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Response: How one surgeon discusses BrAIST

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  • #61
    Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
    I'm talking about choices in graphing data and stats and what is appropriate for various audiences and other issues I discussed with Dr. McIntire. All this went right past you.
    If you be sane and honest and you would know enough about we are talking you would know this has nothing to do with the conclusion about brace EFFECTIVENESS remarked in the braist study (78%).
    It seems you don't fullfil at least one of those conditions, sorry..
    Last edited by flerc; 01-14-2014, 06:26 PM.

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    • #62
      Originally posted by hdugger View Post
      I will just mention, again, that I've seen no studies outside of the conservative treatment area which are subjected to this kind of scrutiny. Weinstein and Dolan don't know how to present research, Mooney is unethical, McIntire's paper should never have been published. Maybe it's just a coincidence, maybe every idiot in research has decided to study conservative treatments. Or maybe you should ask yourself why, exactly, it is that these papers/authors get your ire up.
      Not just me. You forgot that part. Dishonest.

      And that's your wording, not mine.

      And I explained each of those. Your are not admitting that.
      Last edited by Pooka1; 01-14-2014, 06:24 PM.
      Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

      No island of sanity.

      Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
      Answer: Medicine


      "We are all African."

      Comment


      • #63
        Originally posted by hdugger View Post
        For the rest of your arguments which appear to be
        Those are your characterizations of my arguments, NOT my arguments.

        Big difference.
        Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

        No island of sanity.

        Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
        Answer: Medicine


        "We are all African."

        Comment


        • #64
          Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
          I treat you the way I do because you . . ;.
          No, that is not true. I do not *cause* your behavior. You choose your behavior. In each post you write, you choose whether to engage the central fact or whether to drop down to ad hominem and name calling.

          I will note, again, that I am insulted virtually non-stop and I am choosing *not* to respond in kind. I am *choosing* to behave in a way which is in accordance with my own standards.

          You, likewise, are choosing each of your behaviors. I have not, and cannot, cause you to do anything.

          Comment


          • #65
            Originally posted by hdugger View Post
            No, that is not true. I do not *cause* your behavior. You choose your behavior. In each post you write, you choose whether to engage the central fact or whether to drop down to ad hominem and name calling.

            I will note, again, that I am insulted virtually non-stop and I am choosing *not* to respond in kind. I am *choosing* to behave in a way which is in accordance with my own standards.

            You, likewise, are choosing each of your behaviors. I have not, and cannot, cause you to do anything.
            Yet you will accuse me of using ad hom against other researchers, accuse Dr. McIntire of being "uncharitable" to other researchers for similar statements, accuse Dr. McIntire of being motivated entirely by competition in his criticisms of other reserarchers, etc. because YOU PERSONALLY don't like the comments. I guess your standards allow that stuff.
            Last edited by Pooka1; 01-14-2014, 06:35 PM.
            Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

            No island of sanity.

            Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
            Answer: Medicine


            "We are all African."

            Comment


            • #66
              Originally posted by hdugger View Post
              If you want to know why he did it that way, or you want to make a suggestion, try contacting him. He seemed like a decent guy - if your suggestions are helpful, maybe he'll implement them in his next study.
              You should let these guys publish and ask questions only after they are done publishing on this study. Chances are they will address everything important. They are experienced researchers and don't need suggestions from anyone. Otherwise you might put them in a bad position of asking for data that they intend to publish.
              Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

              No island of sanity.

              Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
              Answer: Medicine


              "We are all African."

              Comment


              • #67
                Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
                Yet you will . . . I guess your standards allow that stuff.
                No, my standards are pretty firm (although, obviously, not infallible). It really is important to me that I live up to my own guidelines. Falling down the hierarchy is always a failure, IMO.

                The ad-hominem discussion you mention did not come up as my way of dismissing your central argument against BrAIST. It came up in support of the central fact in a side discussion about whether it was OK for you to attack people because they didn't respect researchers. My point was that you were doing the same thing yourself. You dragged Kevin in, and I made some evaluation of his comments. But, again, it was all in the way of evidence in support of a central argument, not a way of dismissing your input on BrAIST.

                In the other case, you again dragged poor Kevin into an argument which didn't involve him. You claimed he was saying something that he wasn't, and I tried to explain to you what his concern actually seemed to be about. And then you decided that my explanation was an insult, although that was absolutely not my understanding of what I was doing. And, again, my explanation about what he was saying was to support the central argument, not to dismiss or discredit him.

                So, no, to the best of my knowledge, I'm pretty clean about this stuff. That doesn't mean that I won't get exacerbated. But it does mean that I will not, knowingly, engage a central argument by trying to discredit people or calling them names. I genuinely want to understand things. Calling people names is just not going to clarify anything.

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                • #68
                  Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
                  YOU PERSONALLY don't like the comments.
                  She personally dont like comments?.. your comments? Only that? You should to love Hdugger! I personally hate your intentionally confusing/insane comments, your posts, threads, everything you does here according to an actual nosnsurgical defamer as you are of course!

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    You have to understand that my comments about BrAIST, despite how it sounds to your ear, are NOT about the researchers' integrity. The comments are about the data and how they are presented and how this study is going to be used and abused by non-researchers. It's mainly about fairness and being balanced and complete. The heart of science is not models or experiments. It is intellectual honesty. All researchers will react to that. There was no nefarious choice in how data were presented in the BrAIST article. It is clearly incomplete in not including the final curve measurements and I probably got a little too exercised at first in my reaction to that key piece of evidence not being included. I might even apologize to them for that bit. Very soon after, I regained my senses and figured out that they will be publishing that in a later article. And that's a very reasonable decision. Nobody could ever fault them for that. I also think that they are not going to shoot themselves in the foot by waiting to publish unfavorable data in a second publication... I suspect the final curve measurements will be similar between the braced and the watch and wait group but any large measurements are going to have to be discussed in light of future progression and what is known in relation to curve magnitude.

                    You are wrong about accusing me of ad hom and wrong accusing Dr. McIntire of being "uncharitable" for similar comments. I won't speak for him but I will speak for myself. The data are the central issue, not the researchers. That was the only thing on my mind in commenting on the BrAIST publication. You don't accept that and you think I am lying about this so I cannot accept your subsequent behavior. There is no end in sight.
                    Last edited by Pooka1; 01-14-2014, 07:35 PM.
                    Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                    No island of sanity.

                    Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                    Answer: Medicine


                    "We are all African."

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      What hard seems to be for you to see how much effectives braces are as this study showed. But not be worry, you are free to suppose all the succesful cases finished at 49. 9999 degrees. You may add all the nines you want. Sure it will make you feel better.
                      Last edited by flerc; 01-14-2014, 10:43 PM.

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        No, I don't think you're lying. But these conversations all happen in a public space and people reading them may not think the same thing about them as the people writing them. That doesn't make one of the viewpoints a lie. But it doesn't make one of them the truth, either.

                        So, what I saw in joining the conversation is that people were sort of discussing that study through characterizations of the authors. I listed those characterizations somewhere else, but it was kind of a six-step thing.

                        1. We expect to see the data presented a certain way
                        2. The data should be presented in the way we expect
                        3. There must be a reason why the data is not presented in the way we expect
                        4. That reason has something to do with the researchers wanting to guard or shield something in the data from public view
                        5. Let's discuss the various personal characteristics of the authors which might lead to them shielding the data from public view
                        6. And then, the whole thing was sort of fed back in a way to challenge the central finding of the article - that is, it was used to suggest that braces *weren't* effective without providing any evidence other than conjecture and characterization.

                        My argument was that there was no reason to go beyond step 1. There was no information gained at any of the other steps that wasn't available at step 1 - "we expect to see the data presented in a certain way." The rest of it was conjectural and, for me, especially the stuff at step 5, just kind of left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Someone (not you) suggested that Weinstein wanted a breakthrough study because he had sort of faded from glory. Someone else (not you) suggested that it was some kind of unconscious process where he just couldn't see that braces didn't work because he so expected to see that they would. And someone (you) talked about a political stink invading the study. So, yeah, the whole thing just seemed really unnecessary and unpleasant towards people whose only crime was doing a research study. And I would still categorize what I saw from most of the participants, including you but not including Kevin, as ad hominem - because it sort of worked backwards from the data to make an assumption about the personal characteristics of the authors, and then used that assumption to challenge the central argument. It didn't just challenge the central argument using facts in evidence, which is what I'd like to see.

                        On Kevin (and I hope we can dismiss him out of these conversation in the future). He did not go beyond step 4. He deliberately challenged step 5 ("there's nothing nefarious going on") and he didn't engage in step 6. If he were any other poster, I would not even have called his behavior uncharitable. But, because he carries more authority, and because these are, essentially, his colleagues that he's talking about, I don't think he should even be straying down to step 4 in a public forum. So, I actually think I went *harder* on Kevin because I have certain expectations of him.

                        Again, I'm not trying to call you names. I'm saying what I saw happening, and why it bothered me. Take it or leave it. I'm not the queen of forum behavior, but I have a right to have an opinion about what I see without being dragged into a blood feud. Your argument, as I understand it, is saying that a political stink had invaded the study was not straying into personal characterization of the authors. My only comment is, no matter how you intended it, my reading is a pretty expected one. So, in the public space it reads as an ad hominem, no matter how you meant it. However, I would not have even brought it up within that discussion, except that, when you said that thing about not being able to stand people saying bad things about researchers, I had a WTF moment. I mean, there I was with people talking about how Weinstein might have misstated or overstated or whatever he was accused of doing to his results because he was trying to grab at some former glory. It just seemed like a really odd time to become indignant about people *not* in the discussion being unkind to researchers. That's the reason why I brought it up. I would have thought it, but not mentioned it, had that other discussion not come up.

                        You can decide to have a blood feud about it, if you like, but it does seem like you permit yourself an extraordinary amount of leeway - you were calling me ignorant and dishonest long before this event - while requiring the most exacting behavior from me. IMO, you're getting a whole lot more out of the golden rule then I am.

                        But none of this has anything to do with the central argument, step 1, you expected to see other data. I have no argument with that. That's fine. Going beyond that, though, requires facts not in evidence. That's the part that bothered me.

                        Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
                        There is no end in sight.
                        Sure there is. You allow me the right to hold an opinion that you don't hold. Here's one way: "I did not intend it as an ad hominem attack, but I understand why you saw it that way." That allows both of us some kind of grace. Here's another, a step beyond "I certainly didn't mean for it to sound that way, but I understand that it might be interpreted that way. I'll go back and rewrite it so that no one else is led to think that I'm suggesting something nefarious."

                        So, yes, of course, there are lots of ends. But they all start and end you with respecting my right to see things in the way that I do. Without that, no, I don't imagine it will ever stop bothering you.
                        Last edited by hdugger; 01-14-2014, 11:08 PM.

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Originally posted by hdugger View Post
                          My argument was that there was no reason to go beyond step 1.
                          That's because you don't crunch data like this for a living. Dr. McIntire and I do. That's why we reacted the way we did and why you were wrong to label it as you did.

                          (And by "data like this" I am talking simple line graphs like BrAIST has. I have graphs that look very much like that graph only the axes are the things I am studying. The point about these graphs is there are general issues about stats (median versus average) presenting end points, how to bin the data, etc. that demonstrably can change the gist of the conclusions. At what point does variance start to require a modulation of the conclusions? How much predictive value is there in the data? Things like that. Dr. McIntire and I immediately clued into these types of things because those are the SAME issues we deal with every day in our graphing adventures. Any researcher in any field with observational data like this would make those same comments about that graph. You are not getting this point.)
                          Last edited by Pooka1; 01-15-2014, 09:24 PM.
                          Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                          No island of sanity.

                          Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                          Answer: Medicine


                          "We are all African."

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Originally posted by hdugger View Post
                            But they all start and end you with respecting my right to see things in the way that I do.
                            Your analyses demonstrates the difference between how you approach this and how Dr. McIntire and I approach this. A research degree is not just specific knowledge but about how to think critically and analyze everything correctly. No researcher in the world would write what you did. I am trying to tell you you are wrong to criticize Dr. McIntire and myself and you refuse to see it. If you continue to wrongly criticize us then this will go on with no end in sight.
                            Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                            No island of sanity.

                            Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                            Answer: Medicine


                            "We are all African."

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
                              No researcher in the world would write what you did.
                              Do you really believe some scientist in the world may write what you use to write in this forum? Do you need I quote some examples?

                              Again the same request..
                              Originally posted by flerc
                              Someone knows how do you say 'CARADURA' in English?

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                              • #75
                                Originally posted by hdugger View Post
                                Congratulations! We've arrived at the bottom of the disagreement hierarchy. Get your casual name calling here.

                                Again, if you have a central argument, feel free to share it. Otherwise, find someone else to talk to.
                                HD,

                                It's more than fair for you to ask that nobody call you names.

                                I will add that flerc has been hurling slurs at Pooka all along as well, so in fairness I think we should ask him to stop also. I only bring this up because my name eventually gets thrown in there as her 'sidekick' or 'cohort'. I have used great restraint not to attack him back because I don't think it's productive.

                                And while nobody is in cohoots, I am certainly not going to withhold my opinion any time it happens to concide with Pooka's (or anybody else's), just because it upsets him. It's not fair of him to want people to only post views that he agrees with.

                                But I totally agree with you that we should ALL stick to the subject matter and not get into personalities. As I said, it's just not productive.
                                mariaf305@yahoo.com
                                Mom to David, age 17, braced June 2000 to March 2004
                                Vertebral Body Stapling 3/10/04 for 40 degree curve (currently mid 20's)

                                https://www.facebook.com/groups/ScoliosisTethering/

                                http://pediatricspinefoundation.org/

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