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Norwegian professor in biology supportive of PACE

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
So are we to imagine Trudie Chalder chatting up Dr Gundersen till he's all fired up with outrage at what she and her colleagues have suffered, and Simon W. doing ditto with SOS?
Or am I letting my imagine run away with me?
Its just imagination and speculation until you can prove it. Then it becomes fact. Facts can of course be shown to be wrong, but at that point you have a solid basis for what was formerly speculation.

I can say, however, that such things would not surprise me given what is already in the public arena.
 

Chrisb

Senior Member
Messages
1,051
The situation with the professor reminds me somewhat of the example used by someone, I forget who, probably Russell or Popper, to demonstrate the fallacy of inductive reasoning.

If you believe all swans are white, every sighting of a white swan will appear to verify your belief, and confirm you in your conviction. It is only by taking note of the rumours of black swans on the other side of the world and going to observe them that you prove the fallacy of your proposition.

Why would a scientist want to go where the black swans lurk?
 

Living Dead

Senior Member
Messages
199
Sounds like professor Gundersen has been bought by PACE authors. Perhaps Trudie Chalder recruited him in her latest visit to Norway ?
I also think it is unlikely to be coincidence that Prof Gundersen came up with this article just after Trudie Chalder's visit to the country.
It's a coincident (se below).

I think it might have more to do with The Norwegian Research Council having recently asked ME-patients what kind of research the patients themselves would prefer getting funded.
Correct - this was the occassion that prompted it - however it is not the underlying cause.

I wonder if Gundersen has actually looked at the details on this. It sounds like he hasn't.
I don't think he's interested.

I have written to Gundersen but not had a reply. I am also hoping that Aftenposten will publish a brief response from me.
You should know that he is very unlikely to be interested in the facts around CFS at all.

Please keep in mind that the following are only speculations.

The underlying cause of his "interest" in CFS is more likely to be due to an internal conflict at his university department (institute for bioscience) regarding a failed research project on borrelia (mentioned as the first example of research in his article, and contrasted with PACE). Carried out by Ivar Mysterud and Morten Laane.

He is trying to distance himself from these two researches, who placed the department in a bad light because they didn't follow regulations (didn't report the protocol to Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REC), which is required by law for medical research). Also it turns out after thorough research that the method was unusable. However, a negative research result should not be an embarrasment as you long as you accept it (and I think everyone does in this case).

Unfortunately for both K. Gundersen and patients, he does that by endorsing another study (PACE), which also didn't follow proper standards. If what I read was correct it actually violated the law in the same way. (I read here on PR that changes in the protocol (removing objective measurements) were not reported to the english analogue to the norwegian REC until after they occured.)