* In a blind-test where guides where shown different pictures than disabled kids; 100% of the time, in 180 tests, the children failed to communicate the pictures they have been shown to the guide. In fact, 100% of results were the images show to the guide!
* The chief evangelist of FC accepts that cases were the children were not even looking at the keyboard were unacceptable and unscientific, but he blamed the guides for being too eager to communicate on behalf of the kids. However, there is plenty of footage of him observing a session where the children were either asleep, looking at the ceiling, or generally not paying any attention. And he made no effort to correct the actions of the guide. Similar practices were also shown of his top aides and students.
* As soon as FC was deployed, there were large scale allegations of child abused, where children were removed from homes and some parents to told to sever all contact with their kids. This prompted one family to inquire about the practices of FC, and after writing to main Autism think-tank in Washington D.C. discovered thousands of similar claims were made in FC sessions. Later tests showed children could not communicate such messages and charges were dropped, but no FC guide was ever charged with wrong doing.
* Millions in public money were spent on FC and an international network of FC practitioners and vendors sprung throughout the U.S.
* A video is shown of the inventor of FC where she is helping a patient choose his fate on whether to stay at home, go to nursing care and other options. The patient is immobile and has a head-mounted pointer where he is choosing the options, and he clearly choose to go into a nursing home. However, when a line is drawn positioning the board, you could clearly see the "guide" ever so slightly moving the board down until the patient makes his "judgment". [This viewer found it curious that the patient was perfectly capable of random movements and jerks, but not accurate slow movement. Not even I can hold a pen so steady with such precision.]
* The final straw was the sight of an autistic kid communicating through a guide, and using this opportunity before a massive audience to attack the opponents of FC and expressed doubts in their academic honesty and their desire to help children!
For anyone keeping track, the comment I am replying to is the kind of comment you should not be voting up if you want votes to mean anything. By extension, that also includes this comment itself.
It's a shame that this controversy has drowned out the original story: a guy thought to have been in a vegetative state turns out to have a normally functioning brain and has definitively communicated with outside observers (quite separately from the FC stuff). That, at least, is how I understand the following interview with the neurologist and coma specialist who is treating him:
Yup, Steve Laueys is among the leading specialist about consciousness disorders. His team is also behind the methodology of the fMRI study that showed that a woman, thought to be in a vegetative state, was able to perform mental imagery tasks (like imagining she's playin tennis, or wandering in her house).
I work at the same university and I have already had the occasion to talk with him. He's not the kind of guy to buy phony stuff. I'd be very surprised if he accorded any credit to FC, even though the patient's family might do.
BTW, he works in the same lab as the people who publishes the early birds/night owls paper featured on HN a few months ago.
Have his results and methodology been replicated by other researchers, though? I've had trouble finding mentions of such. Having a methodology that only one guy can "make work" sounds more than a little like Steven Hayne's bite mark frauds.
The methodology of the mental imagery paper has been published in detail as a separate paper (by Melanie Boly who actually designed the experiment).
There are various telltale signs of consciousness that can be detected by PET scan. Vegetatve patients have their associative cortices deactivated, especially the precuneus that's known to be involved in the processing of information about oneself.
Furthermore, you can detect using PET that the activity of the cortex and the thalamus are correllated in controls, but not in vegetative patients.
These results have been published 15 years ago, I supposed that they've been reproduced since that time. The main criticism that they received was that they were passive measurements.
The imagery experiment requires he subject to perform the various tasks during several blocks of 30 seconds inside the MRI scanner. Vegetative subjects only show a brief activation of the primary auditory crtices while the instructions are given. Controls show an activation of different higher level areas involved on the task.
The patient of the Owen paper (Science 2006) showed an cortical activation comparable to controls although she was completely non communicative and remained so during several months.
I don't know what test were performed for the patient discussed in this HN thread, but I know that they have more than enough reliable tests to detect awareness in non communicative patients.
We think it is a binary question: does the message originate with the patient or the facilitator. Think harder; there are two binary questions. Where does the message really originate? Where does the facilitator think it is coming from?
It is very tempting to think that these two questions are pretty much the same and most always have the same answer. This gives us two of the four possibilities: it really works, its is deliberate fraud.
The piece by Doug Wheeler opts for the third of the four possibilities
>The effect was powerful and personally devastating, as feared.
Most of the facilitators were unaware of the illusory nature of facilitation, so the bottom dropped out of their world, like a cuckcolded husband discovering that the child wasn't his. (except the other way round, kind of, it is the weirdness that makes this so interesting.)
So there is one story about the people in comas and another different story about healthy people being sucked in by a powerful illusion. The scary part of the second story lies in the escape route. An outsider insists on doing careful experiments. Those inside the illusion are annoyed at the waste of time, but unconcerned by the possibility of a negative result.
So when Madoff conned lots of people was there a similar illusion at work? People were convinced that he persuaded them that he was legitimate. But he could have been in a coma, and his investors facilitators, producing the message: these are great, safe investments. The standard narrative credits Madoff with extra-ordinary powers of conmanship. That has implications for us as potential marks. We must look outside and be vigilant against an external enemy. But if the facilitators experience is part of wider picture we never suspect that key communications are not coming from him but from us.
What I find to be most remarkable about all of this is that Syracuse University continues to sponsor a FC institute, despite the evidence that FC does not work. They might as well have students majoring in phrenology or aura-reading.
If anyone associated with Syracuse is reading this, I have to ask, is this a source of embarrassment to the students and faculty, or does the administration view this "institute" as a revenue source?
The saddest thing is likely that this poor fellow actually may have consciousness and some better form of communication would be wonderful for him if that's the case...
But is being exploited by "FC" yo-yo's who are either naive or corrupt.
Unfortunately great numbers of naive and corrupt are readily available.
The article makes no claims as to the brain activity of the man. He is debunking that this man is able to communicate beyond simple yes and no. The only "talking" this man has done has been through FC, a practice clearly shown to be bunk.
Not sure why Randi got so upset (or which report set him off). Even if the typing is a fraud, the injury and the realization that he was locked-in don't seem to be.
People are being accused of raping their children (source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts...) based on facilitated communication, while these same children can't tell you what a key is if the facilitator didn't see it. When they design easy, simple tests, these people can't pass them. The fact that people continue to insist it works is stupefying, and understandably upsetting.
The foundation have been out to debunk this 'facilitated communication' for a while. This is a high profile case that mentions it, hence a good opportunity for people to learn what a hurtful lie this type of thing is.
I don't think it's hurtful in this case. The guy is much more conscious than the family ever thought. The PET scan verifies it. If they also believe he's talking, well after 20-something years I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. But sure, FC on someone who's essentially brain dead is a different horrid beast.
Randi does good work. In the case though I think he jumped in too quickly.
The FC is a different issue to the scan and consciousness. No one has suggested he is conscious because of the FC, the article implies that that came after the scans.
Essentially the FC is evil because its pretending to be communication from a loved one and it isn't. He could have some actual capacity for communication and its being ignored because of the FC.
Imagine if he does have the capacity to understand whats happening? Finally they notice he's conscious and then they proceed to ignore him while some bitch makes up pretty stories to tell his family and then writes a book.
Is this Hacker News? I mean, I understand why I saw the article on several other news aggregators yesterday, it's not really the kind of topic I expect to see here.
Well, this is interesting because it shows how easily you can social-engineer your way into the media spotlight by being utterly without scruple.
It also might provoke a discussion on how we might REALLY be able to tell what the poor bastard is "saying", instead of using his hand as a fucking keyboard wand.
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
The problem with that is that it makes anything where you can round up a few votes 'hacker news'. Say, next July, during the Tour de France, I get a few people and vote up cycling articles... does that make them hacker news?
That depends. If it involves a wily way around the rules limiting bike engineering, for example, it might be HN :-)
But I get what you're saying, and that's why we have moderators. Left to its own devices, a crowd is unable to self-moderate and keep something like HN from drifting into popularity cascades.
This is especially true when people are given information about what other people think (the score, the position on the home page, comments) before voting themselves.
However I tend to agree with this comment - is this 'Hacker News'worthy?
I especially object to the downvote on this post - I think downvoting shouldnt be used unless the post is clearly offensive.
It think this is legitimate comment - HN needs to preserve Freedom of Speech and not become a self-serving myopic site where people are afraid to speak their mind for fear of losing karma brownie points.
While I, as well, agree that this may well not be HN-worthy, your usage of "Freedom of Speech" is silly. First and foremost, the concept of "Freedom of Speech" has no application in a private forum. If HN allows free speech, it does so willingly, not because it needs to. In addition to that, freedom of speech does not mean that your words aren't allowed to be judged. People often forget that freedom of speech means the freedom to offend and be offended, and both sides are able to say what they want. In that way, voting is a form of 'speech' as well, it's just not textual.
yes, I agree perversely. Im assuming HN users value freedom of speech, and I think less down-voting helps preserve the value of HN by encouraging open discussion.
Im hoping that down votes happen less when people speak their mind.. and that downvotes are on average reserved for clearly offensive content.
I think the issue needs some introspection, hence I risked being downvoted.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3439467496200920717&...
Example:
" PLEASE HEED MY NEED
12:13 in the video