Knut Wittkowski, debunked

In arguing against science -- a predicament in which they find themselves with ever increasing frequency -- conservatives usually resort to finding a denialist, an individual who rejects the scientific consensus and is willing to be hauled out in public. A superior denialist needs some credentials. Joe the Plumber rejects climate change is just not that convincing. And if the denialist's credentials really aren't that impressive, well, boost them a little.

This brings us to a denialist named Kurt Wittkowski and COVID-19. Wittkowski is certainly a data scientist, and back in the 1980s and 90s he had some claim to the title of epidemiologist, since he worked on the HIV pandemic in Germany, though his last paper on epidemiology was in the year 2000. He seems to have a legitimate Ph.D from Tübingen, and was habilitated there, though despite his claims, a habilitation is not a DSc. His Linked-In page says he was a C1 (Assistant Professor) an obsolete designation which was impermanent and very low on the academic totem-pole, but he moved to Rockefeller University in 1997. As what...?

.well, the right wing and his Linked-In page would have you believe, to a position of Head, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design, Center for Clinical & Translational Science. Impressive, no?

Well, not so much. First of all, the Center for Clinical & Translational Science (CCTS) didn't exist until 2006. In fact he was hired as a biometrician.

To understand all this, though, you have to understand Rockefeller. It's a very unusual university. It has no undergraduates, and only 232 PhD or MD/PhD students. And it has no academic departments. Instead, it is organized around 75 independent laboratories, all in biomedical areas, headed by individual scientists. These laboratories are these days heavily supported by external research grants, over $100 million a year's worth. The administration is handled by a small set of corporate officers. Six of the laboratories are led by Nobel laureates; it’s a high-powered place. There is a loose grouping of laboratories into ten research areas, all basically biomedical. And there are interdisciplinary centers drawing in collaborators from multiple laboratories.

These centers are usually funded by a multi-million dollar research giant. For example, the Center for Clinical and Translational Science is devoted to maximizing the bidirectional opportunities for clinical and translational research. It was started in 2006 under a planning grant from the National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program.

Part of the organizational infrastructure support for this grant includes a study design and biostatistics facility, run out of Rockefeller University Hospital. When Knut Wittkowski ran this facility, it was apparently called Experimental Design and Biostatistics Support. Wittkowski’s job titles were ‘Senior Research Associate’ and the very old fashioned ‘biometrician’.

Paradoxically, support facilities like this are the only things Rockefeller calls departments. Biostatistics was apparently originally called biometry (very old fashioned). And that word is still used in its link.

Was it a Department? It’s not clear from the webpage. It classes him as the Biometrician at the Center for Clinical and Translational Science. The webpage is essentially unchanged from 2003 - 2016. However, according to the sidebar, Experimental Design and Statistics was transferred to the Center for Clinical and Translational Science in 2007, likely to bolster the chances of the NIH Center grant. The Dept web page link is dead in recent versions; in 2006, it linked merely to a course Wittkowski evidently taught in 2002. (Biostatistics: Management and Analysis of Multivariate Data). That page is labelled Department of Experimental Design and Biostatistics. However, I can find no evidence anyone besides Wittkowski worked there, and so it may be he was a head of a department of one. Wittkowski apparently left in 2016 or 2017. It's easy to find a copy of the want ad for his replacement. Lots of cool opportunities for research and collaboration, but the one thing it does not mention is supervision. More support for the possibility it was a one-person 'department'!

No, there's nothing wrong with being a member of the research support staff; most research-active science departments have such staff, they're often irreplaceable, and the people doing the job are often very good. And in his first 15 years at Rockefeller Wittkowski seems to have been prolific, publishing as a middle author on some of the big stars' papers (probably because he did the data analysis) and also on his own. But his output faded in the last decade, and seemed to deviate towards kookery. And he left Rockefeller, voluntarily or no, between 2016 and 2017.

So what does this all mean? First of all, describing Wittkowski as former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University is simply incorrect. It's a title he never held. He was a biostatitician and senior research associate, in a facility that was called Experimental Design and Biostatistics Support.

So any argument from authority that depends on Wittkowski's credentials fails. To put it crudely, he was tech support.

Comparing him to Anthony Fauci is ludicrous. But what really discredits him is his prediction that 10,000 Americans would die, and that herd-immunity would be reached in four weeks. He's been wrong, badly wrong, from the beginning, and idiots on the far right have lapped it up. Rockefeller, meanwhile, are embarrassed.

Maybe he can pull an Epstein and claim a typo led him to omit a digit?