I nominate Ruddock

Headlines in the Age make it clear that, contrary to the views of the IPA, the media scene is imploding, the Iraq venture is doomed, and global warming is real. This can only mean one thing: reality is biased.

To more fully address the concerns of its critics, the universe is ultimately going to have to make a more determined effort to bring about a greater plurality of voices. Having two politically opposite deities would be reform worth considering – one to cover the old-fashioned laws of cause and effect, one to ensure that everything appears to be the way John Howard says it is. Such an innovation would help the universe to better reflect the politicians it exists to serve. Doing this could both mitigate concerns about balance and make for some entertaining and yet serious history.

The Government’s assaults on any inconvenient truth are to be applauded and are excellent insofar as they go. But if reality is to generate greater confidence in its ability to be balanced and impartial, more work will still be required.

Lancet

The basic point with this new Lancet survey is the same as the basic point about the last, which is that you can't beat something with nothing. The question for skeptics is "If that's the wrong number, what does the American government think is the right number?" The American government won't release any estimates. The only conceivable reason for that is that they believe that the true fugure is either much the same as or greater than the Lancet figure.
Imagine a court case in which there's a question about how many cattle you could run on a particular property. One side says "based on our statistical estimates, there are 4 to the acre or 4,000 in all." The side in posession says "Don't know. Haven't counted. Can't guess. Don't ask." The judge would be entitled to assume that the answer to the question wouldn't support the posessor's case.
Have to say, though, that in one way it's an impressive achievement. The Americans appear to have killed 183,000 Iraqis with the loss of only 2,700 Americans, or over sixty to one.
A little over one My Lai a week.

Costello

So Peter Costello has a “strong personal view” on reducing global warming. Oh, great. Peter Costello has a strong personal view on university union fees, he legislates. Peter Costello has a strong personal view on stem cells, he legislates. Peter Costello has a strong personal view on gay marriage, he legislates. The only strong personal opinion he’s ever had that he doesn't want to ram down our throats like it or not is the only one that matters. Just our luck.

Blogging Lovaas, 7

100 years?

Still, there's a line there that deserves slightly more attention.

The validity and efficacy of behavioural treatment is based on thousands of scientifically sound studies of learning processes investigated for over 100 years and published in journals with competent peer review by a large number of researchers from across this country and abroad.

That's quite a claim; scientifically valid behavioural research all the way back to 1899. It's a claim that suggests Lovaas hasn't actually moved on since the time when Skinner was the unchallenged paradigm. Not an easy claim to disprove, mind you, particularly as he doesn't name them (well, it would certainly lengthen the book) - but it's not on the face of it terribly convincing, either; few of us would be prepared to rest our reputation on any publication from 1899. We are ever so slightly readier to question the scientific soundness of the work of the pioneers - reports on the Kallikaks, say, or the Jukes, to take representative examples from the time.

Peer review, too, comes up here. As a published author and an ex-editor of a refereed journal I have no difficulty in believing the findings of the many studies that have found flaws in the system - a bias in favour of positive findings, or a tendency to reinforce the conventional wisdom. I wouldn't say peer review was useless, but it's certainly no panacea (and publication in your own journal proves nothing whatsoever).

Blogging Lovaas, 6

Science or scientism?

This teaching manual places a major emphasis on describing treatment programs confirmed effective based on methods of scientific inquiry. The final goal of scientific inquiry is to make the treatment procedures and data on treatment outcomes believable and replicable to the scientific community and to parents, teachers, and others who want to apply them.

Perhaps it's just picky, but it's mildly interesting that when framing the point of scientific inquiry Lovaas looks first at its rhetorical advantages - it makes the outcomes believable.

This in turn means that one's investigative efforts are subject to review, commonly referred to as peer review, by other scientists so as to establish the validity of these efforts. The validity and efficacy of behavioural treatment is based on thousands of scientifically sound studies of learning processes investigated for over 100 years and published in journals with competent peer review by a large number of researchers from across this country and abroad.

This claim of scientific status is certainly one of the central planks of the Lovaas phenomenon. Myself, I can see more of what Feynman called cargo cult science;

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

In part, Lovaas' is an appeal to method - ABA works with scientific protocols, and so are scientific - and partly an appeal to outcomes - the planes, it is said, have landed. I'll speak more of that later; at the moment, I'd like to quote some more Feynman that suggests that you can have some of methods and some of the outcomes and still not be a science.

There is one feature, I notice, that is generally missing in cargo cult science. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.

I can't see any evidence of that attitude in anything produced by Lovaas; anybody who thinks they have found an instance is welcome to draw it to my attention.

This may not be as significant as the next issue Feynman raises.

There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

Feynman says that you collect data to form your hypothesis, and then you go off and collect different data to test your hypothesis. Lovaas came up with the first round with his canonical study in 1987, and spent the next ten years defending it. Feynman would have suggested that yes, it was a good start, but you needed a different data set to test the predictions made by the first one. Lovaas has worked on the assumption that a single experiment can establish his theory. Not, in Feynman's terms, scientific.

Blogging Lovaas 4 or possibly 5

The development and analysis of many new behavioural treatment programs over the last 30 years have led to three major advances. [One, start young; two, we can identify the subgroups who gain the most;] Third, advances in the teaching of socially appropriate forms of communication are associated with concomitant reductions in self-injurious and other destructive behaviours in the majority of students. Because of this concomitant reduction, the use of aversive interventions to reduce destructive behaviours may no longer be necessary.

In this context, 'may' screams weasel word. He's still not willing to back down completely.

Blogging Lovaas, 3

Second page (p. xiv)

Estimates of the frequency of autism have risen in recent years; reports place the prevalence as high as 1 in 500 births. The prevalence of PDD and Asberger’s syndrome is higher still. Then comes the prognosis: little or nothing can be done about the problem; only 5 out of every 100 children with autism will be able to live outside of institutions or without custodial care.

Well, there are the statistics; There are, of course, other and even higher estimates; one claim is 1 in every 166, though that may cover more of the spectrum - if PDD and Asbergers are as high or higher than autism, that’s 3 in 500 or 1 in 166. In any case, let’s go with the one in 500 for a little. If 95% of those are institutionalized that’s 95 in 50,000.
If the population of the USA is, for ease of calculation, 250 million, that’s 500,000 people with autism, of whom 475,000 would be institutionalized (or in custodial care). Let’s look at the figures of people in institutions in the 2000 census (http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/daltcp/reports/rn11.htm#TABLE2).

TABLE 2: NUMBER OF PERSONS WITH LONG-TERM CARE NEEDS IN THE COMMUNITY AND IN INSTITUTIONS: 1990 (in thousands)
Under Age 18 Age 18-64 Age 65+ Total
Total 262 5,091 7,330 12,683
Community 170 4,382 5,688 10,240
Institutions 92 709 1,642 2,443
-Nursing Homes 1 181 1,590 1,772
-Homes for Physically Handicapped 1 9* --- 10
-ICF/MRs 20 118 9 147
-Other MR Facilities 26 109 7 142
-Child Welfare MR Children 14 --- --- 14
- Mentally Ill Facilities 30 144 30 204
- Correctional Facilities N/A 119 3 122
- Homeless Shelter/Street N/A 29 3 32
SOURCE: 1990 SIPP; 1989 NHIS; 1987 NMES; 1990 Decennial Census; CMHS/SAMHA, DHHS; Lakin.
NOTE: People in other institutions/group quarters, e.g., crews on ships, are not included.
• Includes ages 18+.

That is, the total number of people institutionalised for all diagnoses of mental retardation and mental illness is 507,000. For Lovaas’ estimates to be true, 94% of all institutionalised persons would need to be autistic. This seems unlikely.

This will later prove significant when Lovaas is defending the cost-effectiveness of his methods.