With that title, I bet you think I’m going to comment on Mann or Lewandowsky. After all, everyone else has (judy, ben, briggs, warren and so on.) But wrong-o!
I’m often amazed at the examples of episodes Lewandowsky and Mann think constitute examples of a “war on science”. But this new one from The Subterranean War on Science just boggles the mind. Here goes:
The fifth author has experienced a particularly chilling legal attack based on an article that disputed the legitimacy of the claim by an individual (whose name was not released) that she had with the help of a psychiatrist recovered a “repressed childhood memory†of sexual abuse by her mother (for a review of the case, see Geis & Loftus, 2009). Although the suit was ultimately settled, the complaints to the university delayed publication—or indeed any public mention—of the research by several years (Loftus, 2003).
So: What was this “chilling legal attack”?
As far as I can determine based on a paper by the fifth author Loftus herself posted here,
- A research article by David Corwin, MD describes the experiences of a “Jane Doe” who evidently reported having been abused physically and sexually by her mother and Corwin had been using these tapes as some sort of training for others. The child’s ages at various times during interviews for the Corwin article appear to have been 5, 6 and 11 years old. In the Corwin article, the child had Sometime later (about 11 years) Corwin contacted Jane Doe to get permission to continue to use the tapes, and it’s not clear Taus’s memory matched her former memory.
- Using clues in the video tape and what probably amounted to quite a bit of digging, Loftus and her colleagues were able to figure out that Nicole S. Taus identified as the child “Jane Doe”. She and a colleague then set out to do more investigation and published their own paper with their own findings. In their paper Nicole Taus remained “Jane Doe”, but her father was now named as William T. and confirmed Jane Doe had provided the correct death date for this William T. in the video tape. (I would suggest this is enough information to permit any number of people to determine that there is sufficient information in the video tape to do just what Loftus did: figure out who “Jane Doe” was.)
- Loftus and colleagues seem to have tracked down Nicole Taus’s mother, stepmother, and former
foster mother and interviewed them. They published research article commenting on Corwin’s article, fleshed out with additional information they’d gleaned from these interviews. (It seems these interviews may have included revelations that the “stepmother, though long divorced from the
father, still seemed to despise Nicole’s mother, calling her a prostitute and a
“leech— and speculations like “The stepmother, Loftus and Guyer
speculated, might have seen a way “to finally get rid of Mom once and for
all†and might have questioned the young girl “in a suggestive way†(Loftus &
Guyer, 2002, p. 39).“)
My impression is the suit that constitutes the “war on science is”
Nicole Taus filed a suit against Elizabeth Loftus and Melvin Guyer and five other parties in February 2003, seeking more than a million dollars for alleged harms (Taus v. Loftus, 2003). Besides Loftus and Guyer, the suit named the Skeptical Inquirer, Carol Tavris, who had written about the case in a subsequent issue of that journal (Tavris, 2002), the University of Washington, and Shapiro Investigations. An amended complaint added the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Clams of the Paranormal, the publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer, and its affiliate, the Center for Inquiry West (Taus v. Loftus, 2003). Taus claimed infliction of emotional distress, defamation, invasion of privacy, and fraud and within these four claims, she asserted some 21 theories and causes of action. The defamation claim was based on Loftus’s supposedly calling Taus’s mental health and fitness into question in a public statement. That statement was made at a 2002 Illinois seminar when Loftus was reported to have said, “Jane Doe engaged in destructive behavior that I cannot reveal on advice of my attorney. Jane is in the Navy representing our country†(Taus v. Loftus, 2005b, p. 25). Loftus claimed that the two sentences were separated in time and therefore could not reasonably be interpreted as questioning Taus’s fitness as a naval officer. A source supporting Taus claimed that she had taken notes and that the sentences followed one upon the other. A separate libel claim against Loftus was based on the fact that that she had revealed the first initial and last name of Taus during a deposition in an unrelated court case after Taus’s complaint against Loftus and others already was on file. The California Supreme Court would point out that Lynn Crook, the person who claimed to have recorded Loftus’s words, was “an investigative journalist by profession†and that she and Loftus had “a long-standing history of hostile relations†dating back to when Loftus had been an adverse expert witness in a sexual abuse case in which Crook was the plaintiff and that Crook had filed complaints against Loftus with the American Psychological Association and the University of Washington (Taus v. Loftus, 2007b, p, 1206).
Translation: Loftus was sued by Taus, the woman whose identity not Loftus was able to unearth after watching a video tape, whose private and embarrassing life details Loftus dug into and subsequently reported on in a research article. In the course of various events it appears Loftus or colleagues publicly speculated on unsavory behavior on the part of Taus’s family, and may at some point have suggested possible mental instability of Taus herself. Taus sued on a number of counts– which is common in these sorts of things where one cannot quite be sure what might stick. Moreover, Taus side alleged fraud was involved in obtaining information (i.e. “alleged misrepresentation by Loftus that she was a colleague (indeed, the supervisor) of Corwin to obtain information from Taus’s former foster mother.” )
Many of these torts counts were dismissed for a variety of reasons by courts. (These reasons include the 1st amendment considerations, which, as many know, often trump privacy in the US). However, Loftus’s own article does say,
The California Supreme Court opinion noted that on the basis of the Cantrell allegation, Taus could pursue an invasion of privacy tort claim.
(The “Cantrell allegation” pertains to the allegation that Loftus misrepresented herself as Corwin’s colleague.)
Loftus describes what happens next as,
Taus then offered to withdraw her remaining allegation if Loftus’s insurance company would pay her $7,500. The offer was accepted, as a trial likely would have cost the insurers a good deal more than the amount Taus wanted, even if the jury voted in Loftus’s favor. Insurance companies label this a “nuisance settlement.†For her part, Taus subsequently was assessed $241,872 in attorney’s fees and $4,234 for court costs in regard to other defendants she had sued.
This vebiage is, of course, Loftus’s version. Even in this version Loftus settled paying Taus $7500. Taus for her part is out a lot of money which may very well have been why she accepted the settlement. After all: Taus a young naval officer was likely running out of money to pay attorneys herself while, evidently, Loftus’s insurance company may have been paying Loftus’s fees.
I think we can all debate what we think of Loftus, Corwin, this debate over alleged sexual abuse in general and so on. We can all even accept that the possibility of being sued for anything can be chilling. For example: I hate my neighbors pine tree. With. A. Vengeance. It shades the part of my garden I would like to be sunny. But I know that if I sneak over and chop it down I risk being sued for doing so. Possibly even arrested. The thought is ‘chilling’– that is to say: it inhibits me from contemplating taking a chainsaw to the hateful thing.
As you can see: I am chilled. Oh. The. Horror! ( I’ll just put on my big boy pants and live on.)
Even if we admit the fact that Taus suing Loftus might be “chilling” in the sense of making Loftus cautious about repeating this sort of behavior in the future, any claim that this suit is evidence of any sort of “war on science” is utterly, totally and completely all caps BOGUS!
I would suggest that Taus’s suit was not motivated by any “war on science”, but by believing she had grounds to sue for invasion of privacy, fraud, libel and so on.
You know what: I don’t care who you are. Academic, non-academic, reporter whatever: If you unearth embarrassing information on video tape recorded when a child was 5-11 years old, dig into it, publicize new information when the child is now an adult, and pile other information denigrating her family and possibly impugning her mental state while alluding to the fact that she is a military officer, maybe you should expect you might be sued. It’s true that you might not lose. Or, as in this case, you might neither win nor lose: you will settle in favor of the person who sued you. There really is no “but I’m an academic” defense, nor should there be.
Win or lose, the motivation for this suit had nothing to do with any “war on science”. But it’s hardly surprising to see this event is accepted as evidence of “war on science” by Lewandowky and Mann both of whom seem to see a world chock-full of people involved in conspiracies against the brilliant, objective, upstanding Lewandowsky, Mann or others who they believe are just trying to “do science”.
“Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Clams of the Paranormal”
Is that an actual thing, or am I allowed to laugh?
I think Lew expects to be able to get away with stuff like this because he counts on most readers not having the stomach to wade deep enough into the B.S. to find such holes in his logic.
I wonder how he would respond to this observation. One might imaging that the estimable Dr. Lewandowsky could have fallen into the trap of indulging in conspiratorial ideation, making up complicated implausible Wars on Science instead of accepting the obvious, mundane, trivial explanation of motivations (invasions of privacy, defamation, and other injuries). Perhaps it would constitute recursive (but not furious) evidence of his claim of a war on science in his eyes.
Steve Crook –
CSICOP is usually “Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal”.
However, I think that supernatural mollusks are also worthy of investigation.
Steve–
Laugh away. That is the spelling in the peer reviewed article “G. Geis and E. F. Loftus” page 152.
@Steve Crook,
That looks like something worth digging into.
Mark–
There are a whole bunch of gems in “The Subterranean”. For example, with respect to this
I suspect the criticisms amount to this:
People requested Lewandowsky release information specifically: the names of the blogs he contacted or failing that, answer a direct question from a blogger with yes or now if that blogger asked him if he’s contacted them. Lewandowsky refused to do so because it would be unethical, or he needed permisssion or some such. People requesting the information immediately said that is cockamamie, there is no reason he could not — for example– answer yes or no if I asked him if he’d asked me to post a link to his survey. (Uhmmm note: I did ask him to tell me if I had been asked to post such a link. So, this is not entirely hypothetical.)
So, then Lewandowsky made a show of asking– and was granted permission to “reveal” such information and granted in a way that pretty much made it clear that he never needed permission in the first place.
So: yes. If you try to avoid giving out information when asked on the pretext that you are forbidden to do so when anyone who knows the rules– including you– knows that is a cockamamie excuse, you will be criticized when it becomes clear that you were not forbidden to give out the information requested. Yep. Lew is a jerk. Utter. Total.
Lucia,
from SubWarOnScience,
Do you know what Lewandowsky is talking about here? I think I missed this chapter in the saga.
Oh… this didn’t thematically fit in. But it is very ironic that someone who I am sure whines about his “privacy” being invaded by FOI, and climategate is now fused at the hip to this privacy-invading Loftus. (And yes, watching the video to find possibly identifying details, setting out to dig through public records, finding family members, interviewing them and so on, publishing– and adding even more details like the girls father’s first name and initial of his last name and revealing she was in the Navy during a seminar making it even easier to identify Taus as “Jane Doe” who reported child sexual abuse — not to mention putting the story back on the front burner of research- she invaded Taus’s privacy. The legal issue is whether this invasion is tortuous— but whether something is an invasion of privacy is to a large extent a personal judgement, and this absolutely was.)
I think they’re taking their cue from the so-far successful use of the claim by the Democrats that Republicans are waging a “War on Women.” That’s completely bogus too, but has been very successful in swaying voters, see for example the recent Virginia gubernatorial election.
Mark–
Scroll down to the footnotes and sources
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45638.html
“Bitten by a sock puppet, but the climate is still changing”
Google “Alene Composta” for more.
This seems to be “her” blog
http://verdanthopes.blogspot.com/
This is where she posted the correspondence
http://verdanthopes.blogspot.com/2011/03/tomorrow-belongs-to-us.html
My diagnosis: Lew is upset someone mocked him.
Ah. Thanks Lucia, I did miss that.
Funny that got under his skin. His response wasn’t half bad, except that he puts on the tin foil hat towards the end there with the a proportion of those comments is orchestrated and for all we know there are only a handful of people with multiple electronic “personas†each, who are paid bit.
I suspect your diagnosis is correct.
It disturbs me somewhat that I find Lewandowsky so fascinating. I’m not sure what that says about me but I doubt it’s positive. But there it is. 🙂
I think the Alene episode helped cement the paranoia for him. He writes
, referring to the closing sentence I quoted above that struck me as conspiracy theorizing.
Could Dr. Lewandowsky genuinely be sick I wonder. I hope not. I’d hate to think I’ve been kicking a crazy person.
Mark Bofill–
Yes. Finding the guy fascinating is disturbing.
Now: more on Alene composta
http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2011/03/cash-waiting-for-hoaxer-alene-composta.html
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nsw/state-election-2011/timber-falling-blogs-20110308-1bmnr.html
:>
Thanks Lucia! Where has RWDB been all my life, how come I didn’t know about this blog. (rhetorical darn it removing the question mark) I love it!
I’ll get that Lewandowsky thing checked out with my physician, just as soon as I get a chance to setup my Obamacare account.
Verdant Hopes is harder. I’m too darn ignorant of what’s happening down under to follow most (well OK, just about all) of the references.
Mark Bofill
I understand the web site will be fixed by the end of November. . .
Jeremy Sear… I know I know that name. Anyways, ok, I can sort of see now how Alene got Lew’s goat. I like to think of myself as a smart ass, but clearly I had no idea.
Apologies for wandering off topic Lucia, I’ll behave (or be quiet) now. I appreciate your tolerance for my questionable sense of humor. 🙂
Mark Bofill,
It’s not possible for a post on anything related to Lewandowsky to veer off into the ridiculous. The man is ridiculous.
OMG!! More Lew:
http://theconversation.com/the-false-the-confused-and-the-mendacious-how-the-media-gets-it-wrong-on-climate-change-1558
Sorry No. Or at best so ridiculously misleading as to be “no!!!” We cannot calculate and predict what is going to happen to the earths climate during our life time with fundamental physics as certain as gravity.
It may be that the warming effect of CO2 is as certain as gravity. But the effect of aerosols isn’t. The effect of feedbacks aren’t as certain as gravity. This is just nuts!!!
Lucia:
The amount of future aerosols & CO2 not only uncertain, but nearly impossible to predict.
Seriously, we have a psychologist who now thinks he’s competent to make assertions about the likelihood of future warming. That is just nuts.
“as certain as gravity….”
That’s the stuff which drives me crazy, the claim that climate models must be correct, because they use physics.
As Gavin explains
A quicker argument is along the lines of “if it’s all as certain as gravity, why do climate models vary from each other by about +/-1 K for even the most basic metric, global average temperature?”
“I hate my neighbors pine tree. With. A. Vengeance. It shades the part of my garden I would like to be sunny. But I know that if I sneak over and chop it down I risk being sued for doing so. Possibly even arrested. The thought is ‘chilling’– that is to say: it inhibits me from contemplating taking a chainsaw to the hateful thing.”
In honor of the late Ronald Coase, I must ask you how much you would be willing to pay your neighbor to do it to the tree himself?
Carrick,
“Seriously, we have a psychologist who now thinks he’s competent to make assertions about the likelihood of future warming. That is just nuts.”
.
You forget. He was working with Mike, and so he got the ‘certain as gravity’ warming story straight from the horse’s… er… um…. mouth.
Lucia,
Half a dozen copper nails, a bit below ground level, are invisible but fatal…. On second thought, don’t do that, you could be sued. 😉
“Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Clams of the Paranormalâ€
Perhaps its a specialist sub-committee
I am reminded of “The dentition pattern evident on the “skull” is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the “ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams” you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.”
And I’m thinking clams with teeth might be classed as paranormal and must be a proxy for something. Probably temperature.
SteveF,
I had to google that. Never new that about copper. Not going to do it, but interesting.
Seems to me that my neighbor might justifyable hate my maple tree for dropping huge numbers of leaves on her lawn every fall. (We try to pick up some. It’s a huge tree. Shades our yard– because she’s south of us. But still, lots of leaves right now.)
It’s beautiful before the leaves fall.
The first sentence – “The fifth author has experienced a particularly chilling legal attack based on an article that disputed the legitimacy of the claim by an individual (whose name was not released) that she had with the help of a psychiatrist recovered a “repressed childhood memory†of sexual abuse by her mother (for a review of the case, see Geis & Loftus, 2009)” – reminds me why some people look in askance when you tell them they’re not communicating effectively. I believe they think they have to pay extra for periods.
Lucia,
I suspect (not certain) that the copper ions displace magnesium in chlorophyll, so the tree can’t do photosynthesis. Chlorophyll is an interesting structure, in many ways like a chealating agent, so heavier multivalent metal ions are bound more tightly than lighter ions like magnesium. Poisoning a plant’s metabolic pathway is fatal.
Tim Blair has a link to the full time line on the sad saga of Alene Composta. I was already following his site when it happened. It was Hilarious. I suspect Tim as being one of the chief instigators.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/composed_an_alene_composta_timeline/
Don’t know if all the links are still live. Some people might not be too proud of their roll.
Exactly lucia
These academics (at least three of them now) characterize their failures in dealing with criticism coming their way, arising directly from substandard science, data sharing or riding roughshod on ethical concerns, as an ongoing struggle against ‘a war on science’.
Hi Lucia,
For sure the invasion was tortuous in its complexity, but did you mean “tortious” perhaps?
Have you ever noticed that people who say “I have a wonderful sense of humour” typically have no sense of humour at all? (Well, unless it’s said with a fake Teutonic accent.) In fact the statement itself normally reveals a fundamental lack of appreciation of irony – a quintessential component of humour. Some individuals are born with a finely tuned irony-meter capable of registering and amplifying even the smallest flicker – Oscar Wilde, Graucho Marx, Dorothy Parker to name but a few. From your story and the Alena Composta story, I would guess that Lew was born with no irony-meter at all. I don’t think he would be much fun at a dinner party – one of those guys who comments after people stop laughing: “Ah, yes I see. It was a joke.”
With respect to the Subterranean War on Science, I cannot beat Dorthy Parker’s comment:
Fortunately, thank goodness, I have a wonderful sense of humour.
It took my untrained layman eyes a few moments to decode the reference to the Composta episode there.
Then it dawned on me Lewandowsky must think he’s bottled his humiliation in a sciency box! His pain has been handled.
The key meta thing for me about the Composta reference there is how it is lovingly shaped and engineered, given a pseudo scientific polish to make it shine as evidence of his suffering.
Really the fact all these people are willing to pool their victim-hood like this must mean they are all willing to accept the lowest common denominator of this level of feebleness.
It doesn’t strike this layman as a powerful example of scientific rigour.
Hmmm,… “We can calculate the effect, and predict what is going to happen to the earth’s climate during our lifetimes, all based on fundamental physics that is as certain as gravity.”
Let’s see, gravity (meaning general relativity) predicts (to the limits of observational accuracy, meaning parts in many orders of magnitude) the precession of perihelion of Mercury, light deflection by the sun, gravitational redshift of light, gravitational lensing, light travel time delay, differential acceleration between test masses (Eotvos experiments), frame dragging, binary pulsar emissions and decay, and the list goes on as experimental and astronomical observations improve.
And CO2 forced warming of the climate predicts what again? To what accuracy? The last time I looked even the most basic prediction of global temperature as a function of CO2, even as to the sign, is still wanting. The null hypothesis is smelling like a rose for the past decade or two.
We could just as easily say that physics tells us that if one compresses an object, that its temperature goes up, for gasses (ideal gas law) or any variety of hydrodynamic systems. Therefore it should be taken as proven that by mining materials from the earth and constructing buildings and cars and even eating food and standing erect we are adding compressive force to the earth by raising mass to a greater gravitational potential. Clearly physics tells us this should cause global warming. Thus, by physics, we should limit or tax the amount of mass individuals use in building their houses, or driving SUVs, or being overweight. We should get tax credits for living in caves and minimizing body fat. Taller people should pay taxes to shorter people. The opportunities for fighting global warming based on “physics” are just endless.
Lucia,
It’s a war on privacy not a war on science, but an underlying and unstated war on science” exists which is analogous to the alleged war on climate science by treating model projections as “the science.”
The topic of “repressed childhood memory” is based mainly on Freud’s models, if you will, of the Oedipal and the Electra complex A powerful elite, Freudian psychoanalysts, represented consensus science in their field at the time.
Jeffrey Masson, a certified psychoanalyst wrote about this in his 1984 book “Assault on Truth” and 1990 book “Final Analysis.” He documents the abuse of power and harm done by psychoanalysis which holds (held?) its Freudian models to be stronger evidence than the actual data which often contradicted the model. BTW, Masson, disillusioned by the abuse of power and harm done, abandoned his profession for a writing career. There are other parallels to abuses in climate science by a similar powerful elite.
Many “Jane Does’ who were “led” by a psychoanalyst to express what the analyst interpreted as a Freudian complex were indeed sexually molested, and we can credit Masson, among others, for exposing this horror.
Doug,
I think you’re on to something there. I’ve felt before that climate science has been plundering the hard earned faith and credit that other sciences have achieved.
Not all of climate science, obviously, maybe not even most. Sweeping generalizations and all that, disclaimers, actual milage may vary, many will enter few will win, etc.
Maybe it’s not the case and the politics and media simplification and sensationalism just make it seem that way to me. Maybe I romanticise these ‘other sciences’ I refer to, maybe the lack of rigour and objectivity is universal. But I doubt it.
Doug Allen,
I don’t disagree with you. I haven’t looked into it much, but I am aware of allegations that Freud switched from his initial view that many of his women patients had emotional issues because they had been abused as children to his theory that they had emotional issues because they imagined they had been abused as children and moreover, that there was no particular evidence in favor of his later theory. (However, the people paying the bills for therapy were often those falling in the category of ‘accused abuser’, suggesting conflict of interest for Freud who was more likely to be hired and paid if his diagnosis placed all the blame on the woman being treated rather than the accused who held the purse string.)
So: it does seem that at best Freud’s theory was not based on any particular empirical evidence and may have been subject to his conflict of interest. (Not proof it’s wrong, but hardly reason to believe it’s right.)
Having said that: The Taus case is different. In the Taus case, it appears Taus as a small child told stories of abuse. The abuse may have occurred, or it may not have. The family seems to have been in an upheaval, and custody battles were involved. In such instances, lack of concrete physical evidence is a problem. I think the one doctor, Corwin, made tapes of interviews and these were used as “training” of some sort. At the time, Corwin had permission. As Taus was between the ages of 5 and 11 at the time, I imagine that permission was obtained from whoever was Taus’s guardian. (The guardian giving permission for something so private gives me some pause over the number of screws lose in the guardian’s head.) Doing the math, Corwin returned to get renewed permission from Taus when Taus was roughly 21 years of age. This further suggests that Corwin realized that at this point, Taus might have the right to refuse showing of these ‘training’ tapes.
At roughly that same time, it appears this Loftus “scientist” woman unearthed Taus’s true identity, dug up all these further details and wrote another paper and this new paper included some additional information which would have made it even easier for people to figure out who Taus was.
Not only that: in this second ‘study’, neither Taus herself, now an adult, nor anyone connected to her gave any permission to have Loftus reveal any private, semi-private or any other information. Taus wasn’t any sort of voluntary subject– and more over, Taus was only dragged into this owing to whatever bad things happened to her as a child.
Reading Geis and Loftus’s version of the event, the case raises a lot of legal issues. And, among other things, it happens that in the US, the 1st amendment doesn’t really protect Taus’s privacy much. Generally speaking if someone whether a reporter, academic, gossipy neighbor or what have you has true accurate information, they are permitted to report it. Period. (That said: we don’t know what the courts would have ruled about invasion of privacy had Taus not accepted the settlement of $7500. Maybe they would have decided that Loftus herself did lie or misrepresent herself to get information and that lieing to get private personal information was beyond the pale. Reporters are barred from doing certain things and yes, people have a right to sue under certain circumstances. The issue is what they can sue for. )
But irrespective of the 1st amendment legal issue (which is can truthful information be reported or collected, courts don’t necessarily deal in ethical issues. And I think it’s pretty fair to say that ethically, Loftus was a complete shit.
I get that Loftus might want to publish a paper and the paper and the topic of whether these kids accusations are likely to be truthful or not is important. Obviously, the original training tapes were available and obviously it was possible to figure out who Jane Doe was based on information in those tapes. After all: Loftus figured out who she was. That info seemed to amount to a troubled girl from a known town, whose father was suspected to have died on a known date, who’d undergone psychiatric care and who — maybe–had been in the foster system. If the town is small (e.g. not New York City size) it’s likely someone who wanted to could trace the kids identity.
But did Loftus need to make it even easier so that people didn’t even need to do the digging?
Did she need to confirm that the girl accurately provided her father’s date of death? No.
Did she need to add the father’s first name and last initial to the data trail (William T) ? No. (Note: Taus’s initial is also T, like her father’s. You’d think a “scientist” could have given a fake first name and initial– and even just say she faked it. John Doe would probably have been fine. )
Did she need to volunteer information that the girl was now in the Navy?
Did she need to volunteer that she thought “Jane Doe” — in the Navy– currently had mental issues? It’s certain she didn’t need to do either of these because they were just tantalizing tidbits spilled in a seminar. Worse, they were tantalizing and possibly sufficiently disturbing to some that they might motivate someone to try to find out whether a member of the navy might present a danger to the American public!! With respect to this behavior, it looks to me like Loftus– under the guise of a “researcher” was just acting like a garden variety gossip.
I’m not certain, but I suspect a journalist merely doing “reporting in the public interest” rather than something as uber-elevated as “scientific research” would have been trained to act more fairly to any subject.
Even more: I suspect no newspaper would have tried to write such a one-sided account of the court case as we read in Geis and Loftus. Had they done so, other news papers would certainly have jumped in to point out that the “scientist” had treated Taus — a childhood victim (of– at a minimum– adult manipulation in a court case or worse sexual abuse)– like some sort of caged curiosity whose feelings, rights and privacy were of absolutely no consequence relative to the “scientists” right to report “their research” (much of which appears to have been speculations based on interviews.)
And you know what’s even worse: Superficial details suggest Taus may be a person who despite having a very difficult childhood (including foster care, psychiatric treatment, squabbling parents and possible sexual abuse) was managing to pull herself up by her own bootstraps becoming a navy officer. I mean.. dear lord.
So: in short: Loftus & colleagues were being a absolute, total and complete shitheads in the name of “science”. If journalists had acted in a similar shitty manner, they would have been seriously criticized and rightly so.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/170502-how-to-pee-without-splashback-or-how-fluid-dynamics-might-save-your-marriage
Re: Paul_K (Comment #120732)
I love it! It beats the line I have been using, “This work fills a much-needed gap” (I’m not sure who said that one). I’ll have to remember to use this one in the future.
Lucia,
You are pointing out a serious abuse of privacy in the name of “science,” and I completely agree about Loftus and colleagues. I understand the case much better after your reply. I could not read the case without remembering the underlying controversies about repressed childhood memories and the abuse of individuals by valuing Freudian constructs (which I called models) over the empirical data. I did not mean to hijack the topic- two different issues that both show abuses and how easy it is to claim the mantel of science in justifying one’s unethical behavior and silencing of others who object. It seems to me that the threat of legal suit often is and in many/most cases ought to be chilling. However, I also think that the alleged “war on science” allegation whether by Loftus, Mann,or anyone else can be a shoddy tactic to both absolve oneself of blame and scrutiny and to silence others- “plundering the hard earned faith and credit that science has achieved” to use Mark Bofill’s description.
If Taus indeed ending up accepting $7500 because her legal fees were so burdensome, we have a tragic case of injustice with no precedent established for creating justice. And, the good name of science takes another hit. It all stinks.
Doug,
The Loftus/Taus issue does touch on the Freud, childhood-memories- child abuse area you mentioned. As such, there are very important ethical, emotional, legal, scientific and human dignity issues.
But Loftus brought it up in the “war on science” framework. And Taus suing Loftus is simply not an example of “war on science”. Only a delusional academic could believe that her “science” is so all fired important that any and all rights of someone like a totally unwilling private-citizen subject Taus should be suppressed to the extent that Taus couldn’t even file a lawsuit. Would Taus need to demonstrate cause to prevail? Of course. But relative to the shit-storm of grief Loftus’s burning desire to publish her “science” likely caused Taus, any trauma associated with Loftus having to delay publication of a paper is just trivial. Especially given what appears to be the gossipy-catty- detail dropping designed to tantalize behavior of Loftus! I mean…. good lord!
Doug, I think the problem for Taus was that Corwin left enough bread crumbs for Loftus to follow. So it becomes difficult to blame Loftus on privacy issues for releasing a few further details. Taus obviously gave Corwin permission to publish her account, which further undermines any case she might have had—effectively she agreed to the release of details that would allow a person to determine her identity. She agreed to her own outing.
I think too little play here is given on the hoax of repressed memories. In addition to the obvious victimization of the targets of the false memory, it also victimizes the person who has the false memories.
To give you an illustration, Taus originally claimed to have been sexually molested by her natural mother. Here is the wikipedia summary:
So it seems no molestation occurred originally, but that the father & step mother were coercing this behavior from her.
Along comes Corwin many years later and “recovers” these lost “memories” (memories, which it appears, were of things that didn’t happen). He then publishes a paper that not only outs Taus unintentionally, he also engages in very shoddy scientific practices, the most egregious of which is failing to report adverse data that contradicted the assertions of his paper.
Fast forward to 2012, and the witch hunt that is recovered memory shows up again in the Minnesota Supreme Court. There is this little nugget that shows up in an account of it:
The irony is rich here. Loftus appears on a paper with somebody who doesn’t see any problem with using “denier” in another context, being herself the outsider in her community for opposing the cash-cow that is repressed memories.
My other comment is in moderation, but with regards to Taus, as a naval officer, she is in a bit of a pickle.
If her repressed memories were regarded as valid, this would of course be considered a condition that existed prior to her being commissioned as an officer. And if the consequence of this condition were that it were determined it disqualified her as an officer, she could be discharged due to this prior condition that prevented her from performing her duties.
[In my opinion, this is an example where the shoddy clinical practices also victimizes the person who has the false memories.]
Mosher:
sitzpinkler
Here is the Wiki’s take on the privacy issue:
That’s pretty much my reaction.
Actually I think the real war on science is using one’s position of authority to “make stuff up” and call it science. Pasting over a proxy time series when data diverges from the hypothesis might be one example. Using a contaminated sediment proxy, inverting the data to conform with one’s hypothesis and then strongly defending this practice when the error is revealed might be another. Sadly there are many examples of this in climate science and it slowly chips away at scientific credibility.
I am certain there are those who will disagree…
Lucia said:
It appears to be questionable that this happened prior to Taus’ self-outing lawsuit, unless Lucia is referring to something that I don’t know about.
Here are the links to Loftus’ articles:
part 1
part 2
There appears to be no mention of a “William T” in this article.
As far as I’ve been able to trace, this claim originates from Lynn Crook, a journalist with an obvious decade long vendetta against Loftus, who claimed the name was given orally in an October 2002 conference, which conveniently for Crook’s claims no video or audio recordings appear to exist. [Google Lynn Crook, perhaps you’ll uncover information that is germane to why she might be attacking somebody who is disputing the validity of recovered memories.]
Regarding Loftus using Taus’ initials “N.T.” in a deposition—this occurred after Taus filed her initial lawsuit, so that could no longer be regarded as “outing” Taus.
Likewise, I’ve found no reliable evidence that the birth-mother was mislead by statements made by Loftus, prior to her being interviewed. Loftus on her part denies such behavior. The
birth-motherfoster mother may have made such claims post facto, but conflicted interests is an issue here to. This is a very messy affair to disentangle.And of course, clearly Loftus’s 2009 paper came much later that the original 2003-2007 law suit, so anything described in there would be long after any self-outing by Taus.
Carrick–
You’re right. The sources you show don’t show the WilliamT. But the 2nd one does describe the process used to find out the name.
So, Loftus paper provides a “how to” guide on how to follow the breadcrumbs. But one to repeat the steps, but in this case one would know that those steps result in the name. Still, it’s not the same as actually giving the name but it certainly makes it easier.
Yes. This appears to be a disputed matter of fact. One side a person was mislead; the other claims the contrary. This would likely matter to the outcome in court, but the disagreement by both sides on this point doesn’t make the Taus side’s position be “war on science”.
Agreed.
Carrick
My basis for saying that Loftus provided the William T. name is this
That quote comes from “Taus v. Loftus: Determining the Legal Ground
Rules for Scholarly Inquiry” by Loftus and Geis. Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2009-34
The cited paper would seem to be “Loftus, E. F., & Guyer, M. J. (2002). Who abused Jane Doe?: The hazards of the
single case study. Skeptical Inquirer 26, (May-June), 24–32; ibid., 2, 26 (July-
August), 37–40, 44.” The online version does not include the naming of William T– but the mystery then is: Why does Loftus and Geis say that the Loftus and Guyer named William T if it does not?
Carrick,
Bunch of questions/Comments in no particular order:
—–
Can you provide a link or document that says Taus granted Corwin permission to continue to show tapes? The Loftus paper merely reads
In that situation, Taus is too young to grant the permission. (Mind you: she may have been a few days off from 18 and that might be why Corwin approached her at that point. But she would need to be at least 18 to grant permission in her own right in most states.)
—–
In the Loftus article, Lynn Crook is not the source of the William T info, but the source of the allegation italicized below:
The dispute does not seem to be that Loftus never said these things, but rather Loftus thinks the two statements were separated in time. (It’s not clear to me how the statements being separated in time would help Taus should she have any difficulties with her status as a Naval officer.)
Later in the paragraph Loftus writes
Here’s a long and involved court document:
http://www.leagle.com/decision/200782954CalRptr3d775_1778
Wikipedia links it as [4] for this statement
However, it’s not at all clear to he how the legal document says that she wavied her right about privacy, nor how the court document supports Wikipedia’s claim.
What the court document actuall writes is this
So: Loftus’s side claims Taus waived rights. Taus disputes this. The court is silent on that dispute. That is to say: they don’t tell us who is right. Instead, the reason that certain things are not private is “newsworthyness”. That would be a 1st amendement issue, not an issue of Taus waiving nay rights.
There are other issues too: For example, the things Taus complains of aren’t in the tape. For example: the mention that she is a military officer, that she supposedly indulged in self destructive behavior after Corwin visited her at the age of 17 and so on. So, all of this would easily explain why she might sue Loftus and not Corwin. Basically: Loftus makes claims Corwin does not make and it is these other claims make only by Loftus that Taus doesn’t appreciate.
There is, of course, the legal question of whether Taus has a valid legal claim for Loftus reporting these things, but it doesn’t seem quite right to suggest that suing Loftus and not Corwin is somehow arising from Taus not liking Loftus’s science. It seems more likely she doesn’t like Loftus revealing stuff like she’s in the navy, or that Loftus thinks she’s indulged in self destructive behavior.
Lucia, to be clear here, nothing here falls under a “war on science”. It’s inclusion in Lewandowsky latest rubbish is both bizarre and detracts from any substantive point Lewandowsky might have been trying to make.
Here is the judgement from the California Supreme Court: link, which is the source I am primarily drawing from.
You can confirm for yourself whether it does or does not from the files I linked. I searched for “William” and found one hit–in the references section:
No instances of “T.” or “T” (case insensitive search). Perhaps there’s another document I’m unaware of. Furthermore no mention of this supposed breach of privacy is given the California Supreme Court judgement.
As to why Loftus would say something that wasn’t true—error in memory is a plausible explanation. Even when you want to remember something accurately, memory gets distorted with time, and always in ways that help us. That said, I’m not claiming that Loftus never identified the father as “William T” prior to Taus’s lawsuit, just that, if it occurred I can’t find it, nor any mention of it in the judgement I was reading.
========
Regarding the consent question, Tau’s age does not come up directly, but you can infer she was born in 1978, and would have been 17 in 1995, when the tapes were made. However, she was 18 in 1996, a year before the publication of the report—so the age of consent is not really an issue. The question of whether the consent was “limited” or not remains the only legal point.
However, the judiciary decide that:
=======
Regarding Crooks’ disposition, all I can say is it is disputed by Loftus disputes this, and her version seems plausible (again from the judgement):
Lucia:
Actually what the court determines is that the question of whether the waiving of rights was limited or not, “should be considered ‘an otherwise private person involuntarily involved in an event of public interest …'”. This exonerates Loftus, but for different reasons.
Taus wasn’t present when Loftus gave her talk in 2002. Crook was there and there is a clear evidence of Crook “having it in” for Loftus, to the point that it even gets a mention:
It’s my impression that Crook fed Taus a bill of goods and that this led to a lawsuit in the following months. For reasons I’ve touched on above, discussing destructive behavior associated with a previously existing condition (before being commissioned) that can affect your work within the Navy has very real implications. If Crook fooled Taus on this point, and then Taus ended up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a wasted lawsuit, that would be a sad foot-note to this bizarre story.
But again none of this has anything to do with a war on science, other than to the extent that psychology as a profession is a war on science, and one that Lewandowsky himself is engaged in, in that respect. 😛
Reading the court rulings, I’m seriously wondering whether the wikipedia article isn’t written by “friends of Loftus” or by relying on articles written by loftus! With respect to this
Although it is true the court ruling indicates that Loftus alleged Taus gave this consent and that Loftus side thought this mattered in some way, they actually say they didn’t need to look into this claim because it doesn’t affect the ruling. Also, it’s very clear why Taus sued Loftus and not Corwin– because Loftus was the one alleged to be telling seminar audiences that
Meanwhile, the wikipedia article entirely omits stuff that might reflect badly on Loftus. For example: the possibility that Loftus may have illegally accessed Taus’s juvenile records. Specifically
Moreover: this is sort of miseading:
It’s true that Taus lost the majority of her claims, and specifically lost all claims against defendants other than Loftus. But the court permitted her to proceed on a privacy claim against Loftus. So it’s not clear that Loftus has simply “forgone her portion in the settlement”. Loftus still faced the possibility of a continuing suit.
If you look at the footnotes in the wikipedia article, nearly all but 2 point to articles written by Loftus. The other are the Court ruling– which if read, doesn’t exactly support the claim in the wikipedia article– or is the Corwin tape!!
The California Supreme Court judgement also touched on the juvenile records issue:
I can’t guess what would have happened had the lawsuit gone forward against Loftus. That’s why people settle.
My guess is, were she have had a strong case, she could have settled for a higher amount than $7500 plus Loftus’s legal expenses (which I would expect have been paid for by Loftus’s institution, so that wouldn’t hurt Loftus directly either). In any case, this was a rather negative result to a multi-year lawsuit. I would certainly characterize it as a “failure”.
Carrick
I believe you. But it’s strange that Loftus herself seem to say she named William T. in her publication citing a paper where– as far as I can see she did not name William T.
I think we agree: the court found for Loftus: i.e. she could report certain things because they were ‘newsworthy’ — but not because Taus waived any right. All I’m saying is the claims about Taus waiving rights– those seem to have no basis.
Well… turns out it wasn’t a point the court looked into because it was moot. Beyond that– the permission really has nothing to do with the claims Taus has against Loftus, which for the most part, have nothing to do with revealing information in the tapes, but rather information Loftus got from interviews and private investigations, or judgements Loftus made based on inferences from those interviews and private investigations. In some cases Taus loses because courts view the ‘revalation’ on is in the military as not very embarrassing, and in others because “self destructive behavior” is rather vague and can mean anything from becoming an unruly disobedient child to crack-dealing whoring meth addict. If it’s only the former, no real defamation.
Yes. But to some extent… so? There is no dispute that Loftus revealed Taus was in the navy nor that Loftus said she was “self destructive”. Even Loftus agreed she said both things. So the only issue is whether she said them in the same sentences. So, on the one hand, I do think that if Crook didn’t ‘have it in for her’ no one would have been taking notes or reporting stuff to Taus, and I do think Crook might have taken notes in a way that put the sentences together when they weren’t. But I’m not sure that changes my view about Loftus being a gossipy thing who wants to spill more beans than needed and that that is what motivated Taus. (Mind you, I don’t know if that makes what Loftus did tortious. It’s just that you can’t turn this into “Crook make it all up”.)
Carric
Well.. yes. That would be especially sad. I hadn’t thought of that aspect. But it does seem the most Crook might have done was place two statements Loftus seems to concede she said in a single sentence. And, of course, Crook may even be truthful! Maybe Loftus did put those in a single sentence– and possibly doesn’t remember. After all, academics giving seminars can also have imperfect memories about just what they said, and other audience members aren’t likely to be recording everything the same way a reporter would.
No. Nothing to do with war on science. I think we agree on that!
I’m also very dubious about giving much reliance to “repressed memories” that can be revived through hypnotism and etc. I do know that I’ve gotten up in the early morning and thought ,” What program did I watch last night…. took a while, drank coffee… and then remembered. In fact, that happened with “The man who cried” (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/man_who_cried/) which I watched last weekend. Once I recollected, I then also knew why I’d forgotten the very forgettable, pointless movie. But I’m very dubious about giving very strong credence to memories of things I had supposedly long forgotten and then might have “come back”.
Lucia:
I attribute this to the fickleness of memory, which is ironic, given that Loftus studies memory.
Technically, they make it clear that Taus did waive privacy rights by agreeing to allow Corwin to publish the results about her. They make no statement about whether that waive of privacy rights was limited in scope or not, because it was unnecessary for them to consider this point.
=======
As to Crook—I don’t think you can dismiss that somebody might have it in for somebody else and give a very distorted description of Loftus’s talk to Taus. Note—for distortion to occur does not imply the presence malice or intent; I’m making no such claims. Crook simply could have watched the same talk that other people saw and, given her apparently very negative opinion of Loftus, could come away with very negative things to say about Loftus’s behavior.
So I’m not claiming that Crook made everything (or anything) up, at least deliberately, but had it not been for her attending the 2002 talk, it doesn’t seem very likely there would have been a lawsuit.
=======
As to gossipyness:
Talking about how false memory can injure the subject of the false memory is a valid point to discuss. Loftus’s perspective would be the majority of harm would occur at the point of the injury. It is an odd argument to suggest she would now endorse a form of repressed memories, given that she argues so adamantly against it. Nor do I see any problem in saying that the individual, after everything has happened to them, can still lead a fruitful life. I would not have mentioned her profession. I’ll give you +1 gossipyness on that account. Could have said “the military”.
People might assume “where there’s smoke there’s fire” after all, and say “these memories are made up but that doesn’t mean bad thing didn’t happen”. In Taus’s case, according to her sibling, the abusive parent was the father not the mother, but that he engaged in physical and verbal abuse, but not anything more. So the wrong person was targeted, with the possible consequence that the child remains in the harm of the perpetrator.
Regarding the destructive behavior theme,it much easier to get people to say “oh, this treatment is injuring the client, so this treatment protocol needs to stop”. I think that’s just Loftus’s clinical psych perspective showing through on that one.
Note that the Wikipedia article was essentially written by a single author, and has not been through even the cursory due dilligence one might expect for a Biograpy of Living Person article. It’s a bit surprising to me that this hasn’t been picked up by BLP folk who are usually moderately careful about issues of this kind.
Carrick
I agree the lawsuit was a “failure”. No doubt about it. But I don’t know whether Taus would have gone forward had the case been stronger. For all we know she might have been tired. And remember: originally, plaintiffs included some “deep pockets”– journals, university of washington and so on. After the CA supreme court ruling all that as left was a private individual: Loftus. Taus might have been relying on lawyers working on contingency and with the deep pockets now out of the case even they might know that win or lose, she wasn’t going to collect much. So that could factor in to the reasoning too.
And certainly, Taus must have had very bad legal advice and begun to realize it. After all: many things were precluded by the first amendment and/or anti-slapp laws motivated to protect first amendment rights. And certain things (like being called “self-destructive) really weren’t defamation even if they were very annoying. (Mind you, they might have risen to defamation has the navy actually interpreted those claims as indication so of mental illness and so on. But Taus would need to wait for that to happen. )
So on many things she wasn’t going to prevail and a good lawyer should have guided her to that.
Anyway: I’m not trying to say the courts were wrong. But I am saying
(a) this is not a case springing from any animus for “science”. As far as I can tell, that claim is a cockamamie notion concocted by Loftus as some sort of window dressing.
(b) Loftus’s one sided descriptions of the dispute hardly give you the flavor of what was going on here.
(c) There is a fair amount of evidence that Loftus’s is may very well have lied, dug into juvy records and so on. The CA Supreme court ruling tells us the lower court found the evidence of this sort of stuff persuasive. It’s true the CA Supreme court didn’t think Tais has sufficient evidence to convince them she would prevail on this point– but nevertheless, this is an allegation, and a lower appeals courts interpretation is that it looke dlike there was evidence Loftus may have done it. Did she? Dunno.
(d) It also does seem to me likely that the wikipedia article is ‘judiciously’ leaving out all points that might reflect badly on Loftus– points which at least some courts found credible. Moreover, wikipedia are speculating on Tais’s motives fairly widly. And their speculations seem rather improbable.
Lucia:
Agreed here.
But I think if you take “prior art” into account here, the most likely context for “destructive behavior” is with respect to the clinical outcome from the “recovered memory therapy.”
Anyway, one should show equal credulousness to Crook as well as Loftus, don’t you agree?
I believe it was inappropriate, Loftus she did, to mention the specifics of Taus’s employer. I believe that would be a breach of human subject protocol, had Loftus done so. But it appears Crook had met Taus before this point, so it’s possible that Crook, knowing that Taus was in the Navy, transmogrified “military” into “Navy”. [That’s surmise on my part, in case it isn’t obvious.]
Without a recording, it’s hard to demonstrate this, and without anybody else having any memory of the statement in question or a transcript or recording of the incident, even harder to prove damage occurred from the supposed mention. Crook mentions having taken copious notes. As far as I know, those never were turned over to the courts. That would have lent credence to her recollection, unless it wasn’t in something she wrote in her notes, in which case… completely useless from an evidentiary point of view.
Carrick
Well… there is often fire when there is smoke. But that, when it’s a metaphor, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to figure out the source of the fire. It’s possible she was abused but by someone else. It’s possible she was not abused, but somehow someone made various vivid suggestions. People, including kids, can have false memories implanted. People, including kids can lie for various reasons. I suspect we don’t know what happened to Taus when she was young. We do know that her childhood life was suboptimal divorce, nasty custody battle, bickering parents and so on. I feel sorry for her. It had to be tough.
It is interesting that Lucia scrutinizes the most interesting co-author of this article.
I think the thing about Loftus is that she has done some work that Loftus thinks can have immediate applicability and can be immediately applied by any one person. And Loftus has done it.
I.e herself. She has acted on that.
None of the other on the Subterranean list have placed themselves on that level.
They have institutional protection.
Loftus has been an expert witness in cases that have added weight to the side of reasonable doubt that means Loftus may have aided actual guilty people get off – I think you can find examples of Loftus in her own statements acknowledging this possibility.
What is the lowest common denominator of the Subterranean article you big boy/girl pants/skirts scientist ?;)
I remember listening to a piece on NPR about a psychologist who had initially bought in to the whole repressed memory thing. After a while, though, she found that her patients were getting worse as more ‘memories’ were discovered. This led her to conclude, rightly IMO, that the whole thing was bogus and was doing harm to her patients. Unfortunately for at least one of her patients, she was never able to convince that patient that the ‘recovered repressed memories’ weren’t true.
The same thing happened in a lot of the day care child abuse cases. The so-called child abuse experts were the real abusers because they convinced previously perfectly normal children that they had been abused. Human memory is incredibly plastic and is easy to mold into new shapes. As a result, I tend to consider eye witness testimony at a trial the least credible evidence.
Lucia
I wouldn’t expect anything different. This case almost destroyed her academic career, even if the motive wasn’t an “attack on science”
I disagree with you on this point. She hired Harvey Shapiro (a private investigator) to do the digging. Knowing the type of (legal) tactics these guys use, he might very well have posed himself as working with Corwin and even described Loftus as Corwin’s supervisor. Who knows? If she made any mistake in judgement, it was involving private investigators, given that they aren’t constrained to behave the same way an academic doing a human-subject study is constrained. [I’d be really interested in seeing the human subject protocol here–was the use of a PI actually an approved part of the protocol???]
But AFAIK there is no evidence that confidential records were ever used. There was mistake made by the California Court of Appeals regarding this, but see the California Supreme Court judgement here.
This wasn’t a “we drop this on procedural grounds” it’s a “they were wrong” statement and I quote: “[…] we conclude that the Court of Appeal erred in suggesting that the Shapiro declaration itself would support a conclusion that defendants collected information about plaintiff from confidential court records. ”
So unless there is other evidence, I don’t think the case is there on the claim of improper access to confidential records.
lucia:
Taus’s brother claims physical and verbal abuse from the natural father, as a for-instance here…
Carrick
Sure. But that only gets us to the question: Were the two statements in the same sentence? Or spaced in time (as the same seminar?) I think even “at the same seminar” is not disputed by Loftus. So that’s just not rebutted by impugning Crook’s motives, memory, ability to take notes and so on. The only dispute seems to be “in the same sentence” or “not in the same sentences”.
I’m not sure estabilishing “not in the same sentence” that would have helped Loftus or Taus had it mattered. The point was moot because, in the end the revelation of “in the navy” was not defamatory nor any invasion of privacy because it’s not embarrassing. And the revelation of “self destructive behavior” seemed not defamatory. And it’s not clear they would have been whether in the same sentence or not.
To some extent, one difficulty with this case is that Taus would have been better off to wait to see if any harm accrued. After all: the most likely thing was no one in the Navy would connect her to the story (not even if the William T. name was somewhere in some research article), and even if she felt defamed by Loftus saying she was self-destructive and she knew that potentially some harm could come, she should have waited. Had harm occurred, it would have been more possible to make a case that being called ‘self-destructive’ had harmed her and so on.
Well… there are at least three separate issues:
1) What really happened
2) What spin is Loftus putting on it.
3) What could Taus have hoped to prove in court.
It’s seems the case that Loftus (and it seems wikipedia) are spinning this as if merely impughing Crook’s motives is sufficient to convince any and all that Crook’s account is somehow distorted and that Loftus’s is somehow the ‘one true account’. I’d certainly concede that with nothing more than Crook, no recording and so on, a court or jury might be reluctant to lean towards taking Crook’s word over Loftus. But by the same token, I don’t know why they should take Loftus’s over Crook’s. Certainly, a rational person would try to look to other factors. That is where — in court where facts are presented– a lot of other issue would come up. After all: Loftus seems to be saying both Crook and Cantrell are untruthful — just on different points. And– if I understand correctly- while the Supreme court is finding that because the information Loftus found in the public records is sufficient to support her contention she got it all from those records, Taus wouldn’t be able to prove she got information from the juvy records it seems the appeals court thought there was sufficient information to suggest Taus might show Loftus got the juvy records and sifted through them. And, moreover, we can read the spin in Loftus’s “scholarly” rendition of the ‘history’ of the case and decide whether Loftus tends to color things in her own favor. And in the end, even if we aren’t a court, I think it’s fair to say people reading over the Supreme court case can decide precisely what they think of Loftus. And they don’t need to agree with Loftus’s self view– and I’m inclined to suspect that Loftus is spinning like a top. And I think this even if it might be true that Crook placed two claims in one sentence when in fact, they were separated in time (but at the same seminar.)
But this is not to say that I think the court ruled incorrectly nor that I think there is anything wrong with our laws in a ruling of this sort.
As for what did happen and what we have evidence for: have to look at lower court stuff to know the full evidentiary trail, especially with respect to any point the court ruled moot and so ignored evidence about.
But yes it does seem, Crock only took notes. That seems odd if you are a reporter. Seems like you’d want to record unless that was prohibited. Had Crook had a tape recorder, things might be clearer. Alas, she didn’t have one!
I have started tagging the Wikipedia article to indicate some of the more obvious problems. It’s a bit difficult to know how to proceed as most of the obvious online souces are written by Loftus, Loftus’s publisher, or personal friends of Loftus.
Carrick
Hhmmm… But isn’t digging into juvy records illegal even for him? I agree it could clear her both in a criminal and civil case.
I’m even more interested in knowing if a research grant would permit her to hire a PI!
Yes. And yet, we still don’t know. That’s a problem for things long past with conflicting reports.
Jonathan Jones
Possibly what it needs is a big caveat nothing that nearly all the information is from papers written by Loftus, and also request careful scrutiny to those things claiming support from the Supreme Court ruling. The idea that the privacy claim on Taus’s part was flawed because of her agreement with Corwin is misleading at best. The court mentioned that argument advanced by Loftus, but the issue was moot. What mattered is the fact that the story was “newsworthy”. It would certainly be better if wikipedia correctly noted that certain issues one might consider ‘private’ will not be treated as “private’ by US courts if they are newsworthy.
Lucia:
Agreed. Wait until the harm is done, then sue. Much easier to get a quick settlement that way. Using the tactics she employed, Taus just made it inevitable the Navy would notice.
I have to think that Taus was very poorly served by her lawyers on this one.
To be clear, you don’t have to impugn motives here. unique filters. All you have to do is show preexisting bias, which was clearly present here. It’s not like Crook’s presence at an academic conference was a coincidence, given Loftus’s prior presence at Crook’s civil court appearance.
People can see “what they want to see” without deliberately lying about it.
Or if she had one, she failed to mention & produce it. I’ve not been to a conference where taping has been forbidden.
======
Regarding Loftus’s bias on her reporting of events…again I can’t blame her for reacting in a very biased manner to what she must see as an attack on her career. The Wikipedia needs to be more neutral, but … when it’s Loftus’s pulpit, she can use it the way she sees fit.
Just because bad things might have happened to Taus when she was young, doesn’t give her the right to destroy other people as an adult, and doesn’t require them to look the other way while she does. I feel bad for Taus, I feel like she got used multiple times, including by her lawyers and probably by Crook. But that doesn’t give her care blanche to run over everybody else because she “feels pain”.
I don’t get this—If you can’t find any knowledge that Shapiro or Loftus uncovered that couldn’t have been obtained using the legitimately accessed records, why even make the supposition here that they used illegitimately obtained records?
I think I understand why there are allegations, but they were based on what we now know to be a flawed premise–that the juvy records would necessarily remain sealed. But the ones in question were public record.
lucia:
To be clear, I think they were moot just on whether the waiver was limited or not, they acknowledged that at least a limited waiver had occurred.
Taus’s lawyers also admitted that this had happened, since they were arguing that the waiver was meant to be limited. Still, it’s hard to explain then how the video became available for Loftus to access, had Taus meant for it to remain private.
I think the way to put it is there is a tension between journalistic rights and privacy rights. Sometimes one wins, sometimes the other. You still have a right to privacy in both cases, just that in some cases “public interest” trumps your right to privacy.
Maybe we can get a constitutional lawyer to explain it to us in the proper lawyerese.
lucia:
Not if they are already unsealed, as the records in question were [it is claimed anyway], due to previous legal proceedings.
Sorry for the lengthy inclusion here, but I don’t trust my ability to accurately abridge this:
This is possibly the salient part:
Had it gone back to trial, I would have wanted a listing of particular open-court records pertaining to this case that had been copied by an assistant of Shapiro’s.
Carrick
Taus says a limited waiver occurred. But the idea that this was a flaw or problem for her privacy claim seems to either be (a) Loftus’s or (b) wikipedia’s. We don’t know if it was a problem.
It’s not hard to explain. I’m pretty sure the tape was available for years before Taus was asked to give consent. Loftus’s own papers indicate Corwin visited Taus to renew permission when Taus was 17– but he’d been using the tapes before that. You can call it “renew” but the fact is an 11 year old Taus could not give consent herself. Someone else would have to do it for her. This would be sufficient for Corwin to show the tape and Loftus to see the tape without Taus ever giving permission.
How the fact that a guardian might have been the one to give consent and what rights Taus might have on reaching 18 I don’t know. How it might matter legally, I don’t know. But a guardian giving consent would not be Taus giving consent. Moreover, it certainly isn’t Taus giving consent for things not in the tape and that would mean anything after the age of 11 yo. And moreover, any consent Taus might give might be viewed in light of the fact that the tapes had been circulating for years. So, she might well have consented to continuing to air the tape an nothing more. Loftus is discussing material that happens long after Taus is 11 yo, and which is not in the tape. And stuff not in the tape was relevant to the privacy suit. It’s true Taus lost on those points of contention but her loss had nothing to do with any consent she might have given. Certainly, wikipedia ought to get corrected on that score. (That said, I’m not going to jump into any wiki-war.).
Carrick
Agreed. She has the same right to advance a suit as anyone, and if it’s flawed, she suffers the same way anyone loses a suit. That’s not my issue.
My issues with Loftus are:
1) Her claim this suit has something to do with a “war on science”. Even if it was unfortunate for her, even if Taus had bad legal advice and pursued a claim that was ultimately flimsy– and inflated it to multiple counts, this law suit was not a “war on science”. This is the claim that is relevant to the Lewandowsky-Mann-otherw with axes to grind- Loftus paper.
2) Loftus appears to be writing ‘scholarly articles’ that are extremely one-sided renditions of the story. Even if one might ‘understand’ why Loftus might take her own side in her own articles, these ‘scholarly’ articles appear highly one-sided, and this same side is presented in the Lewandowsky-Mann-other-other-Loftus paper.
Well… I’d just read that the appeals court thought it sounded plausible. Obviously, I missed that the Supreme court found that the info could be obtained in unsealed records. But presumably, that is evidence a jury or judge would weight towards credibility of Loftus, and in the event that it appeared Loftus got the info legitimately it would not count against her credibility.
If you are wondering why Taus might have brought up: She and her side might have honestly thought that was the only way for Loftus to get the info. If so, it appears they were mistaken, but mistakes happen in lawsuits too. That’s why courts scrutinize evidence and different sides bring information to bear.
With respect to where I brought it up: we started with do we believe Crook or Loftus? With respect to that one would weight any other evidence that might indicate you thought one or the other was likely to shave at the edges, be misleading and so on. In that regard, it’s not just “Crook v Loftus” on stories, we also have “Cantrell v. Loftus” on a second story. Looks like no evidence Loftus did anything dicey with juvy records. Or course both Crook and Cantrell might be untrust-worthy on these points. But it is two people not just one whose stories differ from Loftus.
lucia:
I sure hope you’re wrong about that—this would have been illegal as hell on Corwin’s part, outright illegal, not just unethical, without her or her parental consent.
I would say, “yes it is hard to explain”, unless you are alleging some egregious wrongdoing on Corwin’s part.
Anyway, the second video taping was done in 1995 (when Taus would have been 17), the publication was 1997 (when she would have been 19). This is 11 years after the first taping, which occurred in 1984, and not when Taus was 11. As far as I know, the clinical tapes were not publicly discussed before the 1997 article.
The California Supreme Court judgment includes a lot more background on this, but includes:
I dunna whether any further forms were actually signed, but it’s my understanding in a case like this, the journal would have wanted something in writing. If I were publishing this, I would have liked to have seen a new signed form from the subject once they turned 18.
Carrick
You mis-understand me. I mean that someone like Taus’s father might have given consent. Taus’s father is not Taus. In this case, Corwin would be violating no law, and his meeting with the 17 yo–nearly 18 yo Taus to renew consent makes sense as she was reaching the age of majority.
What I was basing my estimate of when various consents might be given was this (in Loftus’s scholarly article)
The way this is organized, it reads like when she was 17, Corwin contacted Taus to get continuuing consent for videotapes he was already suing. That would imply some consent pre-existed this event. But such consent couldn’t be Taus herself, it would have to be someone else. Right?
Lucia:
There are inconsistencies in Cantrell’s story too, and Cantrell as Taus’ foster mother. There is supposedly a picture of Cantrell posting with Loftus at the end of the interview that is inconsistent with her story of being tricked into the interview, her claim that she had never met Shapiro (who was at the meeting) when in fact he had met Cantrell previously, etc.
Incidently, here’s a PDF of the ruling, that I just found. It’s formatted a lot better than the other document.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Doe_case
Lucia:
Hm… Loftus’s article appears to misstate this.
What actually happened was the second video taping occurred in 1995. This is documented in the release form given by Taus to Corwin to “combat the theories advanced by Drs. Loftus and Guyer”:
Can’t make it clearer than that. 😉
That pdf is to the petitionners opening brief not the ruling. The petitioners are “Petitioners Elizabeth Loftus, Melvin Guyer, The Committee For The Scientific Investigation Of Claims Of The Paranormal”
Lucia:
Her nice father.
So then the question is, what are your legal rights here? If they are released for “educational purposes” that would encompass other researchers using them too, correct?
I’m not sure how you can put the genie back in the bottle on this one.
Just saying I’m glad I don’t do that type of research where you have to worry about issues like this. Messy, messy situation.
Carrick–
Loftus’s version and yours are consistent with wikipedia. Initially, Corwin had Taus’s fathers permission, later Nicole Taus’s.
Lucia:
Ah okay… So revert to the other document then link.
I found the release consent by Taus in that petitioners’ brief then. It also has the details about the dates of the interviews that I just linked, but these dates are the same ones given in the judgement.
Carrick,
Bingo! Who came out “well” in Corwin’s tape and so on.
No. And whatever permission Nicole later gave it might have been in context of this knowledge. But I think we now have more info on the “permission chain”.
Very, very messy.
Oh– actually I should add the “genie in the bottle” issue is relevant to the “newsworthy” issue. The fact that Corwin reported it is what made it “newsworthy”.
Part of the dissenting opinion from the judgment I just came across:
Corwin used her last name and the city she was from???
Wow.
[I should mention her face is also shown in the video tape, not an altered tape with her face blanked out. How ****ed up can you get?]
Carrick
That Taus signed the permission seems clear.
That her motives were to “combat the theories advanced by Drs. Loftus and Guyer†appears to be speculation on Loftus and Guyer’s part. This is true even if her permission airing of the tapes to be shown in a venue where Loftus and Guyer views will be discussed afterwards.
OTOH: I suspect Corwin may have wanted to show the tapes to support his views and “combat” those of his critics.
On this:
I’d expect that from just about anybody, truthfully. But I am disappointed it made it into print without a rewriting to make it less heavily one-sided. Journals usually won’t publish “hit pieces”, this paper should never have been published as it is.
Probably this is another statement about the wretched quality of psychology research in general.
Corwin is hardly painted in glory here either, is he?
That said anyone whose brief goes on and on about Jane Does identity not being revealed until Jane sued Loftus? Uhmmm. No. With a picture of Jane, I think it’s fair to say people could know who she was.
Lucia:
I was just shooting for “the age of the interviewee” to be clear. I agree that “combat the theories advanced by Drs. Loftus and Guyer” part is speculative.
Lucia:
Given that his very ideas are voodoo science to start with, then no, not really. And it just seems to get worse, the more you look at him.
Carrick–
Oh. I agree, repressed memories are voodoo science. And the more I look at this, the more sorry I feel for Taus.
That said: Loftus trying to use this as a poster case for “war against science”? Sorry. No. I even get that she may harbor ill feelings or even irrational ones because this was a traumatic event in her career. But… no. Sorry… no carte blance to paint Taus as some “enemy of science” or blah, blah, blah. And I get that this was a repelled by CA state SLAPP laws, but Taus’s suit wasn’t one of the garden variety SLAPP cases.
Also, get this in CA, and think about it in context of Taus who really doesn’t seem to be merely trying to supress criticism or inhibit free press:
So Taus– who is relatively young- was in the unfortunately position of having to prove her case was likely to prevail but had before she could even have access to discovery!!
In that light: it’s hardly surprising Taus didn’t have lots of evidence. (And it’s too bad her lawyers didn’t anticipate this sort of thing.) But really…one needs to consider any “lack of evidence” on Taus’s part in light of the fact that her side didn’t get “discovery”– which it would have gotten under any other circumstance!!
Lucia:
I agree on that.
This doesn’t seem unreasonable, since, as I understand, tort law is supposed to allow you to redress injury and recover losses. You shouldn’t need to “go fishing” to figure out whether somebody has harmed you or not.
Carrick,
But normally, I think some amount of discover exists. Not sure how extensive it is or how it’s dealt with.
I raised this page at the Wikipedia BLP noticeboard, and it has now been completely rewritten by an editor who is treating it as an interesting legal case rather than an opportunity for character assassination. Much better now.
Jonathan Jones– Good going!!
It is traditional to be dismissive of Wikipedia, and it does indeed have its blind spots, but in this case the system worked well.
But normally, I think some amount of discovery exists. Not sure how extensive it is or how it’s dealt with.
Short version – in any civil case, you have to have enough information before you file your complaint to at least make good-faith assertions of fact about what happened, and those assertions have to be enough to support recovery. You’ll often see the phrase “on information and belief” in a complaint…it’s the lawyer’s way of saying, “Okay, my client doesn’t really know this but he has some kind of reason to believe it.”
By the way, fraud suits — since you mention there’s a fraud claim here — require extra particularity to avoid dismissal — and state and federal courts are clear that this is to avoid cases in which “all facts are learned after discovery.”
In the case of SLAPP suits, by their very nature, it’s not unreasonable to insist that a plaintiff make a dismissal-level showing before any discovery takes place. I mean, since SLAPP cases are about public statements, it’s easy for the plaintiff to know that the statements were made (and attach copies to the complaint if needed). As Carrick points out, if the plaintiff was damaged by the statements, he ought to know it himself without needing information from the defendant to prove it. And if he has no evidence of the other elements…such as actual malice in a public figure defamation case, or the private nature of the facts disclosed in an invasion of privacy case…then he oughtn’t to get free rein to rummage around the defendant’s papers ’til he finds something.
If a case survives dismissal and the plaintiff later on learns the complaint is always flawed or that he hasn’t sued the right people…he can always move to amend it, just as long as he has a good faith basis for the new facts he wants to assert.
One of the best things about your writing is seeing what an endless font of common sense and decency you are.