David Tuller: Trial By Error: An Australian Exchange with Professor Sharpe

Peter Trewhitt said:
At least Sharpe retracted the tweet, and, albeit with some ill grace, attempted an apology.

Perhaps even he is becoming aware of some of the internal inconsistencies in what he says, and perhaps even a little embarrassed when confronted by the realities of life for activists like Alem Matthees.

Though I am not optimistic, he certainly must realise Twitter is not allowing him to get away with misinformation and nonsense simply because of his academic eminence.
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I'm not sure Sharpe realizes this, his garbled use of language does not show much ability for self-reflection. But I'm sure others do. Wessely is the skilled political operator and he understands the value of pretending to stand for something he does not.

Sharpe is making the whole lot look awful by association. He is a cruel, vindictive man and that will cause them all much pain in the end. Their contempt is much too obvious.
 
Graham said:
I wouldn't be surprised if many of the BPS crew are quite sincere folk, truly believing that their therapies help patients, and, quite frankly, not scientific enough to understand the criticisms. But equally, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that some of the more aggressive ones are simply intelligent sociopaths, playing the game with charm and fluency, as Luther suggests.

Either way, there's no prospect of converting either of them, but with the latter it is important not to be drawn into playing the game the way they want it by coming across as aggressive or destructive.
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Many followers are likely sincere. The creators are not. Or at least are not anymore.

It's possible they actually believed it initially, but they have cheated and lied too much since then to make that a credible claim past maybe the first 5 years. Since then they have gone in a loop saying the exact same thing and doing the exact same research with the exact same null results and still they persist.
 
When my wife used to work as a clerk, the paper they used occasionally had something a bit "unmentionable looking" in it, which they somewhat crudely referred to as bogeys. Unidentified aircraft on radar screens are also known as bogeys, and I suspect may have originated from a schoolboy humour suggestion that it was not a radar contact at all, but simply the glass needing cleaning! When is an apostrophe not an apostrophe? ...
 
Simone said:
Thanks everyone. This was a good a response as we could realistically hope to get. Alem’s mum is part of the #MEAction Network Australia group now, and we have a connection with his sister too, so this was also about supporting Alem’s family. Credit to Claudia for drafting the letter and driving the process, and to the group as a whole for providing feedback and helping craft the letter.
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Thanks Simone. Thanks for your help with the letter. Yes, there was a strong personal imperative here to call out Sharpe's behaviour and his response was as much as we could have expected given his evident lack of compassion. Thanks to everyone, especially David Tuller, for supporting me in this. It has been important for Alem's family and perhaps many in the broader Australian ME community.
Claudia (Ruth)
 
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