[thedoc (OP)]

A gorilla image the same size as a box of matches superimposed into a chest CT scan was missed by over 80% of a group of expert radiologists

Read the whole story on our website by clicking here

  

[alancalverd]

This is surely a Good Thing, and Bad Science.

The artefact was not a CT image of a gorilla that had been inhaled (gorillas do not have exoskeletons), but a set of pixels that, to the experimenter, looked like a 2-D outline pictogram of a gorilla. In fact it is a very poor representation - the upper limbs are far too short for any ape.

Suppose, instead of a superimposed artefact, there had been a set of true pixels that resembled a famous representation of Jesus, or a passage from the Koran, and 98% of radiologists reported this "miracle" instead of diagnosing the patient's illness. The story would surely have ended up in the Daily Mail (or a negligence claim) and not a journal with scientific pretensions.

However, the result is still quite dismal and highlights the fact that even a highly-trained eye can miss the blindingly obvious. 

Crap. Skill is about extracting signal from noise. Expertise is about assigning significance to the signal. 

A: "The aircraft at 10 o'clock is on a collision course with us"

B: "There's a child's drawing of a gorilla on the nose of the aircraft at 10 o'clock"

Spot the "dismal" pilot.   

[RD]

... Suppose, instead of a superimposed artefact, there had been a set of true pixels that resembled a famous representation of Jesus ...

or Mary ...


http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/pareidolia-in-the-brain/

[alancalverd]

Nice one, RD!

And an afterthought

gorillas do not have exoskeletons

.... and even if they did, the (exo)skeleton - or any inhaled dense object - would be displayed in white, not black, on a conventional CT image.

[dlorde]

I can see this result would be poor if the radiologists were actually looking for a tiny gorilla, but they weren't; they would have been looking for clinical signs of lung disease in the scans, which are surely not judged on their resemblance to tiny primates. They almost certainly examined the gorilla-shaped blob, assessed it's clinical significance, and moved on.

[alancalverd]

What worries me is that nobody, not even the experimenters themselves, noticed the alien Balinese dancer where the patient's heart should be. I've read the original paper, and she appears on every image.

"Dismal" doesn't describe it. We have clear evidence that our bodies are hosting a Terpsichorean invasion, but the government has suppressed the information.

Cockup or conspiracy? Bush, Blair, Brussels, Bali, or Bildeberg? Note  that the capital letters all look like a cross section of a human chest. 

Excuse me, there are a couple of men in black at the door, accompanied by a very large bloke in nurse's uniform.