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

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

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Post by igorkraw » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 8:21 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #209

igorkraw wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal opinion: in general, if people talk about "dissent missing" and "we need more controversial opinions", that's often code for "we need more justification for bigotry". By adopting a perpetually "but we are just asking questions" facade they implicitly a) frame things as "value neutral" when it really isn't and b) place an absurdly high burden of proof before we can finally say "yes in fact racism is wrong"

Another conspiracy theory: obvious morons like the racists are encouraged and publicized in order to discredit those who dissent from the established narrative in real ways that actually challenge TPTB.

Think of anything specific?

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

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Post by Frondo » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 8:31 AM UTC

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…

Rather amazingly, the $93 trillion dollar price tag seems to be a function of right-wing think tank groupthink.

Some right-wing think tank came up with the number, and you can see it cited on mises.org, the Washington Examiner, Fox Business, and a wide variety of other right-leaning outlets, all citing the original right-wing calculation uncritically.

Seems somewhat apropos on a discussion thread about groupthink that such a figure, given its provenance, would come up.

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

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Post by rimliu » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 8:31 AM UTC

beering wrote: post #296

a1369209993 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> was accused of being [an anti-vaxxer] because they blamed mercury. What the fuck do those even have to do with each other? Also, upvoted for actually posting object-level claims rather than whining about downvotes.

Probably because a lot of the antivax scare was around thimerosal in vaccines (which is a mercury compound). Logic was: mercury is known to be poisonous, thimerosal is a mercury compound, thus vaccines must be poisonous.

I wonder what they think about table salt.

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

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Post by NotSammyHagar » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 8:41 AM UTC

lincolnq wrote: post #238

goodcanadian wrote: post #229

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." -Max Planck Or, as it is more commonly put: Science advances one funeral at a time.

Is there an age at which you favor forcing scientists into retirement?

It's not forced retirement that is needed, it's constant replenishing of leaders and decision makers to let new ideas have a chance. So things can't advance, sometimes, until the people who are invested in the old ways stop blocking the new ways.

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

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Post by LatteLazy » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 9:05 AM UTC

>Several who tried to start companies to develop Alzheimer’s cures were told again and again by venture capital firms and major biopharma companies that they would back only an amyloid approach.

I wonder if that's because their internal advice was from "cabal members" or if they didn't like the fundamental science or some other reason? Maybe the economics of (well understood) beta amyloid ideas worked better economically than new ideas (I guess it's a big, unhedgable gamble to invest in something that might be a cure, but won't be on the market for 20 years).

The whole point of venture capital is to fund things that "mainstream" has rejected but rejected without good reason. That does make me wonder a bit how good the science behind other ideas was.

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

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Post by Udik » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 9:10 AM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #172

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.

> the strongest economic interest is in downplaying global warming, not overplaying it

The strongest economic interest might be for inaction (but let's not forget that economic costs are often human costs in the end).

On the other hand, as far as information goes, the pressure is towards overstating the risks of climate change: it publishes articles with catchy abstracts, it connects boring researches to a hot new topic, it gives newspapers strong headlines that pique the readers' interest, it gives millions of activists something to fight for.

The result is a mix of inaction and panic.

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

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Post by Udik » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 9:27 AM UTC

el_cujo wrote: post #287

qqqwerty wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will acknowledge that those forces may be in play. But I will also ask you to acknowledge that oil extraction has and continues to make certain people, companies, and governments immensely wealthy and powerful and that those groups are very interested in keeping the status quo. Those people/companies/governments have the power and resources to finance research into climate change that would support their narrative.…

Yeah I agree there is a very strong incentive for certain groups to disprove climate change and they're backed by a lot of money and influence. Comparatively, there doesn't really seem like that big of an incentive to sell a "lie" that CO2 is fucking the climate. That being said, it does irk me a bit that I know so many people who smugly demean the moronic science-deniers who don't believe in climate change, even tho…

> there doesn't really seem like that big of an incentive to sell a "lie" that CO2 is fucking the climate.

The article we're commenting on argues there's been a huge pressure towards researching ways to stop beta amyloid plaques; and yet there's no obvious "incentive" to do so. It's just a catchy hot topic on which many have invested their careers.

In the case of climate change, you have to factor in both the scientific pressure, similar in everything to what's been described here; and the media pressure, absent in the alzheimer's case: the media absolutely loves to sell a scare story, and the climate change story is just the perfect one: it's everywhere, it's invisible, it carries an enormous amount of consequences and huge risks. Most of the predictions are decades away in the future, so the story can go on unchecked for decades. And so on.

I'm not saying climate change science is wrong (although some of it certainly is: "climate change science" goes from the basic physics of CO2 greenhouse effect to ecology, economy and social and political predictions far away in the future). I'm saying that you must factor in all the inevitable effects of a story everybody just loves to tell.

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

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Post by qaq » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 10:01 AM UTC

praptak wrote: post #65

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…

And its physics, where I believe that it is cheaper to try weird experiments. Even if the equipment costs are high, you can probably book 5 minutes on it to let a grad do something seemingly silly. In pharmacy even a simple trial on mice may take months, which translates to $$$. Not even mentioning how expensive (and hard to get approved) a trial on humans is. I can understand the desire to focus on the "promising" a…

operating cost of LHC is a billion per year.

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

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Post by monadgonad » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 10:56 AM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #186

jaggednad wrote: post #145

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…

Ask people who work in any field that does have blind review, and they'll tell you that it isn't actually blind... you can make good guesses on the author list by examining the description of previous work, the reference list, the style of the writing, etc etc.

It's still better than nothing. You can't reject a paper saying "I believe this author is X, who has few publications in major journals" which encourages people to assess the paper on its own merits, even if it doesn't ensure it.

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

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Post by incangold » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 11:01 AM UTC

SiempreViernes wrote: post #116

melling wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully as China comes online, and eventually India, we’ll get a lot more research globally with more ideas. In an earlier submission I made, Peter Thiel, etc discuss how global research is changing in general: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21906424

I wouldn't count on China to provide lots of free research while it further turns into an etno-nationalist dictatorship. For India we better hope that democracy survives the next 5 years of Modi government, because the signs are they want some of that eton-nationalism themselves.

Typo in “Ethno-nationalism”

“Eton-nationalism” is what we have in the UK at the moment.