Oxford Professor Taken To Task For Linking Internet Use To Autism

esocid writes with excerpts from a piece written by Ben Goldacre of The Guardian: "Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of pharmacology at Oxford, apparently announced that computer games are causing dementia in children. ... Two months ago the same professor linked internet use with the rise in autism diagnoses (not for the first time), then pulled back when autism charities and an Oxford professor of psychology raised concerns. ... When I raised concerns, she said I was like the epidemiologists who denied that smoking caused cancer. Other critics find themselves derided as sexist in the media. If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening, and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can't realistically go unnoticed. ... I think these serious scientific concerns belong, at least once, in a clear scientific paper. I don't see how this suggestion is inappropriate, or impudent, and in all seriousness, I can't see an argument against it."

Comments

smoking causes yellow fingers

[mevets]

A disproportionate number of people who are obsessed with video games score high on the ASD. These aren't controversial ideas.

Causation is different, not so much for smoking and yellow fingers. Nutter's blathering aside, the real question is:
Are video games harmful to people who score high on the ASD?
although you might be tempted to apply that question to several other groups.

Its just plain nuts to pretend a link doesn't exist (although that hasn't stopped climate deniers), the important bit is 'what is the effect', 'how do we mitigate it', and 'how certain are we of the linkage'. The rest is for dingbats.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[sjames]

There is a big leap between "A disproportionate number of people who are obsessed with video games score high on the ASD" and any claims of harm. I wouldn't be surprised to find that "A disproportionate number of people who are obsessed with nearly anything score high on the ASD".

The most likely relationship is that people on the autistic spectrum tend to be attracted to video games. It is quite unlikely that the attraction to video games causes the ASD.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The most likely relationship is that people on the autistic spectrum tend to be attracted to video games. It is quite unlikely that the attraction to video games causes the ASD.

I suspect it would be a lot more accurate to say that ASD causes video gaming rather than video gaming causes ASD.

Autism...

[tbird81]

will be for a good decade or so, one of these illnesses that people will blame or all sorts of mysterious "evils" that we experience in every day life.

Lead in petrol, mercury in the sea, vaccines, internet, WiFi, video games, contraceptive pills, pesticides, radon, highway noise, electrical cables, plastic soft drink bottles.... There'll always be some crazy self-promoting dickhead trying to get some publicity for himself with his stupid theory.

It's a natural human response to want to find the cause of something. That's why gods were invented (it doesn't have to be a rational cause). It's also why these theories occur around illnesses that are down to pure chance or at least not currently explained. You don't see many people blaming their chlamydia infection on aluminium pots, because it's well established what causes that disease! So things like lupus, other autoimmune conditions, cancer (not lung cancer), autism, tend to attract these kinds of lies.

But just because it's human nature give Baroness Susan Greenfield a reason to abuse her position with crap like this. Shame on her. She should know better. I hope she loses her job for making up bullshit (and purposely difficult to disprove bullshit) like this. She's meant to be a scientist, not a self-promoting celebrity.

Re:Autism...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point: whether or not any individual item on the list is harmful, there is no credible evidence that any of them cause autism. In fact, AFAIK, there is no credible evidence that *anything* other than pure genetic chance causes autism.

here's one argument:

[Goldsmith]

Here's one argument:

The critical review you get by publishing in mass media is more complete and honest than what you get in a peer reviewed scientific publication. Why publish in a scientific journal just to say you did it? The peer review and publishing process has ceased to be intellectually valuable and completely fails to separate lies from truth.

Anyone else in science needs to ask themselves this question: is there some journal somewhere which would publish this, even if it was wrong or falsified? I have no idea whether or not this particular researcher's claims are crazy, but I have complete confidence that they could be published in a scientific paper somewhere.

Why then, do we care?

Re:here's one argument:

[Anubis IV]

You're basically suggesting that crowd sourcing is better than peer review. Crowd sourcing works for some things. For simple fact finding or culling through large amounts of data, it can work. For researching things that may take years to study and would require a background in the field, not so much. In fact, the only place you'll find people who are qualified to check you on things like that are, you guessed it, amongst your peers in the field. The only reason to skip them and go straight to the press is because you're playing a political game, and politics should have no place in research.

I suppose I'm being a bit idealistic and naive, however.

Also, I think you're intentionally being obtuse by suggesting that getting it published anywhere is sufficient. Sure, there are crap conferences and journals out there. And if you get published in one of them instead of a higher tier publication it speaks volumes about the quality of your work and how much stock will be put in it. But the major publications still do their job pretty darn well, and you really need to get published in one that has an established reputation if you want for your work to be taken seriously.

Re:here's one argument:

[orzetto]

The critical review you get by publishing in mass media is more complete and honest than what you get in a peer reviewed scientific publication. Why publish in a scientific journal just to say you did it? The peer review and publishing process has ceased to be intellectually valuable and completely fails to separate lies from truth.

Uh, I don't think so. Have you gone through peer review in a scientific journal? The process is long and can last 6 months or even a year. It is very thorough as there is always something that can be improved in a paper. In my experience papers usually come out better than the entered the process. You do encounter the occasional dick reviewer, but that is not enough to break the system.

Critical review by mass media is not done by specialists who have several months to write their comments. It is done by journalists on a field they are incompetent in within an afternoon. It is done by pundits with an agenda (in this case against videogames and Internet), who will put their own spin on the issue. It is then fed to the unwashed masses who know nothing of the subject and can easily be swayed.

The proper process is: first peer review, then, when the findings have been verified, you go to the public.

[I]s there some journal somewhere which would publish this, even if it was wrong or falsified?

You betcha. The results are interesting either way.

Great medieval diagnosis

[hedgemage]

Dementia is no one single illness or condition, it is a blanket term used for any condition that affects normal cognitive functions. The way the original statement was made was just as scientific as the blanket statements about 'hysteria' in women at the end of the 19th century. I'm surprised that someone who holds such an esteemed position in academia would apply such a crude label to a problem, real or otherwise. Perhaps the Baroness will recommend which of the four humors need to be drained in order to cure this dementia, or if trepanation is in order to relieve the heat from the brain.

On a related note, there is substantial evidence to support the high percentage of insanity amongst the noble houses of Europe due to centuries of inbreeding.

Jenny McCarthy? Is that you?

[lexsird]

Just how far up on the scale of stupid is she?

Look...

[Greyfox]

My generation was exposed to a lot of shit. Leaded paint. Mercury (It was not uncommon for children to play with mercury.) Fallout from the nuclear testing in Nevada and the Pacific atolls. Asbestos. Leaded gasoline. Dentures made of uranium. The list goes on.

People from my generation and older are the ones most commonly found in Congress now. Most of those guys are obviously quite insane.

I'm sure a lot of that crap also addled our DNA, which I think probably explains a lot about kids these days. Having insane parents probably doesn't help, either.

Now if you have an axe to grind with the Internet or Video Games, that's all well and good, but I really don't think you have to go out of your way to explain why kids these days or their parents are quite abnormal. The parents just chewed on too much leaded paint as toddlers, and their kids are getting a double whammy of messed-up DNA and whacky parents from that.

Re:Beer kills brain cells

[epyT-R]

or maybe people call themselves those labels because they're tired of having to conform with some kind of popular standard where they must be 100% gregarious and happy-go-lucky 24/7. after all, anyone who doesn't want to be around people absolutely all the time must be dangerous.

Re:+1 parent post

[hairyfeet]

Well I know anecdotes aren't evidence but my boys were practically born with a controller in their hands and an Ethernet cable in their laps, one is kicking ass in premed, has a wonderful GF, and is generally a hell of a great guy and the younger is trying to decide whether to go with his love of cooking or his love of computer art, helps out his elderly relatives,hates having a dime spent on him because he always thinks there could be good done with the money, and is also a hell of a nice guy.

Both of them have been on the net practically since they could walk (I had the PCs set to where they would only go to approved kids sites at the time of course) and both have been models of trustworthiness and never had any problems as far as autism or anything else. of course i treated them as intelligent human beings that deserve to be talked to and not down to and was more than happy to sit there with them and explain how things worked, from how data is turned from analog into digital and finally is drawn upon a screen to how a packet is formed and where it goes when they click the button.

And THAT, that right there, i think is the REAL problem. too many have turned to PCs, DVDs, game systems etc as cheap babysitters rather than as useful devices that can help their child learn. I would let the boys visit their friends growing up and when I would pick them up it always amazed and saddened me how many households didn't even have a single book in them, and the kids were given every kind of electronic junk they could possibly want as long as they left the grow ups alone and there was practically NO interaction between parent and child unless the parent had some order to bark at them like clean up their room.

So I don't think the problem is the machine per se, but the parents simply not stepping up and being parents. Parenting is a damned hard job but if you want a child to grow up into a responsible smart young person you just gotta put in the time. Hell I'm probably down about 3 years sleep and lost more than one GF because she gave me an ultimatum of the boys or her and I told her where the door was, but now that I see two happy young men starting out into the world i think it was worth it. The net is a tool, not a babysitter, simple as that.

This is a little hard to accept.

[Ragingguppy]

I can see television being a contributing factor to autism but Video Games? Thats a little harder to believe. Video games engages the mind and forces the user to build skill, dexterity, and problem solving. This is a good thing. Television on the other hand causes a person to become mentally detached to the world around them. I think that would be more of a contributing factor. Maybe the good professor should try to map the increase between the amount of television people watch and autism.

Re:Crazy

[Dunbal]

I think you meant to say "screen in", not "screen out".

Re:Crazy

[martas]

Let's get something straight -- she is not crazy, she is a MEDIA WHORE. Just like Andrew Wakefield before her, and many others. If she were crazy, I could just shrug my shoulders and move on. But this is sooo much worse than that -- a calculated, cold-hearted misinformation campaign that is designed to use irrational fears in parents to her advantage, most likely causing a lot of harm to children in the process.

There aren't many news stories that get me angry; this is one of them.

Re:Crazy

[segedunum]

You are pretty close to the truth I'm afraid. I've always found Susan Greenfield to be sensationalist, full of her own self-importance and with very little if any evidence to back up what she claims. She points to something and claims that's what it is. Her TV programmes here in the UK have always disturbed me and she is a perfect example of why the general population is so distrustful of so called scientists. She doesn't do them any more because she was pushed off by the Royal Institution.

Sadly, there are other 'scientists' who have followed her. When people challenge them on what they say and claim they think they can hide behind the cloak of being a scientist.