Maya Forstater has challenged Adam Rutherford and Ben Goldacre to set Bragg straight about Cass and systematic reviews

[RethinkingLife]

Maya Forstater challenged Rutherford and Goldacre to set Billy Bragg straight on his misunderstanding of systematic reviews in re: Cass because FondofBeetles' explanation has seen her put on naughty step by TwiX.

There are a rash of people like Billy getting horribly confused about systematic reviews.

AdamRutherford bengoldacre you might want to step up now as neutral science communicators and explain how this works.

https://x.com/MForstater/status/1779422767781118224

No response from Goldacre but Rutherford responded to deny any relevant knowledge. And, yes, this is the Rutherford of Rutherford and Fry fame and the books and radio programmes ] Rutherford's TwiX bio: "I'm a scientist. President of Humanists_UK Lecturer in Genetics UCL Genetics, race, eugenics, history of science, movies, books, cricket"

It's not something I know much about.

https://twitter.com/AdamRutherford/status/1779478504930779315

To which somebody else responded with a clear Rutherford prior intervention about methodology etc.

https://twitter.com/JustMisogyny/status/1779580934448095682

And there's an interjection from Gurwinder Bhogal to Rutherford.

https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1779593609387421785

Why does Billy Bragg think he knows so much more than actual research scientists?

Will be depressing if Goldacre doesn't step up. Its not even taking a side its explaining how science works, which is what he does.

Gender medicine is turning out to be like a black hole. No one seems to want to go near it in case they get sucked in and can’t escape. It also bends light. As it collapses in on itself, the only way we’ll know it’s still there will be by the motion of everyone around it frantically trying to steer clear.

He's been very quiet on this issue thus far.

I get the impression that Ben Goldacre hasn't been very active on social media for a few years - sort of around the time this started to blow up (but also probably saw it was wise to not be very vocal on twitter in general) - don't think he said much around covid, etc. He hasn't done a regular column for ages as far as I know.

I know we all want him/sensible sceptics to speak out on this but tbh I don't really blame anyone professional for not wading in if it's not specifically your ballpark.

I find myself completely unsurprised at Dr Adam Rutherford being a dissembling coward over this.

Goldacre had avoided this subject like the plague. Seemingly despite making his name with “bad science ” and “big Pharma”, he has literally no opinion on this issue

how very cowardly odd

Surely the dam has got to break soon, under the overwhelming evidence that sex is binary? What will it take before prominent people can stop hiding

But wait!

https://x.com/AdamRutherford/status/1779642533036880200

"Not that I need to answer to any of you, but this type of judgement, mistaking quiet for opposition, caution for incuriosity is your problem not mine. FYI I am writing a book about gender in sport. I have no obligation to speak on any subject except of my choosing when I choose."

Gender eh?

Arse.

Bwahahahaaha! Bloody liar.

Honestly I don’t understand who these men are and why they are relevant. A bit of context please.

They are Archetypal Reasonable Men, who have built careers on patiently explaining difficult science.

But they've apparently lost the ability to speak on this subject, despite, apparently, one of them being in the process of writing a book on it ...

Goldacre was pretty busy with exemplary research with openSAFELY and setting up Trusted Research Environments during COVID. It was only last year that he was installed as Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine Director of Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science.

https://www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/about-us/ben-goldacre/

It's probably wise of him to bodyswerve the issue given that Rutherford has now publicly made a bit of nonsense of himself and some of his work. Probably won't make a dint in his media work.

Is he now! That should be interesting. It will be fun to see what knots he ties himself into in order to avoid taking a position.

No doubt when he started writing the book, the issue was much simpler and he was confident of being on the right side of history...

Goldacre made one or two tentative forays into the discussion - he shared a criticism of Mermaids by Andy Lewis, said the Pittman ROGD paper should be published, and shared Sarah Ditum's criticism of the weaponisation of suicide by transactivists - but retreated to both sidesism and silence after getting told how unkind this was.

Rutherford is a weak vain egotist who has on numerous occasions taken side swipes at gender critical arguments without ever having the courage to do so plainly. He makes snide comments and when people take him up on them sidesteps away. I'm delighted Maya tagged him in this. Like Alice Roberts he's someone who uses expertise as a popularity tool and is happy to mislead the public if it buys him a few likes.

They're a couple of the most high-profile science communicators in the UK Cailin66 and are not at all shy in taking people to task over the mis-use of science, or the promotion of pseudo-science. Except ...

Missing the point of this post completely because I am so taken with the pretty logo. It is rather lovely.

Rutherford is also another Reasonable Man and Popular Scientist

Very keen to lay into things like homeopathy for lacking evidence & rigour (which is true) but believes men can become women on their say so

has been unbelievably rude & arrogant to any woman on social media who has challenged him

Wellknown researchers, debunkers of bad science, and prolific authors of popular books in addition to their research work and both have some media presence.

https://www.adamrutherford.com/

https://www.phc.ox.ac.uk/team/ben-goldacre

Gurwinder Bhogal is an interesting commenter:

Transcript for people who don't watch videos (it's a rough transcript but the relevant bit is 00:04:23: https://www.happyscribe.com/public/modern-wisdom/742-gurwinder-bhogal-17-shocking-lessons-about-human-psychology

So many highlights in the replies:

https://twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1779794948604174448

Thank you and the others. Still don’t get it. Not UK based is probably why. But I’ve never heard of either and don’t think they matter. I subscribe to two UK newspapers. Listen to the BBC etc. Far better to concentrate on influential people. That most have heard of.

Very fortunate you've managed to avoid them in any U.K. media, most of us see them quite a bit!

Far better to concentrate on influential people. That most have heard of.

Well most people who read about science at pretty much any level in the U.K. will be aware of them.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Rutherford

You are now also aware of them!

Ben Goldacre was pretty famous a few years ago, a Guardian column and some popular books.
I don't know the other one either.

They’re saying they don’t understand what a systemic review is or am I misunderstanding?

If so that’s utterly ridiculous - SRs are basic basic science!