Problems with Deisher’s Study— Part II: Biological Implausibility

My apologies for taking so long to get to Part II. Between losing one of the days I allotted for work to a non-stress test, grossly underestimating how much could be wrong in such a tiny section and trying to whittle it down, waiting for personal correspondence [updated 9/25/14], and, you know, life, it has taken a bit longer than I anticipated. I’m still going to plow through, though, because I am sure this won’t be last time this zombie hypothesis is given new life.

Deisher’s study* is incredibly, incredibly thin in the realm of biological plausibility. This is surprising (or not) because she is making some novel, extraordinary claims. Yes, she has a nice bibliography salad, but the studies she cites do not directly, or even indirectly at times, support her central hypothesis that DNA from fetal cell lines is a direct environmental cause for increasing autistic disorder (AD) diagnoses. Further, even her unpublished research that has been cited in newsletters and pro-life media means very little in terms of the hypothesis. So, where to begin?

Looking a little closer at the numbers— A supplement to Part I

I’m writing this part for people really motivated to delve deeper into the problems with Dr. Deisher’s statistical analysis. In my opinion, Part I would have been far too long, especially for those with little/no exposure to statistics, if I had included it. However, I refuse to behave like some of our critics who essentially tell us, “don’t worry your pretty little heads about trying to understand science; Deisher has a Ph.D.” What a paradox! If we blindly accept the mainstream consensus, we are uneducated, lazy sheep who need to “wake up.” Yet, if we use our intellect (while acknowledging our limitations) to think critically and not blindly accept Deisher’s novel, extraordinary claims, we’re “embarrassing” ourselves. I won’t treat you like that, dear reader. Since I am waiting to hear back from a couple people regarding Part II, if you’re inclined to dig a little deeper, let’s do that.

Problems with Deisher’s study— Part I: The numbers

If someone were to ask me to critically appraise the scientific merits of a study arguing that birth control usage caused earthquakes by changing the mating behaviors of fish, I might have had an easier time than I did with Dr. Theresa Deisher’s widely shared study. That may be over the top, but it is kind of true. In such a scenario, I would have been able to say to myself, like most other people in the scientific blogosphere are doing with the Deisher study, “This is just too absurd, too poorly done to waste any more time refuting it!” But, I can’t do that because you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, deserve to know how badly you are being deceived by a study that is so abominable, it would be an insult to bad science to call it bad science.