How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by SolaceQuantum » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

Psyladine wrote: post #163

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to find more information and I'm struggling to find information that Michael Crichton said this exact thing and that turned the scientific community against him. I did find that he was a global warming skeptic and also believed in astral projection and auras and the like, both of which garnered scientific backlash. Could you help me clarify?

His talk 'Aliens Cause Global Warming' is about this phenomenon in all but name. Consensus science, marginalizing alternate theories and politicizing scientific inquiry. "your theories differ from mainstream" being a black mark rather than a point of inquiry.

Right, was the backlash against his global warming skepticism? I'm still confused.

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

#172

Post by danmaz74 » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

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…

Climate science is heavily politicised, because its findings have a massive impact on our economies. But the strongest economic interest is in downplaying global warming, not overplaying it. As a matter of fact, scientists that have a contrarian view towards the consensus have received ample publicity.

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

#173

Post by WhompingWindows » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

richk449 wrote: post #169

It is easy in retrospect to see that going all in on the amyloid hypothesis was a mistake. But that is always true once a hypothesis has been proven false (or at least not completely true). Is it possible to look at this as a very large “fail fast” experiment? Given the limited funding, would it really have been better to spread it over many hypotheses, rather than pick the most likely, and test a minimal viable solu…

I collaborate with an expert in Alzheimer's Disease. She stated to me that the Amyloid hypothesis was so strong for so long because it is "like the garbage left over in a stadium after a big event...you see concrete evidence something happened, it's obvious this garbage is bad and should be cleaned up, but the garbage itself did not cause the event."

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

#174

Post by ppseafield » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

richk449 wrote: post #169

It is easy in retrospect to see that going all in on the amyloid hypothesis was a mistake. But that is always true once a hypothesis has been proven false (or at least not completely true). Is it possible to look at this as a very large “fail fast” experiment? Given the limited funding, would it really have been better to spread it over many hypotheses, rather than pick the most likely, and test a minimal viable solu…

It's hard to see this as a fail fast experiment when:

> In more than two dozen interviews, 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.

It's one thing to go all-in on a hypothesis, but another to undermine other folks' hypotheses directly. Especially when your hypothesis has not produced any results for decades.

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

#175

Post by WhompingWindows » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

I presented my research on Delirium, dementia, and frailty at an Alzheimer's conference last year. There was no evidence of an Alzheimer's amyloid "cabal" in that room. Around 90% of the work being done had to do with early diagnosis: since this is a chronic, long-term disease, like diabetes or heart disease, most of the research and talks were about how to diagnose and treat EARLY, before the neurological damage has been inflicted.

In my opinion, there will probably be no silver bullet for Alzheimers, though we may develop long-term treatments which slow the rate and severity of the disease in those pre-disposed or in the early stages of AD.

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

#176

Post by JackFr » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

leftyted wrote: post #155

svara wrote: post #100

A super interesting article, but the title is pure clickbait. In this day and age, feeding into the narrative that science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary is downright dangerous. Reality is much more nuanced, and the article actually does a good job of detailing that. In some sense this all started from the very beginning, from when Alzheimer's disease (AD) wa…

> In this day and age, feeding into the narrative that science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary is downright dangerous. I think that narrative is correct. We can't fix the problem if we don't discuss it. The whole "I believe in science" thing (which you seem to be pushing) is really quite silly. Funding is a political game and the people who are best at politic…

> Funding is a political game and the people who are best at politics tend to be the worst at research (and vice-versa).

That's not necessarily true. There are people who are excellent at both, but I suppose in practice they are relatively rare. The best recognize research as a cooperative human endeavor, and human elements like bias, ego, etc. can never fully be extricated.

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

#177

Post by JackFr » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

svara wrote: post #156

datastoat wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the linked article says: > In a sea of amyloid-focused grants, there are tiny islands of research on oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and, especially, a protein called tau. The Wikipedia article you cite: > On examining her brain, he found senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles [which are made of tau protein -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofibrillary_tangle ] What you actually wrote: > In 1911, Alo…

You're right, I should have mentioned tau. But the viral link is the really big deal here that was overlooked for too long. > It looks like you're part of the cabal! I have no horse in this race ;) I only commented because the title seemed needlessly inflammatory to me. Everybody should just read the full article, like I wrote I think it's very good.

> the title seemed needlessly inflammatory

In the end, it's always the inflammation...

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

#178

Post by remote_phone » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

igorkraw wrote: post #20

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…

While I'm all for changing funding systems I want to point out that there fact we have these scandals is the system somewhat working . Similarly to how constant criticism of the government/large corporations isn't a sign of rot, but of a system where improvements are still possible -as long as someone is pointing out the problems you can fix them. And science is not supposed to be immune to this, the culture of scien…

It’s not working if it takes DECADES for people to figure out that the science is wrong. And it keeps happening over and over and over again. The system is rotten and it’s not working and it’s not okay.

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

#179

Post by derefr » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

leftyted wrote: post #155

svara wrote: post #100

A super interesting article, but the title is pure clickbait. In this day and age, feeding into the narrative that science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary is downright dangerous. Reality is much more nuanced, and the article actually does a good job of detailing that. In some sense this all started from the very beginning, from when Alzheimer's disease (AD) wa…

> In this day and age, feeding into the narrative that science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary is downright dangerous. I think that narrative is correct. We can't fix the problem if we don't discuss it. The whole "I believe in science" thing (which you seem to be pushing) is really quite silly. Funding is a political game and the people who are best at politic…

You’re talking about scientific academia, not science. Much of science occurs outside of academia. Military and industrial scientific R&D, corporations’ basic-research labs, independents, etc. It’s only in scientific academia that these “strictly adhere to the popular scientific paradigm in order to get published” worries exist.

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

#180

Post by JackFr » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

aaron695 wrote: post #114

svara wrote: post #100

A super interesting article, but the title is pure clickbait. In this day and age, feeding into the narrative that science is just another competitive team sport where people compete with whatever means necessary is downright dangerous. Reality is much more nuanced, and the article actually does a good job of detailing that. In some sense this all started from the very beginning, from when Alzheimer's disease (AD) wa…

> There was, however, no conspiracy or "cabal". These were simply people who were convinced they were on the right track. No one thought the weapons of mass destruction were fake and lied and said they were real. The conspiracy was "These were simply people who were convinced they were on the right track." so did not allow competing theories. Exactly the same with the VW emissions issue. This is exactly how conspirac…

> This is exactly how conspiracies and cabals work. They are emergent behaviour.

No, conspiracies and cabal are by their very nature intentional. Groupthink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink is a much better term for describing an emergent dysfunctional decision process brought on through social dynamics.