS research and treatment.

If you could demonstrate that the net effect of Coyne's involvement were negative, then that would be of importance. But I would want to see evidence of a negative effect, not just speculation."

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I had actually engaged with Coyne on many occasions until he became aggressively abusive in his communications to me; I was a member of his FB Group, and followed his twitter and other exchanges, and Blogs, for many months. Its clear from his online social media statements and behaviour, and numerous other professionals' statements to him in that time, that he has a history of insulting, disparaging and antagonising other professionals.

In fact after Coyne's aggressive and abusive behaviour in late February, more than one professional wrote on social media, FB and Twitter - addressing various ME advocates - "We did try to warn you about him"

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But you want evidence. You mean from a great many Facebook and twitter posts over many months? You yourself could find that evidence if you cared to trawl through Coyne's online communications over months, one by one. I provided one, which demonstrated that Coyne has a history of threatening to resign as a Plos editor if Plos don't do what he says. It never works.
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As here in 2013 in Coyne's 'Mind the Brain' blog on Plos:

http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/...-one-article-about-homeopathy-for-depression/
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Comments:
A. Tasso (speaking to Coyne):
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October 2, 2013 at 9:32 pm
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"You really need to stop with the incessant “I’m going to resign as PLoS ONE editor” threats and whininess. Is that the only intervention you feel like you have at your disposal, and/or do you really see yourself as so important that your resignation would be such a major event? “My appeal got rejected, so I’m going to resign”. “If PLoS keeps publishing XYZ I’m going to resign”. “If PLoS doesn’t implement indexed comments I’m going to resign”. etc etc. These detract from the otherwise intelligent commenting that you provide."

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more than one professional wrote on social media sites - addressing various ME advocates - "We did warn you about him"

I miss all the good stuff on fb. I hate that website though... it seems a nightmare for having a discussion, or reading a discussion.
 

Hip

Senior Member
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17,824
The method of narcissistic control that Coyne used is classic astroturfing method.

Are you sure you are using the right definition of astroturfing?
Astroturf refers to apparently grassroots-based citizen groups or coalitions that are primarily conceived, created and/or funded by corporations, industry trade associations, political interests or public relations firms. Ref: 1

In other words, when there is no actual grass roots movement for a particular cause, you create a fake, non-existent grass roots by laying down astroturf.

So you are saying that Coyne is trying fabricate some sort of grass root movement?
 

Nielk

Senior Member
Messages
6,970
Are you sure you are using the right definition of astroturfing?


In other words, when there is no actual grass roots movement for a particular cause, you create a fake, non-existent grass roots by laying down astroturf.

So you are saying that Coyne is trying fabricate some sort of grass root movement?

I'm talking about the methods that are used in astroturfing - which is basically effective methods used to quiet dissent - opposing views.

It was revealed with the effort of quieting advocacy groups who were opposing the tobacco industry. These methods can be seen in quieting dissent in many different areas.

In this case, with Coyne, it was used to quiet criticism of government agencies - NIH to be specific.

One of the methods used to quiet an advocacy group is by singling out the most prominent voices and falsely accuse them. The desired result is to isolate them and as a threat of what could happen to others if they do the same.

In the case with Coyne - it worked successfully. Coyne has not only bullied and quieted others from joining ranks with the ones he singled out. Many in the community have not stood up and defended these courageous advocates who have worked in our behalf for decades.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
But you want evidence.

I am talking about evidence that Coyne is doing more harm than good, not further evidence of his character. I know the former is not easy to quantify.



Hip.
Please.
Read.
This:

http://www.freezepage.com/1424484834CZFJDNHSFV

And ask yourself why is Coyne promoting this man, his books, his blogs?

Yes, I read that article a while ago. But no need to be paranoid about Coyne's motivations. What are you trying to say, that Coyne fights for ME/CFS on one day, and fights against it the next? Seems improbable.



Why is Coyne attempting to silence significant numbers of international advocates who disagree with his views?

My understanding is that Coyne did not like one ME/CFS patient sending critical tweets directly to scientists, such as the head of the NIH. I don't agree with Coyne on this, I think intelligent and knowledgable ME/CFS patients should continue to try to strike a dialogue with key decision makers.

Though I could be wrong, because may it be it is better to stand behind representatives. Hard to say.

Who are these "significant numbers of international advocates" you are referring to, by the way?



One of the methods used to quiet an advocacy group is by singling out the most prominent voices and falsely accuse them. The desired result is to isolate them and as a threat of what could happen to others if they do the same.

In the case with Coyne - it worked successfully. Coyne has not only bullied and quieted others from joining ranks with the ones he singled out. Many in the community have not stood up and defended these courageous advocates who have worked in our behalf for decades.

OK, I understand what you are getting at (though I don't think astroturfing is the right term).

But don't you think that this is a little bit over-paranoid? You are suggesting a carefully calculated manipulation (though you don't explain the motivations); whereas Coyne's remarks to me seems the very opposite of any carefully calculated response; it seemed more like a random emotional outburst than a planned event.

I do agree with you, though, that we should be standing behind Jeannette Burmeister.
 

Nielk

Senior Member
Messages
6,970
But don't you think that this is a little bit over-paranoid? You are suggesting a carefully calculated manipulation (though you don't explain the motivations); whereas Coyne's remarks to me seems the very opposite of any carefully calculated response; it seemed more like a random emotional outburst than a planned event.

It should not be my burden to explain Coyne's motivation of his abusive actions. I am purely basing my observations on facts of what happened. Coyne praised Cort's positive report on Wallit. He didn't like the fact that that Jeannette had revealed Wallit's thoughts on ME/CFS where he explains on video that his beliefs are that it is our brains that makes us think that we are sick and there will never be a treatment for us so there is no sense in scientific studies of the disease. We just need to live with the fact that this is our new reality.

If you want to talk about paranoid - look at Coyne's verbal abuse and threats - not just toward key international advocates but the entire patient community. I am guessing that you did not see his posts on fb patient groups during the weekend of his tirades. Patients felt terrorized by him. He threatened them that if the entire community does not apologize to him he will withdraw his work on PACE.

Coyne's actions were not, as you state, "a random emotional outburst" - it was continued harassment and abuse over different social modalities and over an extended period of time. Even as recently as a month ago, when an advocate contacted him in private messages - he responded with the same abusive verbiage.

The results has been that advocates now are afraid to publicly speak out against the government. So you tell me what Coyne's motivation was. If his motivation was to quiet dissent from those who call out the corruption in our government health agencies, I would call his actions a big success.

In either case:

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was a champion for human rights and compassion. He died this past Saturday at age 87, having survived the Holocaust and has been writing about it eloquently his entire life.

I cannot sit by and be a witness of Coyne's abuse to this community and - fail to protest.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
To lighten things up a little: I am sad that Steve Jobs departed this world too early. I have used Macs for around 25 years, and noticed that soon after Jobs died, the Mac OS started to become a little more buggy and glitchy than it had previously been.

At work, Jobs was a complete slave driver. He was abusive to his staff, and people in his office were frightened to be alone with him in the elevator. He would sometimes even sack people on the spot when they happened to ride the elevator with him.

An obsessed perfectionist, he whipped every last ounce of effort out of his employees, in his striving to create an inspired and perfect product. People who worked for Jobs remember him as rude, hostile, and sometimes bringing staff nearly to tears.

Yet he was a brilliant visionary of the digital age, and he sure made damn good computers!
 
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Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Are you suggesting Jobs was a dick, and Jobs was brilliant, therefore all dicks are brilliant?

You really can't figure out the link between the Jobs story and the current discussion? I have to spell it out? OK then, just for you:

No doubt that Job's employees would say he had character flaws, in the way he was rude, hostile, and whipped their arses; but it was those very characteristics that helped create incredible results, which millions of Mac users around the world appreciate.

So characteristics that appear from one angle to be a serious flaw, from another angle may become a huge asset.
 

duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
So characteristics that appear from one angle to be a serious flaw, from another angle may become a huge asset.

I would venture that is a truism for every dick that ever lived, especially from the angle of the dick.

Funny how sometimes unfortunate and even irrelevant truisms can descend dangerously close to sounding like justification.
 

ScottTriGuy

Stop the harm. Start the research and treatment.
Messages
1,402
Location
Toronto, Canada
An obsessed perfectionist, he whipped every last ounce of effort out of his employees, in his striving to create an inspired and perfect product. People who worked for Jobs remember him as rude, hostile, and sometimes bringing staff nearly to tears.

Yet he was a brilliant visionary of the digital age, and he sure made damn good computers!

I wonder what more Jobs could have accomplished with a collaborative, respectful demeanor. Creativity rarely flourishes under stress.
 

Nielk

Senior Member
Messages
6,970
To lighten things up a little: I am sad that Steve Jobs departed this world too early. I have used Macs for around 25 years, and noticed that soon after Jobs died, the Mac OS started to become a little more buggy and glitchy than it had previously been.

At work, Jobs was a complete slave driver. He was abusive to his staff, and people in his office were frightened to be alone with him in the elevator. He would sometimes even sack people on the spot when they happened to ride the elevator with him.

An obsessed perfectionist, he whipped every last ounce of effort out of his employees, in his striving to create an inspired and perfect product. People who worked for Jobs remember him as rude, hostile, and sometimes bringing staff nearly to tears.

Yet he was a brilliant visionary of the digital age, and he sure made damn good computers!

I understand, HIP where you are going wit this and I'm glad you brought it up because I believe that many others in the community feel the same way. They believe that Coyne's abusive tirade was acceptable collateral damage when you compare it to the benefit he is bringing to this community.

There are a few problems with this type of thinking and with the Job's comparison. As far as Jobs is concerned, it is debatable whether his narcissistic personality is what brought him the great success of Apple. Many leaders and CEOs of companies have narcissistic personalities and that might achieve them success because they lead with fear but, in Jobs case, it was his 'thinking out of the box' and being able to envision what people will want in the future that brought his ideas ahead of others. Jobs was actually fired from Apple because of his character and abusive ways. He started another company on his own which never reached great success.

Apple employees had a choice to remain in their jobs and take the abuse or leave and take a job at another company. I wish ME patients had the same choice. I wish I could decide today to NOT have ME and instead just have a cold.

The comparison with brilliance is obviously flawed. I see an ability in Coyne of being tenacious and making a lot of noise - no brilliance there. Furthermore, it is questionable at this point whether having him on our side is a benefit to us. So the comparison really fails.

The greatest problem that I have with this type of thinking is that what measure of abuse is acceptable as collateral damage? and who decides the limits?

This is a slippery and dangerous slope. Did the Germans think that Hitler's outrageous words and actions were acceptable collateral damage in order to take them out of their economic woes?

Some think that Saddam Hussein was an effective leader of Iraq. During his tyrannical control of the country, there was no room or possibility of a hostile take over such as ISIS today. Was all of Saddam's torture and murders acceptable collateral damage?

Coyne's tirade harmed ME patients and advocates. I cannot and will not accept that collateral damage.
 
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10,157
This thread is meant to be about Edward Shorter's review of Suzanne O'Sullivan's book. It has gone hopelessly off-topic with a discussion related to the behaviour of James Coyne, his comments related to Shorter etc. Please try to stay on topic and I will try to split the thread later.

Thank you.
 
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I think it would maintain a more cohesive understanding of this topic by not dividing this thread.

Many PR threads go off into discussion of interelated topics. Members can gain a broader understanding of the topic, and better appreciate the context of the topic that way.

We would probably not be discussing Shorter's review at such length if Coyne had not promoted it on his Blog. Coyne's promotion of Edward Shorter's review, together with Coyne's highly inflammatory statements 'justifying' why he promoted Shorter's review (as opposed to any other review of O'Sullivan's book) .. is hopelessly embedded.

Coyne's actions in promoting Shorter's review, together with his defamation of ME patients as 'justification', appears to lead on from his earlier behaviour. I know there has been lots of discussion of Coyne's February behaviour, and the fallout from that, which is ongoing though many people do not realise that .... but Coyne's promotion of that particular review is widely perceived as the latest episode .....

That is my view on the subject. Not everyone may agree of course.
 
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Hip

Senior Member
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17,824
I agree with @Wildcat that in this case, it might be better keep the Coyne discussion in this same thread.

But perhaps we should wrap up the Coyne discussion for now. At the moment, I tend to think of his temperamental outburst as "acceptable as collateral damage," but I don't have a strong opinion on this, and completely respect the opposing views presented here. I don't have a strong opinion because, it's hard to know whether Coyne's firebrand style will have positive effect, though I do like to see someone making waves. Also, I guess I have the luxury of not being personally involved; perhaps if Coyne had personally told me to f**k off, I might have had a different view on the matter.
 
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I think it would maintain a more cohesive understanding of this topic by not dividing this thread.

This thread became massively off-topic when members chose to talk about Coyne's tweets and behaviour earlier on in the year which has absolutely nothing to do with Shorter's critique of O'Sullivan.

Due to time constraints, this thread will not be split. Any comments unrelated to Shorter's review of Suzanne O'Sullivan's book will be removed and any member continuing to take the thread off-course after being asked not to will be banned from this thread.

I would also like to add, the views on this thread come from the members and Phoenix Rising should not be held responsible for any comments on this thread. We allow open debates as long as they don't breach the rules and to be accused of causing many members to leave is out of order and suggests that we should censor the opinions of members. If you can't tolerate an open debate, then it would be better to go elsewhere. Sometimes, answering the comments that you find offensive is better than remaining silent. The way forward is to have a debate and let people decide for themselves what they think.

Thank you.

The thread is now open.
 
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