Comment by bjourne | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bjourne | Hacker News Reader

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> It may or may not have been an attack but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptoms and all showing brain abnormalities?

I haven't followed the story in detail, but the claim of "brain abnormalities" appear to come from a small number of doctors who likely were primed with irrelevant information. "Doctor, take a look at these CT scans of diplomats in Cuba who might have been attacked using a sonic weapon." It is not far-fetched to imagine that this priming caused the doctors to see brain abnormalities where none existed.

Oh, and someone who was down-voted to dead status already linked to an article from 2017 in which the Cubans said they believed crickets were the culprit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18837926

See also this blog post, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2018/04/07/ba..., which in not so kind words calls the original study junk: "The condition suffered by the US diplomats in Cuba has been labelled “mysterious” (Rubin, 2018). The real mystery though is how such a poor neuropsychogical report could have passed the scrutiny of expert reviewers in a first class outlet."

>the claim of "brain abnormalities" appear to come from a small number of doctors who likely were primed with irrelevant information

The study was published by the UPenn Center for Brain Injury and Repair (I’d recommend reading it) by the treating physicians.

It’s funny you would opine the treating physicians have irrelevant information. Yet, like many in this thread you tend to gravitate towards doctors/scientist making diagnoses sight unseen who have no patient information.

I’d say the real mystery is how anyone on HN could ignore the study from the UPenn Center for Brain Injury and Repair who examined and evaluated the patients completed with objective tests like MRI and hearing. As if that’s not enough you say

>it’s not far fetected this priming caused the doctors to see brain abnormalities where none existed

I’d like to know how the doctors bias manifested to the MRI and hearing testing. And I’m wondering why your logic doesn’t get applied to the scientists and the neurologist (who is clearly biased) who hasn’t examined the patients and has diagnosed them as suffering from psychosomatic mass hysteria.

You are clearly arguing by appeal to authority. The staff at The University of Pennsylvania Center for Brain Injury and Repair is not infallible. Sometimes bad science is produced by even renowned institutions. This is what the study says about the MRI scans:

"MRI neuroimaging was obtained in all 21 patients. Most patients had conventional imaging findings, which were within normal limits, at most showing a few small nonspecific T2-bright foci in the white matter (n =9, 43%). There were 3 patients with multiple T2-bright white matter foci, which were more than expected for age, 2 mild in degree, and 1 with moderate changes. The pattern of conventional imaging findings in these cases was nonspecific with regard to the exposure/insult experienced, and the findings could perhaps be attributed to other preexisting disease processes or risk factors."

Translated to English: Only a few minor brain abnormalities were found. Those could all have been the result of prior, more natural causes. The MRI scans themselves aren't available, presumably because of "security" reasons.

Personally, I don't see why the crickets theory would be implausible at all. Listening at their sound for just 20 seconds was enough to give me shivers and ringing ears. I'd easily go insane if I had to hear them every night for several months straight.

It's not arguing by appealing to authority when they are the experts in a field...

That's exactly what appealing to authority is. They are an authority precisely because they are experts in the field

Yes, but "appeal to actual authority" is a positive description of an argument, not a fallacy. The fallacy is appeal to irrelevant or incorrect authority.

This is like the third time in the past couple of months I've had to make this point. Is there someone out there actually telling people that using what authorities say in an argument is always wrong?

You're missing the point. Presenting a source for a claim is fine, but the naked fact that the author of the source is an expert in the field is not sufficient. You need to also show that their expertise is properly applied.

The person with whom you are arguing is making the point that they may have been misdirected by prompting that turns out to have been questionable, and that they acted on this instead of properly applying their expertise.

If you're saying something like, "Well that's just not possible! They're an authority on this topic!" ...then yes, you are committing (arguably the quintessential) fallacy of appealing to authority.

It is also a fallacy that every argument must spell out every step. You are allowed to jump over simple things like "doctors qualified to examine these people are qualified to have opinions about them." Is the claim that you fear that they may have been examined by random hobos grabbed off the streets? Who are somehow associated with that group of doctors?

By what stretch of the imagination are these not relevant authorities? Demanding to have that spelled out is either demanding to have your intellect insulted, or simply mendacity. I trust those doctors far more than I trust people trying to chop logic on some random programming site.

>You're missing the point. Presenting a source for a claim is fine, but the naked fact that the author of the source is an expert in the field is not sufficient.

Only that’s not what I did. The other party is a neurologist, so the appeal to authority would be the same on either side.

UPenn treated the patients (separately doctors from UM went to Cuba and treated the patients) and all have ruled out A psychosomatic cause. Then you have a neurologist who hasn’t seen/treated the patients diagnosing them with psychosomatic mass Hysteria.

My point is clearly not an appeal to authority. Anyone who is siding with the neurologist is appealing to authority, I’m saying it’s odd to dismiss the different groups of physicians who actually treated patients and have data.

Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. The authority of a source is not absolute proof of a claim. It is evidence, and it is evidence that should probably be given extra weight commensurate with the authority of the source. However, usually when someone says "you're appealing to authority" what they mean is: yes I accept your source, but just because they have authority does not make them beyond reproach, or beyond error, and here is why I think that, even though they are authoritative, they are wrong in this instance.

Yes, but I think what is being argued above is "my authority is more qualified than your authority"

I don't think that's what's being said at all. He makes a specific set of points about why this authority is wrong here, points that the other commenter hasn't tried to address, except by reasserting the authority of the source. That's why it's an appeal to authority.

I don't see any specific points where bjourne points out why the UPenn Doctors are wrong. He just points out that they are not infallible and says they may have been primed.

As you said, and I very much agree with "The authority of a source is not absolute proof of a claim. It is evidence, and it is evidence that should probably be given extra weight commensurate with the authority of the source"

I believe what bjourne is saying is that he believed the crickets story because he places more weight with the authority pushing that story.

will_brown is saying he things UPenn doctors have more authority.

quick edit: What I am trying to say is that bjourne should not just blow off the UPenn authority, but instead justify his own authority is better.

Ya I think that's a reasonable take. I think we don't really disagree :)

>will_brown is saying he things UPenn doctors have more authority.

Not at all. I am saying UPenn doctors examined and treated the patients. Not mentioned at all is a UM doctor also went to Cuba and treated the patients. All ruled out psychosomatic mass hysteria.

Then an HN poster called that diagnosis/published study flawed and linked an article with a neurologist quoted as saying the UPenn diagnosis is wrong and it is psychosomatic mass hysteria.

My point has nothing to do with authority, I just don’t understand how anyone can dismiss the group(s) that actually examined and treated the patients based on some quotes from a neurologist in a newspaper article that diagnosis the patients without having examined/treated them.

I’ll admit in this context authority is important, but Both sides have authorities, and its those people aiding with the neurologist that are appealing to authority, because what other reason is there to side with the one doctor who hasn’t seen the patients, while all treating physicians ruled out the mass hysteria diagnosis?

Appeal to "actual" authority is still appeal to authority.

Consider an unproven theorem in the MetaMath database. Now consider an amateur mathematician, or perhaps a high school student finding and formalizing a proof. Irrespective of how (un)interesting the theorem is, Norman Megill and the users of MetaMath can verify (by pure reasoning) the theorem regardless of the authority status of the author of the proof.

Appeal to "actual authority" is just appeal to authority, which is a potential proxy for truth, and the phrase "appeal to authority" reminds us that sound reasoning and logic is superior to any reference to status or past achievements.

Yes, Trump is. Climate deniers are. Lots of people are on today's internet.

This reminds me of a orthopedic surgeon that mentioned when MRI's became available docs could see what was causing the patients problem. Later when MRI's got cheaper and more widespread he started getting referrals because of same things on asymptomatic patients. Which meant to him, just because there is an abnormality on the MRI that isn't necessarily the source of patients problem.

Every MRI scan is primed with information. "grandma is forgetful", "billy fell off the roof"

But if MRIs were that subjective, they would not have the success rate they do.

It is more reasonable to assume something happen to the embassy staff than that MRIs are as bogus as lie detectors.

Also, every brain is abnormal in some way. This and priming together caused the doctors to conclude wrongly. It's like therapy, garbage in and garbage out.

Straight from the report

> MRI neuroimaging was obtained in all 21 patients. Most patients had conventional imaging findings, which were within normal limits, at most showing a few small nonspecific T2-bright foci in the white matter (n =9, 43%).

This sounds to me like the MRI showed most people were normal. It continues:

> There were 3 patients with multiple T2-bright white matter foci, which were more than expected for age, 2 mild in degree, and 1 with moderate changes.

Three out of 21 patients doesn't sound like a lot. The researches agree that 3 people showing something somewhat unexpected isn't significant, and it's probably due to other diseases or conditions:

> The pattern of conventional imaging findings in these cases was nonspecific with regard to the exposure/insult experienced, and the findings could perhaps be attributed to other preexisting disease processes or risk factors. Advanced structural and functional neuroimaging studies are ongoing.

So it's not that "MRIs are subjective" or "are as bogus as lie detectors". Rather, it's the people forming an interpretation of what the results mean (especially those who are not experts, as we can see that the experts agreed only three of the 21 people examined show something, and it's probably unrelated).

[1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168

nothing wrong with MRI indeed https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/ignobe...

That article points out the importance of statistical correction not innate problems with MRI. From the article:

>Some people like to use the salmon study as proof that fMRI is woo, but this isn't the case, it's actually a study to show the importance of correcting your stats.

It further points out the by 2012 90% of labs were using the corrected techniques.

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