Supercourse Newsletter - 12 February 2006
-----------------------------------------
Dear Friends:
"If that boy billionaire thinks he can shut me up, he should
stick his head in a can of paint." Steelers announcer Myron Cope
There are several interesting items. Eugene said that we are
very close to crossing over the 2,500 lecture hump. We have 2,
480 lectures and we are nearly there. As you know we always have
a lunch at our Indian Restaurant when we cross over another 100
barrier. We dream of the day that we can have a virtual lunch,
where we have our Indian food in Pittsburgh, and all of you
could be connected at your local McDonalds (or other place!) for
some outstanding Scottish food.
Quality Control:
One of the areas that has held our attention for the past decade
has been the issue of quality control. Editors from across the
world have attacked our views of peer review. It has been most
fun. Peer review has been viewed as an extension of the scien-
tific method. We argue that if it is a major component of sci-
ence, it should be examined scientifically. Saying this has cre-
ated an uproar as questioning peer review is like questioning
the World Cup, or your mother�s cooking. Faina Linkov just re-
cently completed her dissertation on web based peer review that
she will describe in future editions of the newsletter. There
was a wonderful article by Tom Jefferson (who was also one of
the first contributors to the Supercourse),
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/287/21/2786 which dem-
onstrated how little work has been done on the science of peer
review, and how little evidence there was that peer review
worked.
What is interesting as you have all seen in recent weeks with
the fraud related to stem cell, and oral cancer among others is
that we are seeing journals starting to back away from pure re-
liance on peer review. Instead they are shifting the focus to
�replication�, thus the consistency over time of research find-
ings to weed out fraud and error.
The Supercourse has been criticized that we do not have a peer
review process. Actually, we have 5 different modes of quality
control. We did not use traditional peer review as it is horri-
bly expensive, variable, and no clear evidence that it worked.
We are not like a journal, but more like a library. Much of the
reliability of the content in a library is due to replication.
For example in our school there are about 10 books on epidemiol-
ogy. Replication is thought to identify scientific inconsisten-
cies that may be due to errors or fraud. It also plays a vital
role to keep research areas current.
The reason that I went through this long explanation is that we
have something really cool in the Supercourse. During the past 7
years people have asked me as to what lectures I want from them.
I give exactly same answers, we want your best lectures, not
your dog lectures. I also have indicated that is it great to
have lectures having the same title, as we all approach things
somewhat different. Thus a teacher in Nigeria can mix and match
slides using our lectures.
What is really exciting is something that we just realized. Gil
Omenn has a lecture on public health genetics. As we searched
through the Supercourse there are 9 other lectures on public
health genetics. Suppose one of the leaders of Public Health Ge-
netics, Franco Mendel, included a lecture on Public Health Ge-
netics, the importance of Intelligent Design. It likely would be
identified in the other 9 lectures as being inconsistent. Eugene
just looked at several others, case-control studies, 7 repli-
cates, type 2 diabetes, 8, TB 8.
The power of these replicates is that it gives teachers opportu-
nities to pick and chose what they want. Also, if there are er-
rors, we can find them as either we who know the field, or the
other 10 lectures on the same topic will point these out to us.
We are more likely to identify errors and fraud than journals.
Cool Stuff:
Russ Kirby, outstanding lecturer in the Supercourse and also
from the Uni. of Alabama, just received the president's award
for the National Birth Defects Prevention Network. Way to go
Russ!!!
Dr. Russell S. Kirby, professor and vice chair of the Department
of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Univer-
sity of Alabama at Birmingham, was awarded the President�s Award
for 2005 by the National Birth Defects Prevention Network at its
annual meeting on Wednesday, February 1.
Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award:
Arlene Cohen, Supercourse supporter for a long time has won the
Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award. Hearti-
est congratulations to Arlene!
Indian Supercourse Network:
Since the past 3 years, the Supercourse team has developed the
"Indian Supercourse Network" as a part of the Supercourse. The
Indian Supercourse is a collection of lectures in Epidemiology,
Public Health and Community Medicine, on topics of particular
interest to teachers and students in India. Currently, we have
about 4112 active collaborators in India, who are physicians,
academics and researchers. We have 94 lectures on topics of in-
terest to audiences in India, such as tropical diseases, family
planning and diseases commonly seen in India such as endemic
flourosis and iodene deficiency. These lectures are locally pro-
duced and also culturally appropriate.
All these lectures are available online at the Indian Super-
course website http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/india/india.htm
Mita Lovalekar, MBBS, MPH is the coordinator of this network.
All of these lectures of the Indian Supercourse Network are
available for free. Our vision for the Indian Network is that it
will make public health knowledge on topics of interest to Indi-
ans easily available for everyone. Many of these topics are of-
ten neglected in textbooks written in developed countries. The
Supercourse team and everyone in the Indian Network look forward
to collaborating with you.
I may be dumb, but I�m not stupid. - Terry Bradshaw, former
quarterback, Steelers
SuperBowl -- SuperCourse
We wanted to thank the many people who have congratulated Pitts-
burgh with the Superbowl (win http://www.steelers.com/). We are
smiling. American football is a strange sport, where a game
lasts 3 hours, and there are about 42 seconds of action. Now the
players on the team have the BMIs of Sumo wrestlers. Pittsburgh
is the world�s champion. It is really a strange concept of
�world�s champion� when only 2 other countries have professional
teams, Canada, and Australia. I am not sure Australia really
qualifies, although a great game, it seems to be a mutant off-
spring of all forms of football.
I think, however, our Supercourse team can challenge the
Steelers, and all the other football players to a match. Our
team is global, the Steelers are local. Our team weighs on aver-
age 64 kilos, the Steelers weigh 140 kilos, our team averages 40
years old, their age 23, the Steelers earn over $1,000,000 per
year, we earn a bit less. However, on the positive side, our IQs
are 20-30 points greater than football players. In addition,
disturbingly, none of the current US football players have pub-
lished in the Lancet, BMJ, or any journal. Even more impor-
tant... None... of the current US football players, living OR
dead, has contributed a lecture to the Supercourse. Our team is
thus more �Super� than the Superbowl champs.
For these reasons I think that the Supercourse can easily win a
Superbowl of global health. The point spread is about 13 points.
So what if we won ugly? - Bill Cowher, Steeler Coach
Best Regards from the Supercourse Champs,
Ron the Bus, Faina Ward, Mean Joe Shubnikov, Mita Porter, Troy
Dodani, Francois Harris, Rania Foote, Nicolas Lambert, Jiaying
Ham, Ali Swan