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New blog by James Coyne 2.1.16 Glimpses into the assault on data sharing

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Why not do it more like this?

One group comes up with an idea and writes the protocol. The protocol is published in a public repository.

Another group with no interest in any particular outcome runs the study and collects the data. We could call this the data collection group.

The data is anonymised and uploaded to the same repository the protocol is in.

Anyone is free to analyse the data and publish articles based on it, but must give credit to the protocol authors and the data collection group and document their methods.

The repository would be something similar github, which is a version control system for software engineering built for open collaboration. It allows programmers from anywhere on the planet to work on the same project. Anyone can comment or propose changes, and a detailed history of any changes is kept.
 

Roy S

former DC ME/CFS lobbyist
Messages
1,376
Location
Illinois, USA
That's a great hashtag. :)
A bit off topic (but that much)

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) just published an editorial about data sharing, comparing further use of released data to parasitism:


http://wwwnejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1516564

The scientific community is reacting strongly, watch out #researchparasites on twitter: https://twitter.com/hashtag/researchparasites?src=hash

Maybe this hashtag could be used to highlight PACE team refusal of sharing data...
 

Forbin

Senior Member
Messages
966
A second concern held by some is that a new class of research person will emerge — people who had nothing to do with the design and execution of the study but use another group’s data for their own ends...

So, was Einstein a research parasite when he solved general relativity by incorporating the concept of 4-dimensional spacetime - a concept developed eight years earlier by Hermann Minkowski?
 

Chrisb

Senior Member
Messages
1,051
It would seem quite reasonable to believe in the dangers of "research parasites" provided that

1) there was no public funding of the original research, or

2) that there was no expectation that anyone would take note of, or place any reliance on the conclusions.
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
To the best of my knowledge, the lead author of the "research parasite" article (Dan L. Longo) used to work for the NIH and accepts NIH research grants. So he's happy to accept public money to support his career and research but then calls the public parasites when they ask to see the data that they funded. ... ... What's that all about?
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
The research parasite has been very active on twitter lately:

Screen Shot 2016-01-24 at 15.41.13.png
 

GreyOwl

Dx: strong belief system, avoidance, hypervigilant
Messages
266
But the NEJM found itself in the midst of an online whirlwind over the past week, as readers wondered aloud on social media why editor-in-chief Dr. Jeffrey Drazen and deputy editor Dr. Dan Longo would refer to scientists requesting access to others’ data as “research parasites.” Some critics pointed out, correctly, that NEJM has the highest rate of retraction of any journal in the world— a fact we think can be explained at least in part by greater scrutiny of its papers by outside scholars —and suggested that perhaps the authors were hoping to avoid more retractions.
http://www.statnews.com/2016/01/26/research-parasites-nejm/
 

Cheshire

Senior Member
Messages
1,129
Getting the idea of transparency all wrong
Trying to persuade us of transparency’s menace to the public, the Nature comment uses a type of language that really does not belong in the discussion about data sharing (but provides for an entertaining read):

  • Orchestrated and well-funded harassment campaigns against researchers
  • risk making science more vulnerable to attacks
  • masquerade as scientific inquiry
  • Increasingly … calls for retraction are coming from people who do not like a paper’s conclusions
It may be true that some researchers, e.g. in climate change (apparently a good example for all of science), are subject to attacks by opponents. But that has nothing to do with data sharing and openness. Bringing such language and examples into the openness debate is a distortion of the discussion. Anyone working on climate change who does not share their data is automatically subject to criticism, because opponent can claim the author is ‘hiding something’. Being transparent on how conclusions were reached is exactly the right way to protect yourself from criticism. Holding back your data won’t make opponents go away. And if you really did some mistakes in the analysis, then why should that remain undiscovered? Or wait, I’m not sure I understand science anymore. What was the goal again?

https://politicalsciencereplication...9/getting-the-idea-of-transparency-all-wrong/

Some comments about MECFS
 

John Mac

Senior Member
Messages
321
Location
Liverpool UK
Getting the idea of transparency all wrong


https://politicalsciencereplication...9/getting-the-idea-of-transparency-all-wrong/

Some comments about MECFS

http://www.nature.com/news/research-integrity-don-t-let-transparency-damage-science-1.19219

A rather strange post from Ellen Goudsmit in which she does us no favours.

"but it is not clear that there actually is a problem with CFS campaigners sending death threats" I was not sent a death threat but I did receive a poison pen letter and was subjected to 14 years of online harassment and cyberbullyng, where about three people and their friends distorted and lied about who I was, my work, my views on ME and my mental state. My reputation as a competent and honest scientist as regards ME never recovered and although I had studied this disease for over thirty years, people in the UK pro-actively ignored my published papers, including the latest ME research criteria (now being tested in the US) and the first article describing progressive ME."
 
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Messages
15,786
Goudsmit said:
"I was not sent a death threat but I did receive a poison pen letter and was subjected to 14 years of online harassment and cyberbullyng..."
I just can't trust her perceptions of harassment or bullying, after seeing her make such accusations and demand everyone's academic qualifications, just because some people disagreed with her claims and asked for her sources. There weren't any personal attacks, just some spirited debates, and it's a pity that she couldn't embrace that because she's done some amazing work over the years and her input was valuable.

I think it's pretty obvious by now that we have no problems with psychologists, psychiatrists, or mental illness in general. It's unacceptable that some people keep disparaging the entire ME/CFS patient population with those unfounded, shocking, hurtful, and hateful aspersions. There are studies proving we are not biased in such a manner, and we're obviously thrilled to be collaborating with the likes of James Coyne, and very supportive of researchers like Leonard Jason.
 
Messages
13,774
Ellen may have had some genuinely bad experiences in the past, but I think that the reason some people have a problem with her now is because she acts so full of herself, yet also so brittle. It's a shame, as I think that she would be able to contribute usefully if she could get over that.


Also an interesting comment on Lewandowsky from someone who seems to be just concerned about good science (and it's worrying that there's a figure like Lewandowksy, where I feel myself instinctively question the motivations of his critics, even though I have concerns about his work! - Shows what we're up against when we raise concerns about researchers, darn it. And we're outsiders to academia as mere patients!):

Joe Duarte (@ValidScience) says:
January 31, 2016 at 1:04 am
Lewandowsky had a 32,757-year-old, a 5-year-old, and several other minors in his data. He had falsely reported that age didn’t correlate with his variables, when in fact it did — the 32,757-year-old had blown open his deviation scores and snuffed out the correlation. When he was informed of the presence of a 32,757-year-old, a 5-year-old, et al in his data, he did nothing. He didn’t run a correction, didn’t clean his data — he literally did nothing and let his false paper just sit there in the literature as though it were true. More than a year passed. When I reported all this to PLOS ONE, they made him run a substantial correction: http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/minors-lewandowsky-and-ceremonial-ethics

His 2012 Psych Science paper is comprehensively false. The titular effect turns out not to exist — only three people held those beliefs. And look at Table 1. He and his collaborators gave uniform and false factor loadings for their main conspiracy variable. This somehow slipped past everyone, much like the sadness and color perception paper: http://retractionwatch.com/2015/11/...er-on-sadness-and-color-perception-retracted/

Every factor loading on that index is false and inflated (and uniform, which would necessitate falsity). I think by briefly saying that they were doing this in the footnotes (but not explaining why), they got people to ignore it. No one has ever done this before as far as anyone knows — no one has ever presented identical factor loadings for every item (which, again, would necessarily make them false for any realistic psychometric instrument.)

He also engaged in post hoc DV removal — he had an Iraq conspiracy item endorsed by liberals, which he deleted from his conspiracy index. He did not disclose this in the paper. The paper is comprehensively false anyway. The items he retained didn’t hang together, but the reader didn’t know this because he gave false and inflated factor loadings. There was no conspiracy factor as described in the paper.

2016 will be a great year for transparency and Stephan Lewandowsky.

I (vaguely) remember reading that paper [edit: I was thinking of another paper - whoops] and thinking: "These items sound like they're designed to get results that stigmatise conservatives." Bad enough to do that from the start, but for that to have occurred because an item endorsed by liberals was removed is even more shady.

I think that we'd do well to steer clear of any controversy around Lewandowsky, but it's good to hear that others are looking more critically at his work.
 
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Messages
1,055
re. Ellen G.
I followed the thread where she felt attacked and chased off PR. My take was that she has ME (as she stated) and became cognitively overwhelmed when asked to justify her statements and had several people asking her questions at once.
No doubt I'm doing a spot of projecting here, but I know I can handle a good online or real world battle to a point but when I get to the limit of my energy I crash, get emotional, my brain screams 'enough, can't cope!' and I have to step back.
As I followed that thread it was obvious she was getting overwrought, she was reacting emotionally and not able to follow the argument logically. I was hoping against hope she'd say, 'I'm tired, need a break' and step away from the forum for a rest, then come back to it later and see things clearly.
I did feel for her, I'm not for one minute suggesting that we should automatically defer to her title/qualifications and accept everything she stated unquestioningly - it is right to question and she can't expect any different - but she seemed to have an ME crash during that thread. Maybe if she were to revisit it now some time has passed she'd see things differently?
Obviously I'm new here and there's probably loads of back history I've missed, but is it worth someone reaching out and inviting her back to the fold?
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
http://www.nature.com/news/research-integrity-don-t-let-transparency-damage-science-1.19219

A rather strange post from Ellen Goudsmit in which she does us no favours.

"but it is not clear that there actually is a problem with CFS campaigners sending death threats" I was not sent a death threat but I did receive a poison pen letter and was subjected to 14 years of online harassment and cyberbullyng, where about three people and their friends distorted and lied about who I was, my work, my views on ME and my mental state. My reputation as a competent and honest scientist as regards ME never recovered and although I had studied this disease for over thirty years, people in the UK pro-actively ignored my published papers, including the latest ME research criteria (now being tested in the US) and the first article describing progressive ME."
My experience of Ellen Goudsmit on the couple of recent threads when she was here was that it was impossible to question anything she said without her taking it personally and going off on one. She took any questions or alternative viewpoints as a personal attack, and responded aggressively and irrationally, ending with an offensive message posted to me personally which was set so that I couldn't reply to it, and bad-mouthing PR on twitter in a conversation she had with herself saying that we had shot her.

If anyone wants to read pages and pages of her self-justificatory rants detailing all the wrongs she has suffered going back years she has detailed them prolifically here:

https://ellengoudsmit.wordpress.com/

She seems to be a very difficult person to have on the same side of the table.
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
Be careful folks. Discussing someone's personal characteristics, even if justified, can be interpreted as abusive; it's not nice to see people analysing your perceived character flaws in public. Perhaps there's a way to discuss the issue without focusing on individual characteristics?
Sorry Bob, our posts crossed. You're probably right. I think the wordpress link is useful for anyone who wants to make up their own mind though, and she put it there to be read.
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
re. Ellen G.
I followed the thread where she felt attacked and chased off PR. My take was that she has ME (as she stated) and became cognitively overwhelmed when asked to justify her statements and had several people asking her questions at once.
No doubt I'm doing a spot of projecting here, but I know I can handle a good online or real world battle to a point but when I get to the limit of my energy I crash, get emotional, my brain screams 'enough, can't cope!' and I have to step back.
As I followed that thread it was obvious she was getting overwrought, she was reacting emotionally and not able to follow the argument logically. I was hoping against hope she'd say, 'I'm tired, need a break' and step away from the forum for a rest, then come back to it later and see things clearly.
I did feel for her, I'm not for one minute suggesting that we should automatically defer to her title/qualifications and accept everything she stated unquestioningly - it is right to question and she can't expect any different - but she seemed to have an ME crash during that thread. Maybe if she were to revisit it now some time has passed she'd see things differently?
Obviously I'm new here and there's probably loads of back history I've missed, but is it worth someone reaching out and inviting her back to the fold?
Any sympathy for people she drove off PR? It doesn't go one way.