The Hans Eysenck affair: Time to correct the scientific record (2019) David F Marks

The far bigger question is why do those ideas persist to this day? The entire BPS/FND/MUS ideology is a continuation of the exact same, those ideas aren't old or discredited, they have far more influence today than they ever had, are essentially challenging the very nature of medicine by reverting back to Freudian nonsense.

A few days ago a psychology student from the university of Nothingham posted on the /r/cfs subreddit about research on life experiences and trauma for FND, using this exact example in the opener, saying something to the effect that the mind is known to play a role in diseases like cancer. So this student is clearly being taught those ideas, as they are part of a supervised research study.

The answers to why did Eysenck get away with it are the same answers to why this ideological nonsense has more influence today than even in his time.

 

In the interview with Dr Nina Muirhead, she said that here in the UK medical schools set their own curricula. I don't know what kind of oversight there is but it is highly likely that certain highly acclaimed professors will have a say and also likely that their ideology is included in many text books.
So even if research papers are retracted, unless they systematically go through the literature to remove all references to the research, as well as other knock on theories that stemmed from the research, it will endure for a long time to come.

(a bit like AfME trying to 'clean up' their leaflets but on a much larger scale).

 

Even Stephen J Gould, in the Median isn't the Message, included this pile of shite:

https://www.cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html

It's just everywhere, and often taken for granted and repeated by people who fancy themselves as critical thinkers and really should know better.

 

This seems to me a gross oversimplification. Regardless of money, what about support, for example. If you have people around you who will voluntarily provide practical support aren't you more likely to have the energy to fight, to investigate things for yourself, to be a more active participant in your treatment?

Also noting the contrast - apart from the first sentence be could be describing most of the people on this forum. That attitude in cancer patients is laudable, but it makes us science denying activists who don't want to get better.

 

He could have taken his own advice instead of passively accepting that a postive attitude makes a difference just because somebody said it.

 

Yes, it's possible there could be a correlation between a positive attitude and survival prospects, but that would not mean having a positive attitude was the direct cause of improved survival. Positive attitude and improved survival might both be linked to other factors. e.g. If you were to take both +ve and -ve attitude people, and under strict trial conditions ensured they all followed their treatment regimes exactly the same, all followed the same diet, etc, etc, would they then really exhibit significant differences in survival outcomes?

 

Yep. Why is one person more positive than another? Maybe because they have more support and know that someone will cook their dinner for them if they can't, do laundry etc. So they need to worry less, can rest up and relax more.

The resting up and relaxing more being as much if not more likely to aid recovery with the attitude being a mere coincidental side effect rather than the cause.

 

People want to believe. It's so alluring to believe you can will yourself out of a death sentence or disability. Which is why those ideas should have more scrutiny applied to them, not less. It's especially hard when it comes from one of the most cited academic of all times and promoted by serious medical institutions, who then never face any accountability for having promoted blatant nonsense.

There seems to be this belief, or maybe a hope, that experts are less gullible than the general population but the truth is they are just differently gullible. The zealotry in beliefs about psychosomatics is on the same level as any other pseudoscience, and then you add appeal to authority and sunk cost, it's just impossible to resist.

It's easy to lose sight that just a few decades ago nearly all experts in every field were deeply religious, because every society was. Belief is ingrained in human nature and being smart has nothing to do with it, it never seems to end entirely, simply morphs to a different shape. Whether it's gods and demons, miasma or imaginary conversion of bad emotions into disease, the substance is irrelevant, those beliefs are the same thing in the end: hot air that takes the shape of any vessel it's crammed into.

 

How on earth do you even define or measure positivity? The whole field of personality characteristics is complete hogwash anyway. Is the mood the person was in when they took the questionnaire controlled for? The way their environment may have recently influenced their "personality"? Give me one of those tests when I'm sitting on my balcony watching the sun set with a glass of sherry in my hand and a winning lottery ticket in the other, then give it to me again on a busy day just before lunchtime with the doorbell being rung by an annoying student who has arrived 40 minutes early as my son's girlfriend's dog barks loudly in the kitchen and a guy speaks onto my answerphone calling me "Mr Sam" and saying he's from microsoft. See if I have the same "personality".

 

I think in that situation I would be p***** off it wasn't a Pisco sour, or at least a delicate rare Fino.
But I see what you meant.

 

Gould developed pancreatic cancer which has a very short time on average from diagnosis till death. I think he desperately wanted to believe that his attitude was critical. I believe he did have longer than usual before his death.

 

https://davidfmarks.com/2020/03/04/hans-j-eysencks-unsafe-publications-reaches-148-how-many-more/

 

Retraction Watch: 77-year-old paper by controversial psychiatrist Hans Eysenck earn an expression of concern

Suspicions about Eysenck, who died in 1997, surfaced in the early 1990s, if not before. At least 14 of his papers have been retracted so far — a total his biographer has said could well eclipse 60. And 71 have now been hit with expressions of concern.

The latest such moves come from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

 

The "self-correcting" process of science does not work when it is arbitrarily impaired. Peak eminence-based medicine.

That's a start, I guess, but this, rather than retraction, is clearly meant to avoid offending some people who will be offended anyway. Politics should not interfere in science, we know all too well about the results. Ridiculous.

 

Radio Show: Journals slow to act despite evidence of scientific fraud or misconduct

The two most cited psychologists are Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget. Piaget pioneered the study of intellectual development in children. Coming in third is Hans Eysenck who died in 1997 at age 81. He published profusely on a range of controversial topics including race, intelligence, personality, disease and smoking. Being widely cited, his work influences work underway today. But serious questions have emerged about his data, results and conclusions. As Leigh Dayton reports, the case of Hans Eysenck exposes problems about how willing journals are to investigate and retract papers despite evidence of fraud or misconduct.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionationa...e-evidence-of-scientific-fraud-or-mi/13903140

 

That's concerning.

 

Not being 'passive' also helps you not get fobbed off and end up with a late stage diagnosis or any of the other medical factors that can make all the difference too I can well imagine.

This just sounds like tosh sold to distract in the misogynistic/narcissistic 'false hope' presumption some have 'for others'

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1533492072518504456