Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

statnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 398 posts

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#141

Post by will4274 »

oblio wrote: post #134
allovernow wrote: post #31

>scientists whose ideas fell outside the dogma recounted how, for decades, believers in the dominant hypothesis suppressed research on alternative ideas: They influenced what studies got published in top journals, which scientists got funded, who got tenure, and who got speaking slots at reputation-buffing scientific conferences Not quite in topic, but Is it really such a stretch to acknowledge that the same forces i…

> Not quite in topic, but Is it really such a stretch to acknowledge that the same forces in academia might bias climate science too? What's the downside to "believing" in climate science, though? Let's say it's all a hoax. The way I see it, the worst thing is funds are diverted for things that don't help us that much. But what's the real down side to climate science for the general population? I don't think anyone w…

> What's the downside to "believing" in climate science, though? Let's say it's all a hoax. The way I see it, the worst thing is funds are diverted for things that don't help us that much.

The "green new deal" is estimated to cost between $50 and $100 trillion over ten years. The current US budget is about $4.5 trillion per year. What else could the US government do with between 100% and 200% of the current budget? How about end poverty, build the best education system in the world, land on Mars, develop fusion energy to solve the upcoming energy crisis, develop desalination technology to solve the upcoming water crisis, or cure some of the most deadly diseases around today?

The cost to getting climate change wrong is massive in both directions.

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#142

Post by dhimes »

kaybe wrote: post #105
dhimes wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely important point. Since I was a grad student, there have been at least 5 monumental "findings" in physics: 1. A spinning top weighs less if it spins one way than if it spins the other 2. A "fifth force," IIRC it was linked to baryons 3. The climate is warming, not (as people thought) cooling 4. Superconductivity can be achieved at high (liquid Ln2) temperatures 5. Fusion can be achieved at low (ro…

7 is not fair, they explicitly asked for help to find the issue with their experiment. The media took it and ran.

I'm not blaming- I'm simply pointing to anomalous results, outside of the accepted paradigms. They weren't shunned for this result. If what they had found had been confirmed, others would be free to publish more theories/experiments along those lines. However, I would bet that it would be hard to publish a theory now that had faster-than-light propagation.

Hi-Tc was verified and is well accepted (but the theory of SC overall is being revisited). The homeopathic properties of water was debunked by....James Randi.

Cold fusion is a result that is interesting in that at least as of a few years ago there was still an active group of researchers- they even had a conference- but most scientists AFAIK don't believe the initial results and are highly skeptical of any way to create useful rates of fusion at room temperature.

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#143

Post by zosima »

amluto wrote: post #136
zosima wrote: post #93

The article is not quite updated. Biogen did end their phase 3 trial of the amyloid-beta antibody Aducanumab early, citing lack of efficacy. A closer look at the numbers however appeared to reveal that they shouldn't have. And Biogen is now filing Aducanumab for approval by FDA. [1] All in all, there is no question that amyloid-beta is a key part of Alzheimer. Already Alois Alzheimer, when first describing Alzheimer'…

Nothing says p-hacking like a drug company canceling a trial and then, a few months later, re-analyzing the data and magically finding a benefit.

FDA usually puts some quite strict limits on the amount of p-hacking and general shenanigans they allow in clinical trials. But there's no approval yet, and no data to look at, so it's too early to judge.

Anyway, usually Alzheimer trials are a jumble of noise. The cognitive measurements are imperfect and patients are improving and deteriorating randomly, taking a very different disease course than you'd expect from textbooks. Finding a signal in the data, even for a working drug can be quite hard. I could just as well believe that Biogen ended the trial hastily because all competitors had failed and they didn't do a thorough analysis.

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#144

Post by mrfusion »

Psyladine wrote: post #132
michaelbarton wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary Just one data point, but in my experience in academia that was almost exactly how I found it. The exception that it wasn't a team sport because there's only space for one first author. My feeling is that the recognition and 'impactfulness' tied to being successful in academia are antagonistic to conducting unbiased res…

Michael Crichton said as much and the community turned on him.

What do you mean?

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#145

Post by jaggednad »

The article talks of journals rejecting papers because the author had already been rejected by other journals or because the author’s prior papers were in less-prestigious journals. This method of selecting papers is the perfect recipe for groupthink. The names of the authors should be removed while a paper is being reviewed—the reviewers shouldn’t know who wrote it so that they’ll be forced to evaluate the paper on its intrinsic merits rather than the reputation of its author. That might not solve this beta amyloid orthodoxy problem, but it’d help at least

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#146

Post by oblio »

will4274 wrote: post #141
oblio wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not quite in topic, but Is it really such a stretch to acknowledge that the same forces in academia might bias climate science too? What's the downside to "believing" in climate science, though? Let's say it's all a hoax. The way I see it, the worst thing is funds are diverted for things that don't help us that much. But what's the real down side to climate science for the general population? I don't think anyone w…

> What's the downside to "believing" in climate science, though? Let's say it's all a hoax. The way I see it, the worst thing is funds are diverted for things that don't help us that much. The "green new deal" is estimated to cost between $50 and $100 trillion over ten years. The current US budget is about $4.5 trillion per year. What else could the US government do with between 100% and 200% of the current budget? H…

> How about end poverty, build the best education system in the world, land on Mars, develop fusion energy to solve the upcoming energy crisis, develop desalination technology to solve the upcoming water crisis, or cure some of the most deadly diseases around today?

Well, some of the things you list are at least partially related to climate change. For example desalination technologies looks a lot like stuff you'd need if fresh water became scarce. Fusion energy would also be environmentally-friendly, landing on Mars could be a decent plan B for humanity or at least a way of off-loading some of that economic activity elsewhere.

The bits about poverty, education and curing diseases seem to be quite independent from any climate science thing...

I forgot to mention something, climate science is not a US-specific thing. Everyone is taking a stance and therefore betting on something.

If these bets are not hedged, those who bet on the losing side will be absolutely crushed economically by those who bet on the winning side.

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#147

Post by mrfusion »

ping_pong wrote: post #3

This is another example of group-think in scientific research. The same thing happened for decades where low fat diets were supposed to help for heart disease but that has only recently been reversed after decades of indoctrination. This happens all throughout scientific research, where science is supposed to be immune to this, but it's obviously not. So many things we take as gospel, only to be reversed decades late…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge climate change believer. But it does strike me as funny that climate change is above being charged with group think. We label them deniers.

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#148

Post by [deleted] »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #119
missosoup wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already happening. Not so much in climate science, but in climate activism. Banning plastic straws, planting trees, etc. are popular yet entirely ineffective measures. Actually effective measures like rolling out nuclear power are unpopular and yet most climate scientists agree that we're likely boned without it. I urge everyone to look at tools like [1] to get an idea of what it takes to deal with climate chang…

The real proposed solutions to reduce emissions are politically too costly, so politicians grab for straws to try to show they do anything at all. But if you start supporting carbon tax made to decrease emissions, I'll play along with supporting nuclear.

[deleted]

Re: How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure

#150

Post by pharke »

dmix wrote: post #111
michaelbarton wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary Just one data point, but in my experience in academia that was almost exactly how I found it. The exception that it wasn't a team sport because there's only space for one first author. My feeling is that the recognition and 'impactfulness' tied to being successful in academia are antagonistic to conducting unbiased res…

If you watched the NBA the top 5% of players/top 5 teams get 90% of the media attention. The rest who are still doing good and interesting things fight for the last 10% of the crumbs and are forever complaining they are being excluded despite performance and other factors. It happens in a lot of places. And to be honest it’s what most of the people want and while places like r/nba are more neutral and give respect wh…

Exactly, it's human nature. No matter what arena it plays out in we only have so many patterns of behaviour at our disposal and you'll see the same types of power plays, favouritism, backbiting, and underhanded dealing. We're good at disguising this behaviour, dressing it up as professional ambition or rationalizing it but it's still the same dogged fight for a spot in the social hierarchy.

We're not good at thinking rationally about things that involve our own benefit. We'll more often than not only think things through to the point where we avoid breaking any existing rules but still go with the lazy choice that benefits us in the short term.

Post reply on HN