Comment by techpeace | Hacker News Reader

Comment by techpeace | Hacker News Reader

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"I don’t know anything about Tim Ferris’s exercise regime. He came through our Sport and Fitness Evaluation Program for some testing a number of years ago. He did not provide any information about his purpose. In fact, I only found out that he put my name on his website after receiving an inquiry from someone who had seen the website and asked if I could confirm his results. I cannot — he signed a consent form that states that individual results will not be disclosed. Although he contacted me about being retested, I am not willing to do that because he is apparently using my name and San Jose State University for his commercial purposes, without asking for permission or notifying me of this."

The above quotation is allegedly from the doctor that Ferriss sites at the beginning of The 4 Hour Body. I have not verified that the quotation is legitimate, but I found it within this review of the book: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=337...

I found the review when I was researching some of the claims he makes within the book, claims which, to me, seemed to be obviously fraudulent. Assuming it's true, I have a hard time understanding why anyone should seek him out for advice on any matter.

This runs the other way for me, suggesting that Ferris at least made a good faith effort to get supporting data. No-one is claiming the data is wrong here. It's the "fitness evaluation expert" who is refusing to confirm or even retest the guy. And her scorn about "commercial purposes" rings particularly hollow given she is taking salary from a publicly-funded university.

Reminds me of the time I paid a US university hospital for various STD tests for visa purposes, and then the hospital refused to give me the resulting paperwork citing patient confidentiality. Totally ridiculous.

I think there's a difference between getting "supporting data" (or your own medical test results) and using a physician (and a university's name) without their express permission to both:

1. promote a commercial work, and 2. espouse an exercise regime that may be harmful.

Tim has responded to my comment on that original post:

"Matt,

To be clear: - Dr. Plato took most of the measurements in one chapter titled “Geek to Freak” - As she noted, I’ve contacted her several times (phone and email) in the desire to confirm data and even repeat tests. My last email to her was in March of 2009 and read:

“Dear Dr. Plato,

It has been some time since we last spoke, and I hope this finds you well! We did a number of hydrostatic weighings and circumference measurements back in 2005/2006, when I was gaining a lot of muscular weight as an experiment.

Are you still working at the Human Performance Laboratory? I will be writing a new book about physical optimization and will need to track things well. Do you have any availability for a visit from me and one other person anytime soon?”

If I wanted to falsify data, I wouldn’t include a specific person’s name. Too much headache for everyone. I hoped to actually work with Dr. Plato to present things, but she didn’t respond to my email/phone.

That is. Nothing sinister about it.

All the best,

Tim Ferriss"

I don't know if I'm missing the point here, but I don't see anything wrong with getting tests done and letting people know who did the testing and where.

Unless Ferris is claiming a personal endorsement of his program that does not exist, this is a non-issue. The university and physician seem to have been given ample opportunity to divorce themselves from the published results and/or retest. The refusal to do either because Ferriss doesn't work for the civil service is churlish.

The problem is using a physician's name to lend authority to a physical regimen that might be harmful without that physician's approval. He's clearly attempting to mislead his readers.

This has nothing to do with Ferris not working for the civil service.

The physician is refusing to confirm the results b/c Ferris signed an NDA prohibiting the university from releasing the results. Ferris, obviously, was not bound by that NDA.

> It's the "fitness evaluation expert" who is refusing to confirm or even retest the guy. And her scorn about "commercial purposes" rings particularly hollow given she is taking salary from a publicly-funded university.

I'm also amused by their NDA. It reminds me of the EULAs that try to forbid you from posting reviews or benchmarks or basically anything that might be informative.

You're missing the point.

TF is attempting to bolster his bulls#$& by claiming that this doctor at San Jose State can verify his results. Of course, TF also took steps to make sure that nobody could actually check with the doctor, b/c he refuses to allow the doctor to release the results.

The only time people do that is when they're deliberately misrepresenting the facts but want to prevent people from finding out.

That's the way I read it at first, too--but look carefully:

> I cannot - he signed a consent form that states that individual results will not be disclosed. Although he contacted me about being retested, I am not willing to do that...

It's the university's consent form that says they can't release the results; not Tim Ferriss. Ferriss wanted to be retested, presumably without that consent form, and the doctor refused.

Hold on - isn't HN the same crowd that says "Don't ask permission, ask forgiveness"? Though it was against the doctor's wishes, I don't think what Tim did was out of line (assuming it's the truth). If it were libel, he'd be seeing a lawsuit. He was just telling people what happened.

Its easier to take down a website than to remove a book from someone's bookshelf. It might be easier to copy a website, but, content gets lost from the web all the time.

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