Poldrack deserves special mention, since he has spread the word on reverse inference over the past several years. Indeed, it is his research that showed that insula is activated in one of three neuroimaging studies (out of many thousands done each year). Poldrack also led the way on another reverse inference scandal, The New York Times misleading coverage of Neuropolitics in 2007. Actually, I think the NYT's crime is worse this time, since the flaws with reverse inference are more well known, and because The New York Times already screwed this up once and got spanked by the blogosphere then. Also, Lindstrom's article was much sillier. 

I mean, come on, obviously people don't love their iPhones the same way they love their spouse, their kids, or even their dog.

Last week, Poldrack drafted a letter to the The New York Times, which published it, albeit truncated, and without the list of 45 co-signers, all Ph.D.s or M.D.s who activately participate in neuroscience research (including me). The full letter is available here. As per its policy, The New York Times will not include a link to the letter on the page containing Lindstrom's original article. They should.

Lindstrom himself posted a reply on several websites, including Poldrack's and here on the Decision Tree (seen here). The reply is very polite (which I appreciate), and includes useful methodological details (which are considered a necessary part of good science), but, mysteriously, ignores all the specific criticisms.

Lindstrom first brags that he once worked with a team that spent over $7 million to scan over 2000 subjects from (it is implied) several continents. The money was wasted, unless you count the PR value associated with a book and a New York Times article (not too shabby, come to think of it). This section of Lindstrom's reply contains a conspicuous error: that the study successfully revealed "the key drivers behind why we make the purchasing decisions that we do." Had he actually done so, there would be a named chair and a large salary waiting for him at Harvard Business School.

Of course, that stuff is included just to impress us. It's unrelated to the iPhone study.

As for the iPhone study, Lindstrom reveals that his study was done with a board certified neurologist. Board certification means that the neurologist can run a medical practice treating patients with strokes and epilepsy. Don't get confused by the names. Neurology is about as close to neuroscience as football is to golf. Board certification is as valuable to being a good neuroimager as hitting a birdie would help Matt Schaub take the Texans to the Super Bowl.

Lindstrom includes another truth-massage, which is that the data were analyzed using standard methods. In the strictest sense, perhaps true, but interpretation is part of analysis, and reverse inference is a discredited interpretation tool. While certain rare situations justify its cautious use in motivating further studies, its use here is so egregious as to render the data meaningless (this was the point of my original post, last week, as well as the rest of the posts in the blogosphere).

[Of interest to nerds: Lindstrom revealed that his iPhone study was not a standard fMRI study, but I think instead SSVEP was used, an amped up variant of EEG/ERP. It is a much weaker technique than fMRI, and has not been validated to nearly the extent as fMRI. It's got much worse spatial resolution (can you really even get insula?) but, presumably, better temporal resolution. To say that the localization debate in ERP is debated is probably an understatement. In other words, Lindstrom's study is probably even worse than we thought.]

I believe The New York Times should issue a retraction, but I won't lose too much sleep over this. I'm excited that the blogosphere activated so quickly and so forcefully. The Times is a giant organization and bad stuff will always slip through. But at least nowadays, anyone who wants the other side of the story, whether they live in Houston or Helsinki or Harare, can find it in seconds. I saw the original article on Google Plus. My own followers passed it along to their friends, etc.

It is said that "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." At least with the Internet, the truth is already wearing sneakers.

And hopefully that's it for this story. Next week: Back to the kinds of stuff I normally write about.