…and this is a 
Yet more skeptics have spoken out: Randi, Orac, and Novella, on the case of the Belgian man who is claimed to have awakened from a persistent vegetative state, and is even, supposedly, writing a book about his 23 years trapped in an unresponsive body.
It's possible that he has recovered to some degree, but the evidence hasn't been shown. Supposedly, he was diagnosed to have some functionality with a poorly described brain mapping technique (one summary I read in Nature suggests that it was looking for areas of the brain that lit up in response to external stimuli, but there's more to consciousness than that), and then the media is going ga-ga over Houben's reported words…but he isn't saying anything! It's all done with this bogus "facilitated communication" nonsense, which is thoroughly unconvincing. There are videos of him tapping out answers with his eyes closed, guided by an assistant staring intently at the keyboard.
Here's a simple test. He's being asked questions in English and answering in Flemish. Find a facilitated communicator who doesn't speak Flemish and have him or her do the same routine. I know what the result will be: either Houben will suddenly start answering in English, or the font of words will dry up.
Medicine & Health
Comments
Posted by: Chuck | November 25, 2009 12:23 PM
Good call, PZ. I also like your previous idea of asking questions about particular cards, when the cards are kept out sight of the facilitator. Time and time again, when this has been done, the facilitator has been proven to be a fraud.
I wonder if the FC will get a share of the profits of the book, and whose idea the book was in the first place.
Chuck
http://www.irreligiosophy.com
Posted by: DJM | November 25, 2009 12:24 PM
Alternative experiment proposal:
Have an interviewer ask Houben 10 questions requiring sentance answers. The interviewer tells Houben to try and remember the answers as he will be asked them again, soon. Use a "facilitator" to "translate" the answers. One hour later, the same interviewer asks the same 10 questions in the same order, but a different, new "facilitator" is used to "translate". The answers should be the same, roughly.
Posted by: kevin gallagher | November 25, 2009 12:25 PM
Why is this so hard to prove? It seems unlikely to me but i'm a glass is half empty kinda guy. I don't understand how him being awake for so long has led to him being able to find his way around a modern keyboard with his eyes closed though. Perhaps they should get the communicator to lay his fingers on a table to see if it slides or floats...
Posted by: Michael Simpson | November 25, 2009 12:26 PM
This is why skepticism is necessary–it cuts through the crap. Too bad we might be just talking to ourselves.
Posted by: Kevin Anthoney
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November 25, 2009 12:27 PM
Or ask the questions via headphones, so the facilitator can't hear them.
Posted by: dahduh | November 25, 2009 12:28 PM
Or, just stick headphones on Houben and/or earplugs in the facilitator. The ears, the facilitator's ears.
Posted by: Chris | November 25, 2009 12:28 PM
This is amazing to me because it's so incredibly simple to prove one way or another. These are supposedly intelligent doctors who have studied science for years and should understand how we can be tricked into seeing the result that we want.
Posted by: Charles Evo | November 25, 2009 12:29 PM
They could also put a pair of headphones on
Houben and ask him questions through the
headphones, in such a way that the "facilitator" can't hear the questions.
Posted by: Yossarian | November 25, 2009 12:30 PM
Well, someone in the mainstream media is being skeptical.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34132340/ns/health-health_care/
Here's hoping it spreads.
Posted by: Katharine | November 25, 2009 12:33 PM
To take a phrase from Physioprof, perhaps some people have not realized that life is not a care bears fucking tea party.
Rom Houben is a victim of the hope of the stupid and its exploitation.
Posted by: cameron | November 25, 2009 12:37 PM
Good lord. *If* this guy really is conscious and aware but unable to communicate, how horrible must it be to have someone holding his hand and pretending to answer for him while he watches, unable to resist? It really is just adding to his misery.
Posted by: KyBoiler
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November 25, 2009 12:37 PM
The headphones idea is predictable... his answer would be, "Please turn up the volume." Or, "Remove the headphones, I have trained myself in mind reading in these past 23 years and I can feel that my facilitator is sad from being left out of the experience of hearing these questions."
Posted by: freelunch | November 25, 2009 12:41 PM
It's nice to see some scepticism after listening to the unquestioning reporting on "All Things Considered" last night.
Posted by: daveau
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November 25, 2009 12:41 PM
Now there's a book deal. Ka-ching!
Don't expect to see any controls on the medium, er, I mean "facilitator", anytime soon. Especially if she's getting a cut as a ghost writer.
Posted by: Acronym Jim | November 25, 2009 12:43 PM
And we too can play along at home.
Here is all you need to do to play:
1. close your eyes.
2. type out a coherent sentence using only your index finger.
Some may be able to achieve a coherent sentence on the first try, but my guess is those players will be functionally blind and have had lots of practice.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | November 25, 2009 12:44 PM
The sheer fluidity, speed and articulateness (is that a word?) of Houben's responses, as filmed and reported by the (credulous) media, is a pretty good argument against the FC technique. If he's that much paralyzed, there's no way he could type that fast, even with help, and if he spent 23 years stuck inside his head, there's no way he should be that sane and coherent. The constructed persona is *too* good to be believable.
Note: FC is BS, but I remain agnostic on the larger question of whether Houben is....more concious than previously thought.
Posted by: peptron | November 25, 2009 12:45 PM
i thinkj abubtnyud guyt fur a fewar yxsù.
Posted by: Mark A. Siefert | November 25, 2009 12:45 PM
Of course, no one will actually test for this. I'm sure the family, who clings to any false hope that this man can recover, will not want to have their "miracle" put to the test. The press certainly won't; "inspirational" stories with "happy endings" and other sentimental drivel are money. If Houben's doctor isn't questioning this were not hearing him/her, and if he isn't, then he/she is just as culpable in this fraud.
Nope, just the mean old skeptics with their scientific method and rational thinking are asking to have this claim this cliam examined, and nobody listens to us.
Posted by: corpus.callosum | November 25, 2009 12:46 PM
There are a lot of people here and elsewhere calling for the facilitator to be blinded in some way (eg use a non-Flemish speaker, or face the other way and have Houbert describe objects she can't see etc etc). It's actually possible to go one better.
There's technology out there that will allow Houbert or any other conscious person with limited motor capabilities and some training to communicate aided only by a computer. Think Stephen Hawking.
There are even brain-computer interfaces that can be controlled neurally - like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGwFmaqTbmM . Get our Flemish friend on one of these and you're in business. No confounds, no fuss!
Posted by: Sastra
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November 25, 2009 12:47 PM
As I recollect from reading about it years ago, in some of the cases where Facilitated Communication was being tested, the "translator" would type out furious refusals to participate. "How can you doubt me? How can you doubt this wonderful translator, who is my dear friend? I am so insulted and hurt, after all this time, my heart is finally breaking..." Or words to that effect. Purportedly from the person in the chair. Uh huh.
But parents and other true believers would of course buy this, and insist then that a properly controlled test was cruel, insensitive, and abusive to the handicapped. Perhaps this made sense to them because "being doubted" is supposed to be the worst thing you can do to someone -- in religion. Having faith, on the other hand, is supportive, commendable, and positive.
Posted by: gr8hands | November 25, 2009 12:48 PM
Supposedly Rom Houben was able to move a toe, and click using 'yes/no' responses. But that is painfully slow in terms of spelling out words to communicate:
I hope you can see how this process would take an extremely long time to make any kind of communication at all -- but it would have some veracity.You can also see why families would tire of this, and look for someone claiming to be able to 'facilitate' something faster. They're desperate for any communication. Once they get something, it doesn't take too long to get fatigued at the slow pace, so you can see why the charlatans fill the niche.
Posted by: David Mathews | November 25, 2009 12:51 PM
Just kidding.
Posted by: daveau
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November 25, 2009 12:51 PM
Rom: bzzt bzzt
Tech: No, no?
Posted by: littlejohn | November 25, 2009 12:52 PM
You'll be happy to hear that our local a.m. paper inserted a couple of skeptical paragraphs after I pointed your blog out to my wife, who works there. Her editor contacted the Associated Press, which has now been alerted to the possibility of a hoax. They're looking into it.
This made CBS news last night, of course, and if I heard correctly, this doctor has examined a bunch of vegetative patients and proclaimed that "40 percent"(!) of them are actually conscious but paralyzed. That claim, in itself, makes it pretty clear he has An Agenda.
Posted by: lose_the_woo
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November 25, 2009 12:55 PM
#22
F.U.
I just had a conniption.
Posted by: Sastra
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November 25, 2009 12:56 PM
... should be either "'being doubted' is supposed to be the worst thing that can happen to you," or "'doubting someone' is supposed to be the worst thing you can do to them."
Posted by: Michelle R | November 25, 2009 12:57 PM
Ugh. This whole thing is making me so sick to the stomach. Test the "facilitator"! Ask the guy a question when she isn't there! Do something!
Posted by: Naughtius Maximus | November 25, 2009 12:58 PM
Has this been brought up in the US healthcare/death panel/forced euthanasia debate yet?
Posted by: David Estlund | November 25, 2009 12:59 PM
LOL sorry, lose_the_woo.
Anyway I agree with the stance that if he is at any level aware of what is happening to him, he must be absolutely horrified, like the end of Being John Malkovitch playing out in real life. That "facilitator" should be sued for patient abuse and exploitation.
Posted by: dinkum | November 25, 2009 1:00 PM
Don't forget to first tape a popsicle stick or tongue depressor to your finger so you don't actually touch the keys.
Posted by: Flea | November 25, 2009 1:00 PM
C'mon people! Stop being polite! What do you think are the chances that this is NOT a fraud? Do you really think that all those vultures surrounding the poor guy have not thought about all the simple and clear tests you are all proposing?
Posted by: Shamelessly Atheist | November 25, 2009 1:01 PM
The problem with switching to a 'facilitator' who does not know Flemish is that because of the notoriety of the case, blinding will be impossible. The facilitator will, thinking that Hauben is unable to answer in another language, start typing gibberish because of that bias, thus confirming that bias.
Posted by: Shamelessly Atheist | November 25, 2009 1:04 PM
I must not have had enough coffee today. Just what the hell was I saying?
Posted by: Mark A. Siefert | November 25, 2009 1:05 PM
Yes.
Posted by: Nick Johnson | November 25, 2009 1:06 PM
@21: Actually, using binary search, you can specify a letter in no more than 5 yes/no choices, and any object in the universe in no more than about 32. It's slow and tedious, but not nearly as slow and tedious as you make out.
Posted by: rlrr | November 25, 2009 1:06 PM
Maybe someone should send a videotape of Rom Houben to Bill Frist for a diagnoses.
Posted by: peptron | November 25, 2009 1:07 PM
@Flea and probably a lot of others
I cannot help but get a completely surreal feeling about that case. The kind of abuse that is so obvious and extreme that you cannot help but have that odd feeling that it's not really happening, it's just some kind of bad dream you are having. Or that it would be just a very elaborate prank and people around would just pop-up and say "We got you! It was all a joke!".
Posted by: Happy_Heretic | November 25, 2009 1:08 PM
Gina Green PhD debunked this in court. She set up a screen between the "facilitator" and the person with "autism." She showed a card with a question to the facilitator, and another card to the person with Autism. The facilitator typed the answer to their question, while the question to the person with Autism was left unanswered.
James Randi would have been proud. Science, once again, was used to prove something false.
HH =)
Posted by: Epinephrine
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November 25, 2009 1:22 PM
No, your math is off. 2^32 is only around 4.3 billion (or 4.3 thousand million for some), and there are over 4.3 billion people on the planet. That's assuming you care which person you refer to, etc.
Yes, technically one could make a binary decision tree that would cover basically anything one wanted in 32 steps, but if items didn't appear on it more than once it could be hard to find them. (Oh, sorry, we have dogs down as "bigger than a breadbox," and you wanted to talk about your chihuahua.)
Posted by: ellindsey
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November 25, 2009 1:25 PM
Even if a test is done in which the facilitator is able to communicate information known only to the patient or in a language not known to the facilitator, facilitated communication would not be validated as trustworthy. That experiment would merely prove that it was possible for information to come from the patient through the facilitator. It would not rule out the facilitator adding to or modifying the information the patient was trying to communicate, and would not provide a means of reliably differentiating information originating with the patient from information originating with the facilitator in the future. The only reliable and trustworthy communications system is one that is not able to consciously or unconsciously add information not originating from the patient, such as a computer system which the patient can control with blinks, eye movements, or other means to pick letters. If the patient has enough motor control to influence a facilitator, he can use a computer.
Posted by: Ol'Greg | November 25, 2009 1:26 PM
Ugh watching that makes me sick. What I don't understand is how this is happening when he is clearly able to move his eyes. Now I'm starting to imagine him fully awake, watching this woman talk with his hand, some what glad not to be alone and yet completely unable to challenge anything she wants him to say.
It sounds more like some kind of horror film, or a black comedy. Why have there not been any real challenges to her?
Posted by: Techskeptic
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November 25, 2009 1:27 PM
#21 and #35
Please see The Butterfly and the Diving Bell. something close to what you are talking about really happened...and he wrote a book that way.
However you would not do it either way that you two mentioned, not straight throug that alphabet nor a binary search. You use letter frequencies and the facilitator guesses the word as it becomes clear. not as tedious as you mention, but still super tedious!
Posted by: Isabella Gubberville | November 25, 2009 1:29 PM
As soon as I read the story in the paper I knew it was too good to be true. Twenty years of solitary confinement and still happy-go-lucky? No details as to how the communication takes place or how they assure no one else is doing the communicating? It's a scam.
Frustratingly, the Beeb reports on this without any skepticism at all: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8375326.stm
Even though in the video the facilitator is clearly pushing the finger to the right buttons. I won't believe anything is going on in there unless he gets hooked up to a proper speech device that requires no human facilitator, like the one Hawking has.
#15, see #30
I'm not blind and I can touch-type with one finger. Not fast and with a few typos, but it works as a party trick. (Hint: you can count keys, and if you concentrate you can do it pretty fast, and most keyboards and laptops have little pips on some of the keys making navigation even easier.)
Posted by: SirBedevere | November 25, 2009 1:33 PM
There's an online poll (linked from the MSNBC story) and, reassuringly, there's no need to Pharyngulate it as it's currently showing 72% as not buying the woo:
http://health.newsvine.com/_question/2009/11/24/3541600-after-being-misdiagnosed-as-comatose-for-23-years-a-belgian-man-is-now-able-to-communicate-do-you-buy-it
Posted by: SEF | November 25, 2009 1:33 PM
@ Chris #7:
No. Even if any doctors involved aren't actively in on the scam, on the overall scale of things, medical doctors are not really that intelligent. They're mostly selected for rote memorisation rather than intelligent individual thought; and they are self-selecting for wanting the power, the money and the prestige.
I've had doctors being moronic at me for decades. Even when you explain to them, quite slowly and repeatedly, the flaws in their tests, procedures, assumptions etc etc, they're typically just too stupid to get it (and sometimes have too much of a vested interest elsewhere to allow themselves to get it - much like theists).
Posted by: s.k.graham | November 25, 2009 1:35 PM
An article on TimesOnline does claim that the FC was tested, by the neurologist Dr. Laureys.
from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6930608.ece :
The spectacle is so incredible that even Steven Laureys, the neurologist who discovered Mr Houben’s potential, had doubts about its authenticity. He decided to put it to the test.
“I showed him objects when I was alone with him in the room and then, later, with his aide, he was able to give the right answers,” Professor Laureys said. “It is true.”
So... is Laureys telling a out-and-out lie? Did the FC somehow cheat this test? If the above quote is accurate then either the FC, Laureys, or both, are committing deliberate fraud. Unless this somehow legit, which seems unlikely.
I still contend that the videos, including the one where Houden *seems* to be "asleep" are not inherently damning. A conscious paralysed person with limited muscle control of a finger and a facilitator could, with practice, do more or less what we see in the videos. In the case where he seems to be asleep, he could stll be viewing the keyboard through slightly opened eyes (you can see a great deal and have you eyelids appear closed).
Having said that, if the FC is valid it is easily verified... but the TimeOnline article is the only one I've seen that says anything about verification and it is short on detail. Also, in any case where FC works... it would be easier to let the patient communication with some kind of switch or button and some kind of code.
I do believe this FC needs to be publicly tested by skeptics -- mainly to prevent this story legitimizing FC in general and also to prevent false hope/expections in other families facing similar situations.
Posted by: astrounit | November 25, 2009 1:36 PM
OT: Hey, nice write-up on you PZ, now posted on NewScientist.
Posted by: s.k.graham | November 25, 2009 1:38 PM
woops... tried to do a above (#46)... only the two paragraphs after the link are quoted from the article, in case that is not obvious.
Posted by: s.k.graham | November 25, 2009 1:41 PM
One other thought. If it is a deliberate fraud... it is a pretty bad one. I mean wouldn't the fake FC want to make it look difficult, make sure the patient appeared to be paying attention, and so forth?
Posted by: Desert Son, OM
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November 25, 2009 1:46 PM
Nick Johnson at #35,
Would that be a system that operated by dividing options in to sections to narrow down selections (sorry if I'm not explaining this well)?
For example:
"Is the first letter within the range of A to M?"
-bzzt ("No")
At that point, they've established that the first letter is somewhere within N to Z automatically, since the respondent indicated it's not a letter from A to M (my bias is showing: I'm presuming the Flemish alphabet is a 26 letter variety).
So they proceed:
"Is the first letter within the range of N to T?" (narrowing down the second section, the only available option section for the first letter, once more.)
-bzzt ("Yes")
So now they've established the new range of options.
"Is the first letter within the range of N to P?"
etc.
I had to do a similar exercise years ago in a computer science class, if I recall. Just curious if that's the kind of thing you were talking about. That definitely would make the task of communication with just the binary response easier, and might go a long way toward clearing up what's going on with this guy.
Still learning,
Robert
Posted by: Adam_Y | November 25, 2009 1:47 PM
For those actually saying that tapping out messages would take too long how about teaching the man moorse code?
Posted by: s.k.graham | November 25, 2009 1:49 PM
@gr8hands,#21,
It is not that difficult. Have you ever played 20 questions? It would only take 5 yes/no questions to select one from among 26 (up to 32) items. You would start with "Is it the letter M or earlier in the alphabet?" and you would narrow it down from there, cutting down the set of possible letters by half each time. The sequence of yes/no answers would become a 5-bit binary code, asking the questions would not even be necessary. 11111 (5 yes's) would be "A", 1110 would be "B", and so forth.
Whether they actually did anything like this or not is another question.
Posted by: Valhar2000 | November 25, 2009 1:56 PM
And yet, for pointing this out, we are the assholes.
Posted by: corpus.callosum | November 25, 2009 1:58 PM
@Desert son
You don't need anything so cumbersome. The Bauby method (a la Diving Bell + Butterfly, choosing individual letters) is needlessly slow. You could select whole words (think how much of your speech consists of just a few hundred words), incorporate a learning algorithm to predict the most likely next words, have autocomplete options, 'save' common fixed expressions for later use... It might be slow at first but would pick up speed as the machine and the user learn.
Posted by: Dianne | November 25, 2009 1:58 PM
2. type out a coherent sentence using only your index finger.
jy hifdr ret
(Translation: My first try. It didn't go so well.)
Posted by: Acitta | November 25, 2009 1:59 PM
It may be that "facilitated communication" is bogus, however, it seems to me that making a judgment on whether this patient is conscious or not based upon reports in the media rather than talking to his neurologist is also not a scientific approach. Earlier today I listened to this talk about Stanislas Dehaene's work on the consciousness and the brain in which he mentioned the value of his work for determining whether non-communicative patients are conscious or not. It is very interesting work that seems relevant to cases like this one.
Posted by: Desert Son, OM
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November 25, 2009 2:00 PM
s.k.graham at #52,
Aha! Yes, that's what I was curious about. Thanks for the clarification!
It strikes me that such a system would go a long way to helping clear up some of the issues of communication (and by extension, consciousness) in this circumstance.
Still learning,
Robert
Posted by: corpus.callosum | November 25, 2009 2:01 PM
@55
Looks weirdly like Danish or something...
Posted by: Dianne | November 25, 2009 2:07 PM
Looks weirdly like Danish or something...
AH-HA! Proof that I subconsciously know how to speak Danish. Yet I've spent a total of 10 days in Denmark in my whole life, never took a Danish lesson, and know maybe 2 words of Danish. Clearly, I was Danish in my past life and only remember it when I type with one index finger and my eyes closed. Definitive proof of reincarnation right there! (Hey, it works at least as well as the FC nonsense.)
Posted by: Tulse | November 25, 2009 2:08 PM
Wow! Yes indeed, he's got a very nice article about him. But they are so insulting: "Mild-mannered" indeed! Don't they know he breathes fire and eats babies?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 25, 2009 2:10 PM
And? Jibberish is not Flemish, and that would expose the facilitator as a fraudster. Alternatively, the facilitator will actually type Flemish without having ever learned it, confirming either that the method works or that the Holy Ghost has descended upon her and she's speaking in tongues. Decisive results either way. I don't see what you mean.
That's how Stephen Hawking's machine works.
Posted by: David Ellis | November 25, 2009 2:16 PM
No need to get a new facilitator. All that need be done to find out is to have the facilitator leave the room so that you can ask a question without him being able to hear it, then let him come back into the room and see if he can "facilitate" a correct response.
Posted by: Desert Son, OM
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November 25, 2009 2:21 PM
corpus.callosum and David Marjanović, OM,
Thanks for the further clarification!
Still learning,
Robert
Posted by: Colin Meier | November 25, 2009 2:21 PM
Posted by: littlejohn | November 25, 2009 2:25 PM
@44: There's a poll at MSNBC and THERE'S NO NEED TO PHARYNGULATE IT???
Of COURSE there's a need to Pharyngulate it!
http://health.newsvine.com/_question/2009/11/24/3541600-after-being-misdiagnosed-as-comatose-for-23-years-a-belgian-man-is-now-able-to-communicate-do-you-buy-it
Off we go!
Posted by: corpus.callosum | November 25, 2009 2:38 PM
@61
Yes! Hawking's device was exactly what I was thinking of.
Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake | November 25, 2009 2:39 PM
Yes, the votes on the MSNBC pole are leaning strongly towards the sceptical side, but I wouldn't be to happy about it just yet, since the wording of the poll is extremely biased toward the sceptical answer.
I mean, come on. They might as well have formulated it as:
* I'm as gullible as they come
* I have thought this through
[pick one]
Posted by: gerryfromktown | November 25, 2009 2:45 PM
This is all about the facilitator – its her scam and she is controlling the setup.
Here is an interview with the facilitator:
http://www.accessinterviews.com/interviews/detail/linda-wouters/18085
Of course, she speaks English – how else could she be operating the scam.
Posted by: Sili
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November 25, 2009 2:46 PM
Admittedly I'm forgetting more and more Danish the more I think in English, but for the time being I'll claim that that's still gibberish.Though the "fdr" makes me think of Old Norse/English. David would be able to elaborate on that.
Posted by: lauram | November 25, 2009 2:47 PM
thus is a ciheremt semtemve
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | November 25, 2009 2:50 PM
But that is painfully slow in terms of spelling out words to communicate:
The guy's had 23 years. Painfully slow ain't the issue.
Posted by: Geds | November 25, 2009 2:51 PM
Acronym Jim @15 2. type out a coherent sentence using only your index finger.
Sentence? Try a single word. I'm a touch typist using my work laptop, on which I type five days a week and am capable of at least 80 words a minute. I tried to type "hello," starting with my finger on the H key. It took me seven tries to get it right. I ran through "hrjji," "hrkko," "hhelli," and a couple rounds of "hekko" before I finally got it right.
No friggin' way the guy is actually typing complete sentences and writing books with his eyes closed and almost no motor skills.
Posted by: Danish
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November 25, 2009 2:53 PM
@58
It looks nothing like me!
Seriously, it definitely is not even remotely Danish. It looks more like a cat walked over the keyboard. :)
Posted by: F
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November 25, 2009 2:55 PM
This is nuts. The Guardian compares poor Ron
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/23/man-trapped-coma-23-years
to these other, now fully conscious, people.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/24/falsely-diagnosed-coma-rom-houben
I just can't see the comparison. Now, if they had been running tests like these,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=conditional-consciousness
I could see where a case might be made. But heck, facilitated communication has even been debunked in popular culture, as well as scientifically.
Off topic: Really cool images. "10 Bioscapes"
http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=illuminating-the-lilliputian-bioscapes-winners&photo_id=FF35FE5D-D2F5-40BE-04CD4AB1679F8878
see also the link for the 15 honorable mentions lower on the page.
Posted by: evinfuilt | November 25, 2009 3:00 PM
They've already guaranteed you can't use another "facilitator" in that she "studied" his movement for months, learning to read what he's trying to type.
Yup, this is a massive hoax, and our media has taken the hook blindly.
Posted by: daveau
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November 25, 2009 3:02 PM
Wow! Rom just typed "My hovercraft is full of eels" in Hungarian.
Posted by: SteveM | November 25, 2009 3:09 PM
Hawking is pretty much limited to communicating through a single muscle twitch to select words on his computer. Why not have Houben use the same system?
similar is the "T9" system to text on a standard phone keyboard. You don't generally need to narrow down your letter choice beyond the 3 (or 4) letters on each number key, because as you build a word, it filters to only what's in the dictionary. Generally only very short words have ambiguous encodings.
Posted by: Qwerty
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November 25, 2009 3:11 PM
89=7
I looked at my keyboard; then tried to type the word "type" with my eyes closed. The above is the result.
Posted by: J Dubb | November 25, 2009 3:22 PM
I hate to tell you guys this, but FC is alive and well. Dr. Douglas Biklen, the man who did the most to popularize FC, has recovered quite well from the beatdown he received on Frontline ("Prisoners of Silence"). He's still writing books, and still heading a graduate program in FC at Syracuse U. Lots of people all over the country are still being trained to use FC.
The fact that FC was totally destroyed, utterly disproved over and over again simply doesn't matter to most people.
Posted by: Personal Failure | November 25, 2009 3:36 PM
I am a legal secretary. I type for 4-8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for last 5 years. I couldn't get anything coherent going with one finger with my eyes closed.
Posted by: chrisD | November 25, 2009 3:42 PM
Looks like a booby hat...
Speaking of boobies, where has wÒÓt been? I miss my occasional dose of boobies, he was really needed in the last Houben thread...
Posted by: gr8hands | November 25, 2009 3:50 PM
I'm so glad that several of you chose to see a more efficient communication system. (I wasn't expressing what I thought the end result of an analyzed, structured communication system could be after much planning -- only what could be started immediately by any layperson without any training whatsoever. It was to demonstrate the point that it would be slower than most people would feel comfortable accepting for conversing. That being said, this is a science blog, so I should have made a better first effort, as the quality of reader is pretty high.)
You're right, a predictive system like the one used by Hawking and others would be better than any faux facilitated fraud.
Of course, this presumes that the report of his being able to consciously control his toe is accurate. Right now, I'm skeptical of the whole article, since they are clearly loose with the facts.
Posted by: Lurky | November 25, 2009 3:55 PM
I posted this same link on the original thread (which is going strong at around 900 posts) but I'll repost here too, cuz it's funny. Brain scanning a dead fish: http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf
Posted by: Oolon Colluphid
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November 25, 2009 4:37 PM
Messrs Armstrong & Miller did a great sketch on a similar situation recently - if you're in the UK go to about 25:35 in
Episode 4 on Iplayer.
Posted by: Irene Delse | November 25, 2009 4:43 PM
Speaking of medias, it's good to see that Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing is also tackling the case from a skeptical point of view.
Posted by: 386sx | November 25, 2009 4:43 PM
They've already guaranteed you can't use another "facilitator" in that she "studied" his movement for months, learning to read what he's trying to type.
Yep. I think I read that the facilitator supposedly was working with him for three years or something like that.
Posted by: Ted Powell | November 25, 2009 4:51 PM
According to: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1230092/Rom-Houben-Patient-trapped-23-year-coma-conscious-along.html
If this is really so, it should be possible to watch his eyes move left and right as he takes in each line of text. If he can indeed move his eyes left and right in a controlled manner, it should be possible for him to communicate without the involvement of a "facilitator".Just think—his first sentence might be, "Leggo my hand!"
Posted by: DLC
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November 25, 2009 6:34 PM
If the man could communicate by any means he does not need anyone holding his hand. It may be slow but it works. The family need to step back and wait.
Posted by: maradydd
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November 25, 2009 6:38 PM
If this is really so, it should be possible to watch his eyes move left and right as he takes in each line of text. If he can indeed move his eyes left and right in a controlled manner, it should be possible for him to communicate without the involvement of a "facilitator".
Absolutely. If he can move his eyes, they should be using a gesture-tracking interface, e.g. Dasher, with an eye-tracking system. (Dasher users with that configuration have clocked up to 29wpm typing speed.) Screw the FC, let the guy talk on his own if he's able to talk at all.
Posted by: Rosemary | November 25, 2009 7:15 PM
I am skeptical about facilitated communication too, but according to this AP story Houben has also communicated independently:
Posted by: AJ Milne
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November 25, 2009 7:22 PM
Re #15... hrm... typing experiments... cool (yes, I find odd things cool)...
Mine are below. First off: I type ~100 wpm on online tests with normal touch typing (reporter many long years, programmer/h/w architect many more longer years). And have developed custom keyboards for a few platforms, including one truly cool oddball I'm very proud of the for the PSP. And I truly could (easily) draw a normal QWERTY board like the one I'm typing on now and the one I did this with from memory ... possibly would have to imagine myself typing to find some of the shifted punctuation over the numbers, but otherwise: I know where it all is, normally type without looking.
So, with my index finger only, eyes closed, and feeling the keys for the nubs that identify f and j on mine and the tab next to the a mostly (which happens to be wider on mine, so you can find it blind--nice, since I was using j as my 'home' for my index finger ... and so no, I'm not sure this applies to FC anyway), I was able to do this (opening eyes, checking after each line to see how I did)...
typimgnlimd is dard/
typimm blins ts hard.
typing blinnnd ts dard.
tying blibd 8w hard.
tyutcss xhtcd hard.*
typing blind is hard.
typing blind is hard.
now tryyy something else.
... and it's painfully slow, to say the least. Like, I dunno--mighta hit something like .3 cps toward the end sometimes--didn't actually time...
... so, umm... seems farfetched. Is he touching the board in the video, tho', at least? Can he even feel it?
(And by the way, it seems to me a standard QWERTY board is probably not the best way to do something like this, seems to me... seems to me something you could feel, maybe with more tactile clues, and which the travel from home was shorter, more flexible might make more sense... some kinda star arrangement... imagine tho' there's real research into that somewhere.)
(*/Huh. Not quite sure what happened here. Go fig.)
Posted by: llewelly | November 25, 2009 7:58 PM
That's because you always type with 10 fingers rather than 1. Different skills.Posted by: Teshi | November 25, 2009 8:10 PM
Stephen Drake at the blog Dead Like Me has rebutted Caplan's comments. I think they're worth a look.
Link
Sounds like someone has done at least one test to see if the facilitator is doing the typing or not.
Posted by: Teshi | November 25, 2009 8:16 PM
Oh, I meant "Not Dead Yet", not "Dead Like Me". Crucial difference.
Posted by: BA | November 25, 2009 8:41 PM
Rarely is FC deliberate fraud. Most facilitators in such endeavors actually believe they are helping.
Posted by: Crod | November 25, 2009 8:46 PM
Has anyone addressed the validity of his experiment? According to AP: "But Laureys' team showed Houben an object while his aide was taken outside, and when she came back in he was able to write it down correctly, said Prof. Audren Vandaudenhuyse, a colleague of Laureys."
For the layperson this may be adequate, but I want to know the conditions of that experiment and what controls were put in place. I am not quite ready to accept the results due to the previous research that completely overshadows what Laureys has done. It pains me to assume Laureys and his colleagues are lying, but what other explanation is there, considering the massive amount of past evidence proving FC is bunk?
So how can one request a more rigorous experiment without being demonized by the hopeful public?
Posted by: aaarrrgghhhh | November 25, 2009 8:52 PM
Not read the blog yet, but may I point out that flemish is NOT a language. the language is DUTCH. As a flemish belgian it drives me NUTS that foreigners keep on using the word flemish. It is an identity, not a language. At the very best you could also call it a collection of dialects, but seeing that proper dialect speaker of the east will have trouble with someone from the west, you still cannot say that someone speaks flemish.
Posted by: Ellie
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November 26, 2009 12:06 AM
Crod @96
I absolutely agree. Dr Laureys clearly very badly wants this to be true and so he is not a good person to administer this test. Also, we have what appears to be incontrovertible evidence showing Rom "typing" while asleep. That makes Dr Laureys's claim extraordinary and means he must produce evidence at least as strong to counter. Under these circumstances we need a video of a trial carried out by someone impartial.
By the way, any test that requires a new facilitator (such as all the language ones) are no good because proponents of the technique say it needs experience of working with each other to work properly. Much better to do some sort of flash card exercise.
I don't believe they are lying necessarily, but I do think Dr Laureys and the family are likely to be deluding themselves. As for the facilitator herself, delusion is less likely but still, I think, possible.
Posted by: Mack the Spife | November 26, 2009 6:59 AM
I can touch type 60+words a minute two handed. Because I broke my arm while taking a typing class, I learned how to do about 35 words a minute one handed, by touch. Still this is my result for attempting "touch typing is hard work" with one finger and eyes closed.
tiyxg tyoing id jaed aork
And it took a while to type with one finger.
There is no way this man could be that coherent, accurate and speedy.
Besides, if Rom Houben had indeed been conscious but unable to move or communicate for 23 plus years, I don't think he'd be sane anymore. If he had been conscious, his first communique, without the helpful aid of that oh so nice "facilitator" would likely have been along the lines of "why didn't you let me die?"
It's simple really. If he is indeed conscious and communicating independently, and has some voluntary muscle control, then he should be able to communicate like Bauby did. Indicating yes or no by movement, or with someone rattling off the alphabet, and moving to indicate the correct letter. This would settle the issue of whether or not he's conscious and communicating. It would not settle the issue of whether or not he'd been awake and aware the entire 23 years, but first I think the doctors involved need to prove beyond doubt that he is indeed capable of conscious thought.
Posted by: Peptron | November 26, 2009 10:31 AM
My gut feeling watching it all unfold is that the doctor is being manipulated and that the facilitator is a delibarate fraud in it for easy fame and money. I mean... the typing fast, the typing while the guy is asleep, the insisting that they did a test to prove FC works (a test that nobody saw done and that they seem to insist they won't reproduce), the woman communicating in English AND the news about the guy writing a book right away. That's just too many beneficial coincidences all one after the other.
To me there is a strong Nigerian scam smell to this one.
Posted by: Acronym Jim | November 26, 2009 11:17 AM
laurum@70:
Congratulations on knowing the obscure second line of lyrics from "Thus Spake Zarathustra."
Posted by: Acronym Jim | November 26, 2009 11:35 AM
Congratulations to everyone who played "Sightless One Fingered Touch Typing."*
Now we move on to the more difficult second round of competition. For the second round you will need to find someone who knows you well. This person will be your "facilitator." With your "facilitator" guiding your finger and your eyes still closed, attempt to type a new coherent sentence, but do not tell your "facilitator" what you're trying to type.
Would you predict a better success rate or worse one?
*There are no losers in this game and the points are made up.
Posted by: Grev | November 26, 2009 6:47 PM
Any technique that can be conclusively disproven by the writers of Law and Order is fraudulent at its core.
Posted by: Spike Vicious | November 26, 2009 8:16 PM
I absolutely agree that this is a clear case of someone taking advantage of a families want and need to believe that their member is conscious and functioning and while a part of me would love to see an accurate test put in place to truly see whether or not he has regained consciousness to do so could cause offense...
The trouble in this case is that the people who are screaming "hoax!" like you, I and the others reading along this blog are not involved or directly affected by the situation and the people that are, the family, are willing and wanting to believe that he can think and communicate. To go to them and say "We just want to see proof!" would be to somehow assume that we have some right to know the truth in this little situation... unfortunately the only people who have that right seem to be preferring blissful ignorance, or at least aren't willing to question the truth that is being presented to them... no-one can really stand up and say "You must know the truth! For OUR sake!"
Posted by: Henry M. Harris
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November 26, 2009 8:23 PM
I'm a retired scientist who agrees with your skepticism of organized religion. The only good thing I can say about modern religion is at least they don't burn scientists at the stake anymore.
From time to time I get representative of various religious institutions knocking on my door with the intent of showing me the light. The last time there was this diminutive and extremely nervous older man preaching to me, bible in hand, who kept glancing at the big bruiser he brought with him who apparently was there in case my rationality erupted into savage violence. Or maybe he was there to make sure the right message got across. Sort of reminded me of the mafia.
But, to be fair, I think it's also true that science doesn't know everything either. A recent Scientific American article claimed that intelligent behavior arises from the number of connections in the brain. We're smarter than rats because we have more connections and that explains everything. That's an interesting theory, but it's a theory without any evidence to back it up, and I seriously doubt it could be true. If it were, the telephone network might suddenly one day gain sentience—perhaps a good science fiction story but no more than that.
So it's clear we don't really understand our own existence, and in that lack of understanding lies a profound mystery. Organized religion capitalizes on this mystery to fund large edifices of stone and complex systems of belief. Science, on the other hand, is left with lame theories about numbers of connections. Science needs to step up to plate and give us a theory that explains more than just the evolution of the species. It needs to explain how a brain that weighs a little more than a kilogram can produce a consciousness that dreams one day it can understand its own existence.
Posted by: Ali | November 27, 2009 5:16 AM
tid id mt gotrdy ytu.
That was meant to be "this is my first try." and I'd say it was pretty awesome. Not comprehensible, but I apparently know where some letters are? But not the gap between R and T?
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 27, 2009 5:30 AM
That's an interesting theory, but it's a theory without any evidence to back it up - Henry M. Harris
Not so: quite consistently, species with more connections in their brain show more sophisticated behaviour: that's evidence. Severing various connections produces cognitive defects: that's evidence. Mice with increased cognitive abilities have, IIRC, recently been produced by altering a gene that affects the density of neural connections (I'll look for the reference when I have time). I'm sure any neuroscientist could give you far more than that.
Posted by: Tulse | November 27, 2009 9:18 AM
New Scientist has an interview with the doctor who declared the man conscious. Despite the title "How I know 'coma man' is conscious", his answers seem extremely evasive.
Posted by: SEF | November 27, 2009 12:14 PM
Don't they just! Plus, if he was any sort of a decent scientist he wouldn't be outraged at people wanting to question the veracity of the facilitated communication - he'd understand it as exactly the right reaction to have. Instead he falsely tries to pretend that what people are really saying is that the victim, Rom Houben, can't possibly be conscious - which isn't it at all.
Posted by: Henry M. Harris
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November 27, 2009 2:12 PM
While it’s true that increased intelligence across species is associated with an increased number of connections in the brain, that doesn’t prove that connections are the basis for consciousness. It’s a weak argument at best because there is not even a theory of cognition that can be substantiated. If you were a savage coming across modern machines, a car for example, you might notice that the number of parts increased with the sophistication of the machine's function, but if you claimed that ability was the result of the number of parts, you'd be wrong. To truly understand a car you'd need a theory of internal combustion at the very least. Simply observing degradation of the function as you removed a part wouldn't tell you how the machine worked, but it would convince you that the function was associated with the machine in question. But even then you might be wrong. For example, removing a part from a radio might convince you that the music you heard was generated inside the radio. And from some evidence, that example might even be the better model.
Posted by: Tulse | November 27, 2009 2:21 PM
Nothing is "proved" in science -- that's not how it works. However, a correlation between neural connections and some general notion of intelligence is certainly suggestive, and offers more support for that neural model than any other account offered.
There is no other theory of cognition that is remotely in the running, and certainly work with computer simulations and AI gives very good reason to think that cognition has something to do with neural connections. We may not know exactly how it works, but it's the only (scientific) game in town -- there simply is no other plausible explanation.
Posted by: Henry M. Harris
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November 27, 2009 4:48 PM
Nothing is "proved" in science
So the fact that the Earth goes around the Sun has not been proven?
I think I can safely tell you that the current field of artificial intelligence has nothing to do with human intelligence, and it may never have any. We simply don't understand human cognition enough to emulate it, and it's not because of lack of trying. I believe one day we will, but it almost certainly will come about because of some deep insight that eludes us now.
we may not know exactly how it works, but it's the only (scientific) game in town -- there simply is no other plausible explanation.
All the science we now know was not "plausible" at some point in time and therefore "unscientific." In my humble opinion, intelligence in humans and animals can't be understood now because of some fundamental piece of knowledge we are missing. To assume otherwise we shut our minds to the possibilities of the universe.
A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks it should be - Albert Einstein
Posted by: Steven Mading
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November 28, 2009 11:34 AM
Whether the man is conscious and whether or not the Facilitated Communication is a fraud should be viewed as two independant issues. It's in principle possible for the claims about him answering yes/no questions by foot pedal to be true (the details in the articles are woefully missing about this claim) even if his facilitator is a fraud who's putting words in his mouth for her own purposes.
If the claims about the yes/no pedal are true, it should be trivial to ask for confirmation of each utterance that the facilitator "translated". For example, the facilitator types "I like green eggs and ham", and then the patient is asked "Do you like green eggs and ham? Yes or No?"
Check if the responses match up over several trials.
Even if the patient is conscious, that doesn't prove FC is real. Even if FC is a fraud, that doesn't prove the patient is not conscious.
(If the patient really is consicous, he might be totally unaware of what the facilitator's answers are if he can't feel his hand and can't see the screen. He might not even realize answers are being given for him.)
Posted by: Mark K Bilbo
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December 1, 2009 12:58 PM
This one hacks me off to no end. Vulnerable people are being exploited and somebody should go to jail.
The doctor claims the man could move enough to do "yes/no". If that's so, we have interfaces (ala Hawking) that would enable him to communicate, no "facilitator" necessary. Who's paying the "facilitator" and how much? Hmmm?
Imagine the horror if he actually *is* conscious and some exploitative twerp is "facilitating" him to say things contrary to what he wants to say?
And he's going to write a book now is he? So, what's the "facilitator's" cut?
Posted by: baju
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February 1, 2010 11:26 AM
I'm sure the family, who clings to any false hope that this man can recover