The BMJ have published a “living systematic review” of interventions for the management of Long Covid. It sets out to gather all relevant studies, and to comb their findings in order to see what works and what doesn’t. Having assessed 24 trials looking at drug and non-drug therapies, they draw […]| The Science Bit
From Jaime Seltzer over on Bluesky: Please call for this one, guys, this is a horrific turn. There is something at the core of these folks that cannot accept patient narrative as a source of real data. They revert to default tropes about exercise rather than listening, or reading up-to-date […]| The Science Bit
Earlier this year, I wrote about a draft academic paper that had attempted to condemn the new NICE guideline for ME/CFS. As regular readers might recall, the paper had claimed that NICE was guilty of “eight major errors” in its guideline reviewing processes. In my blog post I noted that […] The post The cries for help are getting louder. And that’s a good sign appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Colleagues and I have responded to a paper in Der Nervenarzt, the leading German neurology journal, pointing out various reasons why its “overview” of evidence-based approaches to ME/CFS treatment lacked, well, evidence. Our critique can be read in full in English via the following Tweet (kudos to @AnilvanderZee): In summary, […] The post “A science that does not allow opposing opinions abolishes knowledge.” Er, kind of appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Earlier this month, on World ME Awareness Day, I spoke at the Hope 4 ME & Fibro NI conference in Belfast. The event was hosted in the Stormont Parliament Buildings by Alliance Party MLA, Paula Bradshaw. The title of my lecture was Getting it Right: Addressing Myths about the 2021 […] The post Getting it Right: Addressing Myths about the 2021 NICE Guideline for ME/CFS appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
David Tuller has been conducting a series of interviews on YouTube relating to science, medicine, and medical controversies relating to ME/CFS and Long Covid. I was pleased to discuss with him my recently published book and, for good measure, the issue of dualism as it affects the psychologising of illness. […] The post Talking to David Tuller about dualism appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Here is what I will be doing today: Translation: Welcome: ME Seminar On International Women’s Day, we draw attention to a disease which affects women to a high extent. Almost 80% of those who fall ill with this disease are women. We are talking about ME which is a serious, […] The post Where I speak to colleagues in the Swedish parliament… appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
I am pleased to write that my latest book — A Conceptual History of Psychology: The Mind Through Time — is now published worldwide. Here are the contents: PART I. FOUNDATIONChapter 1. People, history and the concept of psychologyChapter 2. Spirituality, philosophy and the concept of the mindChapter 3. Knowledge, […] The post New book… appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
“No one comes up here without a damn good reason.” * * * Regular readers will recall that I have previously written about the UK’s new healthcare guidelines for ME/CFS, as published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in 2021. Whereas the old guidance had proposed […] The post Eight (or more) logical fallacies in that paper bemoaning the new NICE guideline for ME/CFS appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Here is a transcript of my recent podcast with the Norwegian ME Association. In the interview, we discuss the medical stigma where post-viral illnesses, such as ME and Long COVID, are falsely characterised as ‘psychological’ due to poorly grounded stereotyping. The discussion touches on how medical opinion has become intertwined […] The post ME, Long Covid, and the History of Medical Stigma (Transcript) appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
I recently had the pleasure of talking with the folks at the Norwegian ME Association for their (excellently produced) podcast series. Arising from my new book, we discussed the medical stigma in which an illness is falsely characterised as ‘psychological’ — post-viral conditions such as ME and Long Covid, for […] The post ME, Long Covid, and the History of Medical Stigma (Podcast) appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Just the other week, I spoke at the annual conference of the RME, the Swedish National Association for ME. In my lecture, I took another look at the new ME/CFS guideline as published by NICE about one year ago. While I covered ground that might be familiar to some, it […] The post Another look at the new NICE guideline for ME/CFS appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
The Irish men’s rugby team is currently number one in the world. We might therefore expect its governing body, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU), to be a proficient and effective organisation, capable of meeting its own aims while setting examples for others to follow. Unfortunately, however, when it comes […] The post Why the IRFU’s transgender policy is an example of the ecological fallacy appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Yesterday, we had lots of news headlines concerning the Loch Ness monster, proving that the silly season is still a thing. (After all, it’s not as though there is actually anything important going on in the world right now.) Virtually all the headlines focused on the same catchy notion: It […] The post Of course there is no monster in Loch Ness (despite what the university’s Press Office might want you to believe) appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
As a straight, white, middle-aged, college-educated, settled-community, cisgender man, I know that I benefit from more than my fair share of privilege. So if I have found Pride Month somewhat stressful, I can only imagine how others must have felt. Pride Month just isn’t what it used to be. What […] The post Why are transphobes so transphobic? appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Historian David Olusoga has been speaking about the ironies of ‘cancel culture’: Olusoga, whose work has explored black Britishness and the legacy of empire and slavery, said that people “feel perfectly comfortable making these comments about me without being able to point to a single reference or footnote in my […] The post ‘Cancel culture’ paranoia and other right-wing hysterics reveal medical conservatism’s true colours appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Let’s have another go, shall we? Last December we wrote about a paper published in Occupational Medicine, in which the following information was presented in a table: The study concerned a group of patients who were scrutinised at two time-points, firstly at “baseline”, and secondly at “follow-up”. That is basically […] The post Authors defend statistical errors, editor sees no evil appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Just last week I gave a presentation to the Norgewegian ME Association on how the new treatment guideline for ME/CFS is rooted in scientific evidence and reasoning. The video has now been posted: By way of a teaser, here is the title and background info for the talk: The New […] The post The New NICE Guideline for ME/CFS (2021): Following the Science appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Hello! I hope your Saturday is going well. Here is a talk I gave in November, at the Psychological Society of Ireland’s annual conference. The transcript appears below. Enjoy! * * * * * * Transcript: Psychology, religion, and public policy Now, this particular topic is very wide-ranging. I wouldn’t […] The post Psychology, religion, and public policy appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
I used to be concerned about bad science. These days, what gets me going is wrong science: blatant error somehow surviving peer-review and ending up published as if it were fact. It seems that is where we have got to with modern academic publishing. Standards have slipped so badly, even […] The post Will innumeracy cause this study to be retracted? Don’t count on it… appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Some examples of comedy are jarringly impactful precisely because they feel so authentic. A personal favourite of mine is the 1984 movie This is Spinal Tap, the legendary mockumentary depicting a fictional English rock band attempting to rescue their dwindling reputations by organising one last big-splash concert tour. It is […] The post Psychogenic ME/CFS: Turning the Nostalgia Up to Eleven appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
The pandemic of Long COVID psychobabble continues. This week saw yet another terrible study claiming that long-haul COVID is just an illusion of human cognition, an illness-like experience rooted in psychological processes. The widely reported “finding” was published in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine by a group of French […] The post No, that antibody study does *not* show that Long COVID is caused by “beliefs” appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Whether to laugh or to cry, truly that is the question. Professors of psychology can be a strange breed. While some are blind to their own faults, others are are obsessively self-critical. Perhaps this is why the field of psychology has been described as being “in crisis” since (at least) […] The post “The problem may well be that some of our treatments are too evidence based” appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Having spent years casting their critics as angry anti-science activists, some of our favourite panjandrums have now entered Phase 3 in their own year-long campaign of (a) getting angry, (b) engaging in activism, and, yes, (c) throwing science-based medicine under the bus. Here is what the Royal College of Physicians […] The post Self-styled medical leaders defend “neurolinguistic processing” as legit treatment for ME/CFS appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
Here is an extract from a lecture I gave last year for my colleagues at the Psychiatric Association of Turkey. It concerns the issue of so-called “Medically Unexplained Symptoms”: I attempt to show how the primacy effect — a reliance on first impressions — serves to distort medical reasoning. For […]| The Science Bit
