If you were an allergy researcher ...

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Tweeted by @subatomicdoc

"Why research beats anecdote in our search for knowledge"
http://theconversation.com/why-research-beats-anecdote-in-our-search-for-knowledge-30654?utm_content=buffer143df&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

It is ironic that the world we live in today is built on a solid foundation of rigour in a number of fields such as science, medicine, economics, political science and many others. Yet that same world makes it easier than ever for non-experts to spread their intuitive falsehoods under the pretext of common sense.

[CMdeux]

So profoundly true that it HURTS.   

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I would want to focus on systematic study of the "impossible" patients-- that is, those who react to "impossibly" small traces, or those who are allergic to MANY foods, or foods that are "not allergenic."

pic.twitter.com/7upHBHcabc

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Tweeted by @DrVes


"Anonymous peer-review comments may spark legal battle"
http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2014/09/anonymous-peer-review-comments-may-spark-legal-battle?utm_content=buffer9f752&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The power of anonymous comments—and the liability of those who make them—is at the heart of a possible legal battle embroiling PubPeer, an online forum launched in October 2012 for anonymous, postpublication peer review.

One possible charge is defamation, Roumel says, because he believes several comments—some now removed by PubPeer's moderators—stray from the facts to insinuate deliberate misconduct, in violation of PubPeer's posting guidelines.

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Tweeted by @Aller_MD

"Research transparency: it's not a question of if, it's a question of when and how"
http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2014/09/26/research-transparency-its-not-a-question-of-if-its-a-question-of-when-and-how/?utm_content=bufferb1670&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Improving research transparency is now at the forefront of most people's agenda and with the EU CTR only a few years away the momentum of changes within the UK will only increase. I think over the next few years there are going to be some great debates on research transparency, though I think one thing is clear; it's not a question of if, it's a question of when and how.

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Tweeted by @tasneemzhusain


"Get thee to physics class"
http://tinyurl.com/o4yja5r

Just look at Albert Einstein. He was exactly the kind of smug, aloof, unruly teenager a teacher would be happy to throw out of class. In fact, he so infuriated his teachers at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute that they would lock him out of the library.

I'm not smart enough for physics, but I have been known to infuriate.       


Didn't mean to.   

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Tweeted by @tasneemzhusain


"How Diversity Makes Us Smarter"
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook

Research has shown that social diversity in a group can cause discomfort, rougher interactions, a lack of trust, greater perceived interpersonal conflict, lower communication, less cohesion, more concern about disrespect, and other problems.

This is how diversity works: by promoting hard work and creativity; by encouraging the consideration of alternatives even before any interpersonal interaction takes place. The pain associated with diversity can be thought of as the pain of exercise.

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Tweeted by @tasneemzhusain


"Americans Respect (But Don't Always Trust) Scientists"
http://www.livescience.com/47956-americans-respect-but-dont-trust-scientists.html

In the eyes of the American public, scientists are seen as respectable and competent — but not necessarily trustworthy, according to a new study.

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Tweeted by @tasneemzhusain


"Q&A: Science journalism and public engagement"
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/importance-of-science-writing-0923

Every single one of the big existential challenges we face in this century calls for better science, to identify the problems, and better technology, to identify the solutions. But the science won't get done, and the solutions won't get implemented, unless the general public is part of the process. And to be involved in a meaningful way, citizens need accurate information. That's where science and technology writers come in.

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Tweeted by @DrVes


Five minutes with Patrick Dunleavy and Chris Gilson: "Blogging is quite simply, one of the most important things that an academic should be doing right now".

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/02/24/five-minutes-patrick-dunleavy-chris-gilson/

One of the recurring themes (from many different contributors) on the Impact of Social Science blog is that a new paradigm of research communications has grown up – one that de-emphasizes the traditional journals route, and re-prioritizes faster, real-time academic communication in which blogs play a critical intermediate role. They link to research reports and articles on the one hand, and they are linked to from Twitter, Facebook and Google+ news-streams and communities.

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Tweeted by @lucienengelen

"Why Patients Are Champions in Inventing Their Own Solutions"
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140822113133-19886490-patients-champions-in-inventing-own-solutions?trk=mp-reader-card&_mSplash=1

By patients: During my holiday I thought a lot about what would happen if we let patients develop their own products and us only facilitating with resources, knowledge and finance.

BTW, I'm not agreeing/advocating for everything I post in this thread.  This is an "ideas" thread ... a fun thread ... where almost no possibility is too outrageous to consider. 


I know ... I know ... that this is what I do for fun raises serious ?s & concerns about me that I would rather not face at the moment.   

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Tweeted by HeartSisters

Well, this makes sense: Women not represented in clinical trials because women's data "skews study results" wp.me/p1CO0X-2lM @mathbabe

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"Women not represented in clinical trials"
http://mathbabe.org/2014/09/26/women-not-represented-in-clinical-trials/

they have recently decided over at the NIH, which funds medical research in this country, that we should probably check to see how women's health are affected by drugs, and not just men's.

[CMdeux]

Honestly, I find this stuff interesting as well, Links-- but it raises real questions in my own mind about what credentialing actually does-- as opposed to 'merely' acting as gatekeeping...

the problem is that without the background to determine whether or not ideas (whether our own or those that we find appealing when promoted by others) are even plausible, we can get into the weeds pretty quickly.

It takes a VERY intelligent and secure clinician/researcher to actually explain why something is wrong/impossible/implausible, however, and that is time that (mostly) is better spent on doing research or doctoring-- because there are just not enough of those people in the world. 

Unfortunately, that leaves a gap which is easily filled in the modern era-- filled with pseudoscience and fear-mongering, unfortunately.

I'm definitely not saying that any member of this particular community is in any way PRONE to those things-- we aren't, and it's one of our particular hallmarks that we kick the tires and truth-test things while partnering wholeheartedly with allopathic physicians that we trust-- it's just that there IS a difference between what one determined patient or parent can realistically obtain a deep and genuine understanding of in a short amount of time.  I definitely do NOT have the understanding of atopy that our allergist does-- I have other expertise to bring to bear, but at some point, I have to listen and just trust him when he tells me that I'm off in the weeds.

Otherwise this leads to places like chasing a vaccine cause for allergies (or anything else) which is a dead end (and has been a dead end for many decades).  The problem is that proving something CANNOT be true is way, way harder than proving that it's not always true-- but that's science for us, in a nutshell.  A single counter-example is enough to disprove a hypothesis-- or is it?  More often, what is actually going on is that one of our initial underlying assumptions wasn't correct to begin with.

For an example of what I mean by that, check out the following example.


1.  I believe that blue eyes are an autosomal recessive trait.  Therefore, a parent with blue eyes can only contribute blue-eyed genes to offspring.

2.  Two blue-eyed parents may only have blue-eyed offspring.

The scientific method would then CHECK that hypothesis with sampling and observations--

3.  I have found several families in which children of blue-eyed parents have dark brown eyes. 


Now-- at this point, one might do two things.  One might say "clearly that hypothesis is incorrect, as is the belief that engendered it.  Blue eyes are not an autosomal recessive trait.  Eye color may be an unstable genetic trait-- or perhaps it's not genetic at all, but is an environmental or epigenetic trait."

Would that be a correct interpretation?

NO.

The correct thing to do is actually to go back and examine my experimental design more closely--

1.  what assumptions did I make when sampling?

• that all offspring are the result of DNA contributed from their parents
• I neglected to account for spontaneous mutation
• I didn't verify that offspring are BIOLOGICALLY the offspring of their parents-- maybe there are adoptees in my sample

2.  AHA!  That's it-- when I eliminated offspring from my original sample via determining which children were not biologically the offspring of their parents, my hypothesis was suddenly completely CORRECT.  Was it okay to eliminate that portion of the sample, though....   Well, of course it was. Because my hypothesis, at its heart, was about the genetic material inherited from biological parents. 

Now, there's a bit of a problem here-- a bit of a Goldilocks effect, if you will.

  The problem is that if I'm too invested in my experimental design, I won't see its flaws.  This is why scientists and researchers rely upon colleagues, collaborators, and peer review to critique their work-- CONTINUOUSLY.  And in spite of what most laypersons believe, this process is fairly ruthless and impersonal-- it has to be to work.  I don't value a colleague that never gives me USEFUL feedback that I can use to improve my work.  That's not the purpose of such criticism.

The other problem, though, is that if a person was simply not well-versed enough in basic genetics and biology, this all seems rather magical to begin with-- and THAT kind of person may send a researcher scrambling down a lot of rabbit holes or at least explaining that no, autosomal recessive inheritance works like so, see, so that question isn't relevant in the first place, because of how DNA replication works...  this is the kind of person who won't see that excluding non-biologically related families was a valid criterion, whereas excluding on the basis of, say, geographic location-- would not be.

This is why lay review is often so frustrating.  Picking up the vocabulary isn't always enough to provide a true framework of understanding (assuming that a consensus exists).   There's no basis for evaluating the basic experimental design to tease apart those research articles which are bad/flawed, versus those that are good or well-considered and thorough.   That's critical, because the validity of the conclusions rests upon that distinction-- it's not how WIDELY READ a paper is, nor how popular with the press. 

So while this stuff is important, it's also important (IMO) for us as patients to know when the answer is "I don't know" versus "Nobody (yet) knows," versus "the answer isn't at all clear at the moment, but here are some ideas..."

[CMdeux]

Tweeted by @subatomicdoc

"Why research beats anecdote in our search for knowledge"
http://theconversation.com/why-research-beats-anecdote-in-our-search-for-knowledge-30654?utm_content=buffer143df&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

It is ironic that the world we live in today is built on a solid foundation of rigour in a number of fields such as science, medicine, economics, political science and many others. Yet that same world makes it easier than ever for non-experts to spread their intuitive falsehoods under the pretext of common sense.

THIS.  So, so so much. 

[LinksEtc]

This is too deep ... I can't respond until after the kids go to bed.