My thoughts on Wayne Dermans evidence:
- his specialty is Sports and Exercise Medicine, yet the bulk of his expert report deals with neuroscience, experimental psychology and psychiatry
- he included hearsay evidence of a general anecdotal nature of a masseuse from London in his report to support his expert findings and even the Judge was forced to strike it as irrelevant to a finding in the accused
- he included much character evidence by the back door that didnt appear relevant in such a report
- some matters of fact included in his report are false, e.g. he claimed this Independent article
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/attacks-on-disabled-people-still-rife--one-year-on-from-paralympics-triumph-8788521.html reported a rise in violent attacks on disabled post-2012, but this is misrepresenting what is actually reported, it actually never says this
- he tried to present a finding of anxiety trait (this means you show some signs and symptoms but do not meet the diagnosis) in the accused as something abnormal, but this is very common (half of population) and many would say physiological and normal, it does not make him special in any way
- he did not present any medical history, interview or formal examination taken by himself in this regard - this is a basic requirement of any doctor before he makes a finding
- if he observed an issue he should have explored it and managed or treated it further but he made no mention of this
- he supported his finding by his claimed observation of the accused cowering and covering ears at loud bangs like planned fireworks ceremonies, but this is frankly unbelievable given what we know and have seen
- he also supported this by a claimed observation of hand tremor - but he did not describe the tremor in any usual medical terms or contexts, consider other causes - and evidence shows the contrary, that in highly stressful situations such as national TV interviews his hands look rock solid
- we can assume he mostly saw Pistorius when he was competing or preparing to compete or when he came with a medical problem, and it would be normal to be anxious here
- he tried to further support his finding by data from his K10 experiment, but the data shows absolutely nothing remarkable and proves nothing. this is very important - it really does show nothing.
Issue 1) The post-race scores do NOT represent normal scores. They were taken while still at the World Championships one day after the closing ceremony, and as the test asks about the previous 30 days are significantly affected by pre-race anxiety, travel, etc - just to a lesser degree than pre-race scores.
Issue 2) Pistorius post-race score was still given as 19 anyway, <20 is considered normal
Issue 3) In the study, the mean post-race score of 25 athletes was 16.1 and Derman correctly states that Pistoriuss score was above the mean - and implied some significance to this. However, it is unremarkable given a) points 1 and 2 above, b) the standard deviation was 5.2 as reported in the abstract here
http://www.idrett.no/SiteCollectionDocuments/2011Abstrakter%20fra%20VISTA%20konferansen%202011.pdf see p52 - this means the 95% confidence interval of the mean, i.e. where statistically we can say it probably lies, is 14.1 to 18.1, this means we can only confidently say that Pistorius score is just 1 above the mean, this is unremarkable given half of participants would be above the mean anyway, assuming a normal distribution of results
Issue 4) Pistorius took the test at 2 meetings, but Derman only gave the result of 1 post-race score. Which meeting was this and what was the other post-race score?
Issue 5) Derman only gave a mean score of 25 athletes from 1 meeting - is this meeting the same meeting as the score he gave for Pistorius?
- he then talked about various statistics from across the world on disability and risk of violence in general, but why is this relevant? the actual relevant aspect of perceived fear of violence was never once addressed
- the context of these figures - outside home, in institutions, etc - and whether they can even apply to Mr Pistorius in South Africa, in a private estate, at home in the night with his girlfriend was never addressed
- the fact as to whether these statistics would have been known about by Mr Pistorius yet alone uppermost in his mind was also not addressed, in fact some of the statistics Derman gave were from after the incident, their relevance to the case can surely be nil
- the important fact that there never was an intruder or risk of violence was never mentioned
- Mr Pistorius has never reported being targeted due to his disability and this also was never mentioned
- he then led into the startle response, and its measurement
- he said it can he higher if a person has been fear-conditioned shortly before/anticipatory, and also if a person has anxiety
- its really not clear why this is relevant to the case, the startle response is NOT the fight or flight response
- it is a quick reflex that lasts moments - almost always either a blink or a flinch of the neck and shoulders, and it is always bilateral and symmetrical in humans - i.e. one arm or shoulder muscle flexes, the other also does the same. if youve ever blinked due to a sudden loud noise, or flinched because you felt something on your back suddenly, this is the startle response
- in experiments, we are measuring the strength and briskness of muscle contraction with electrodes, in humans, rats, mice - we are not observing anything like a dramatic response
- it cannot involve pulling a trigger or picking up a gun or going down a corridor
- I really dont know where he is going with this - I hope he is not going to imply these experiments prove a more dramatic and intense flight or fight response in life-endangering situations, because this is bogus
- he also discussed anecdotes of mothers picking up cars and warding off polar bears to rescue their children
- he said this is relevant to the case because it shows the fight-or-flight response can involve confronting and going towards the danger, like Pistorius did
- however, this analogy simply doesnt hold water. in the cars and polar bear, the danger has already approached and confronted the victims, and it is confronted back out of necessity in order to rescue the children
- this is very different to approaching and confronting a danger that sits on its own that is not approaching or directly endangering you, and when other options are available
- I found it amusing that he blamed We are the Super Humans slogan for his claim of increased attacks on disabled, but then wants to claim, as in the masseurs email, that disabled people have a superhuman flight of fight reaction that surpasses the full-pelt adrenaline reaction of a life-endangering situation for a normal person
