Sunday, May 14, 2017

It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the Stupid rations to twenty grammes a week

So I went out this morning to check on the Stupid Tree, but Oh Noes, the strong winds last night had stripped it bare of fruit, all the Stupid was lying on the ground.
Now we must use it up quickly before it starts smelling funny.

1. Here is your Entrée of Evil Corporate Censorship:

"Google took it down"?! That hairball of abbreviated linkage has a convoluted backstory, but "disentangling complicated narratives" is all part of the Riddled service, money back if not fully satisfied (naturally we will re-entangle a simple narrative someplace else so as not to violate the Law of Conservation of Complexity).
 

The disenfangled version centres on 'AutismOne'... an annual Trade Fair for autism scammers, where a broad spectrum of charlatans peddle this year's Sure-Fire Cures for Autism (replacing whatever cures they were pimping last year), with entertainment in the form of mockademic speeches from a Usual-suspects list of obsessive or washed-up researchers who are too desperate for a microphone to be choosy about their company.


Bleach-enema cures were so 2014
So the press releases to promote the impending 2017 AutismOne, and InfoWars interviews, and FaceBukkake, all feature the appearance of one Professor Mawson, and stress the Bombshell Ground-Breaking Game-Changing nature of his recent papers about the health impact of childhood vaccination. Papers produced by surveying antivax parents.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) May 05, 2017
Dr. Anthony Mawson et al. this month published the papers "Preterm birth, vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders: a cross-sectional study of 6- to 12-year-old vaccinated and unvaccinated children"[1] and “Pilot comparative study on the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated 6- to 12-year-old U.S. children”[2] in the Journal of Translational Science. ...
To learn more about the health and developmental challenges faced by the children of many families in this nation, hear Dr. Anthony Mawson and many other well-credentialed researchers and physicians at the AutismOne 2017 Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which is being held May 24-May 28.
Those papers have a history: A journal from the Frontiers stable provisionally accepted an earlier version last year, only to unaccept it again a few weeks later when a couple of Twitter meanies pointed and laughed about the crap nature of the research. Other publishers back away from Mawson's survey results, on account of the "crap nature" issue; also an "already in the public domain" factor (for antivax circles acquired and circulated a bootleg galley proof of the Frontiers version). Obliging his backers and funders to pay a Journal of Negotiable Virtue Standards to host the papers before they could serve in AutismOne advertising. Specifically, they chose the "Journal of Translational Science", a journal-shaped dumpster from OAText (an ostensibly London-based parasitical publisher, in fact operating out of Hyderabad). 'Translational' is the new 'fractal' 'quantum' 'neuro'.

And then hilarity ensued, and parades were rained upon, for Mawson's work was retracted again. You might very well suspect that the OAText grifters demanded more money -- having got wind that the papers were not the run-of-the-mill "Analysis of a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Mid-Summer Morning" material they normally receive, but actually mattered to the clients -- which was not forthcoming. It would be irresponsible not to speculate. "Run-of-the-mill" is just asking for trouble, worse than running with scissors, mills are full of heavy, moving, anthropomorphic or capital-letter-labeled machinery, but I digress.

Did AutismOne's various boosters admit the rejection of Mawson's Bombshell Work by the bottom-feeding abyssal life-forms of parasite-publishing ecosystem? Ha Ha DID THEY BOGROLL. That was a rhetorical question, as invented by the second-century Neoplatonist philosopher Rhetor. Links were silently redirected to cached copies of the files (in the knowledge that few of the readers would wonder about the originals). Apart from Foodsnoop01's tweet [above] which recognised the retraction but blamed it on the Google. Foodsnoop01 proves to be an islamophobic Trumpster, concerned with racial as well as dietary purity, which did not deter the AutismOne gombeens from liking and repeating the tweet; they are in no position to reject racial supremacists.

Updated: there is no longer enough room under the carpet to brush the disappearance of the originals. So for added hilarity, here are Mawson's backers CMSRI, belatedly retconning the Frontiers retraction as a mere non-acceptance, and the JTS purge as a mere suspension. This new narrative carries the corollary that by reporting the Frontiers episode, the RetractionWatch team have exposed themselves as part of the conspiracy to traduce Maawson's high repute:
The journal temporarily removed the studies from their website while they investigate the false allegations made by Retraction Watch, according to an email from the editor of the jounal. The studies have not been retracted, nor were they retracted from Frontiers if you read Retraction Watch's first blog. With over 1.3 million views, this study and its conclusions will not be easily erased from the public's consciousness, and it is up to those who disagree with the conclusions to design a similar study and compare conclusions.
And again:
The studies have not been retracted. Based on a false allegation made to the Journal of Translational Science that the study had been retracted by Frontiers, the JTS has suspended publication until they review the explanation provided by Dr. Mawson. The study was never retracted by Frontiers, rather it was rejected or not published. Retraction Watch's own blog has the official response directly from Frontiers that confirms this. Why Alison McCook chose to make false statements should be investigated by the oxymoronic parent organization Center for Scientific Integrity.
This version of events is not enormously compatible with the previous antivaccine catechism, in which a vast, coordinated pro-vaccine campaign had directed its concerted firepower of two tweets upon Frontiers and forced that publisher to retract the original paper -- Censorship! Book-burning!! -- so it will be entertaining to see how rapidly other antivax sites retcon themselves to reflect the new dispensation.

Further lurid details of the anti-Mawson smear campaign / suppressive conspiracy are available for your delectation through various Wooniverse pukefunnels:

This fake news blog, which we hope the foundation will disavow, has been used to target a 35-year career scientist and his research in order to derail publication of two papers that were peer reviewed and accepted on their merits
and from freelance journalist polemicist propagandist CMSRI hack Celeste McGovern. We cannot guarantee mutual consistency.*

For light relief, here's Google Translate in an uncharacteristic festive mood, writing Lovecraftian invocations to be sung by Zombie Janis Joplin:

In the summer, Nyarlathotep!
In the summer, Nyarlathotep!
Nyarlathotep!
Nyarlathotep! Everyday!
Nyarlathotep! Everytime you have all the time!
Nyarlathotep! In the epoch of today!
Nyarlathotep! Everytime you have all the time!
Nyarlathotep! WHERE WE ARE ALL OF THE YEARS?
Nyarlathotep! In the epoch of today!
Nyarlathotep! Everytime you have all the time!
Nyarlathotep! During the time of the summer, all the time!
Nyarlathotep! During the time of the summer, all the time!
Nyarlathotep! During the time of the summer, all the time!
Nyarlathotep! Everyday!
Nyarlathotep! Ever since!
Nyarlathotep! Everyday!
Nyarlathotep! Ever since!
Nyarlathotep! During the time of the year all the time!
Summertime!
Nyarlathotep! During the time of the summer, all the time!
Nyarlathotep! During the time of the summer, everywhere!
Summertime!




* If Celeste is to believed, her employers at CMSRI and her colleague Sayer Ji at GreenMedInfo are lying like Trump when they claim to have heard from the JTS Editor that the purged papers were merely 'suspended', for in her account the Editor and publishers are saying nothing.
But there has been no formal statement issued by the journal. I emailed the Editor in Chief, Terry Lichtor, a professor at Arkansas State University, twice. When I didn’t hear from him I called the London office and was told they would telephone him to make sure he got my questions. The person on the phone seemed to know about my emails. I’ve had no reply.

1 comment:

H. Rumbold, Master Barber said...

I suppose you'd have to open the box to see whether the radioactive atom decayed and hit the photomultiplier, which tripped the solenoid and dispensed the poisoned food to the article.