While I disclaim any inside knowledge of the CDC group we keep discussing, I've seen this dysfunctional research group syndrome before. By themselves, the individuals involved may be sharper than I've given them credit for being. Put them together in a way which reinforces their defects, and they will act like self-defeating imbeciles. When people are genuinely unable to recognize major logical defects in a plan, you won't find an isolated example; there will be a pattern of repeated behavior.
Go back to the study which produced the cohort used in the recent paper. Consider the possibility that the empirical definition may be devoid of meaning. Deduce consequences of this idea before you look at the data. Now, ask how those diagnostic criteria were validated. You find a short circuit in thinking. Now, look at the reported data. Do they show the stable characteristics of a well-defined category? Do they show evidence of reproducibility? Quite the contrary; they match the hypothetical characteristics deduced above.
Now, consider the laboratory assay in the recent paper. Does the design, implementation and validation of the assay show the same abstract pattern of defects? Are the controls adjusted to the test rather than adjusting the test to meet external criteria? This is what happens in research if you get used to taking the easy way out.
This is also characteristic of a kind of 'waterfall' paradigm of planning, design, implementation and testing beloved by administrators. Schedules and budgets are predicated on getting each stage right, perhaps with little arrows showing the intended direction of progress. Loops showing reverse movement when validation fails are simply omitted. When such a situation appears, throwing schedules and budgets off, the temptation to short circuit the loop by moving the goalposts is well nigh irresistible.
This is where Cort's observation that the people involved believe they are right comes in. If they are unshaken in the belief they really know the true answers, fudging the means by which they find it may not greatly bother them. This is the path to perdition.
A second characteristic here has to do with organizational politics. The phrase 'all politics is local' fits. People in large, unwieldy organizations spend the majority of the time fighting for funding, attempting to control other groups, or simply trying to avoid control. Disputes become highly personal fights over control. Any concerns beyond this narrow scope are likely to distract you at a critical moment when an adversary is watching. The view from on high, or from outside, or from some plateau of objective truth is irrelevant to day-to-day survival.
You go from fighting to control people, money and equipment to controlling problem definitions, then testing definitions, controlling procedures, and so on, until controlling data from the objective world seems perfectly natural. At that point you are truly lost.
