Michael Sharpe skewered by @JohntheJack on Twitter

I'll bet there was something in there, but nothing proveable.

 

You mean informal logical fallacies?

Formal logic is just so vapid. Yes, I know that because Socrates is a human, that means he farts too. So glad I had Philosophy to help me work that one out.

 

don't know, they all sound a bit rude to me

 

And so it goes on:
https://twitter.com/user/status/985109195501588481


He is correct. There is a difference between a perceived conflict of interest and an actual conflict of interest.

We will always perceive him to have a conflict of interest, because we know he is not acting in the interest of the trial participants or PwME in general. But as far as he is concerned, he can neither perceive it or believe that he has an actual conflict, because he thinks he is right.

However, the bias that all this creates is real. We need the MRC and others to see that.

 

But surely researchers can't say "I will not declare the money I'm getting from tobacco companies as a COI, as it has not affected my views or behaviour one bit"!

 

He is playing games:
https://twitter.com/user/status/985034645946486784


He simply sees it as "work". When he does it, it's "open-minded science", but when anyone else does it, it's not.

 

There is an objective reality here. He had things *other people* might consider COIs, so he should have declared them, regardless of whether he thought they were COIs.

 

They [PACE PIs] seem to have a *big* problem with that.

 

Somewhere the rules stated he had to declare them, be it the university, the journal they planned to submit to, the government or whatever. He failed to fulfill those obligations. I assume he is responsible for his failure no matter the cause, though i don't know what the penalty is supposed to be for this violation if there even is one.
So he can claim anything he wants he still lied, all the doublethink in the world can't change his historical actions. Sometimes i think society needs to accept that reality exists and reality denial is an unproductive human characteristic, not a rip in the fabric of spacetime thats mysterious and unexplainable or philosophical

 

Five qualifiers in one sentence, it's almost as if he was going for a record. A pity he isn't so circumspect when describing the results of the PACE Trial.

 

This seems to be an unduly legalistic approach to what is in part an ethical problem. One would have thought that in the event of doubt there should be apresumption in favour of disclosure

 

There is. I'm on the board for a charity. I have to disclose anything that might count. My mum is a local councillor, she has to declare everything! There's a policy of 'whiter than white', because otherwise you bring disrepute to every person you work with.

They don't care. Presumably because their colleagues are equally repugnant.

 

I think I shall call him Shifty Sharpe from now on...

 

Welll...I daresay he's been called worse!

 

Does this not fall into the area of bribery and corruption?

 

.............also Whitewash White and Chucky Chalder

 

Oi! Less of the name calling!

 

I find Sharpe's tweets....how shall I put it.....odd. He is repeatedly laying himself open to people posting evidence which shows what he is claiming is false, so why do it?

Might he be trying to get a PWME to tweet something inflammatory/vexatious or at least which he will claim is inflammatory/vexatious to use against the ME community or Tuller?

So perhaps we all need to be careful not to give him any ammo, no ammo so far, some excellent tweets, but just pointing out.

 

What's the f in there for?