I did undergrad research on amyloid aggregates in 2010, with Alzheimer's as the motivation. I remember papers coming out then making it pretty clear that there was no real mechanistic link between them. It was basically just a symptom. That was 16 years ago.
Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
301–310 of 355 posts
Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#302'Science progresses one funeral at a time...' It is often the case that an entire field is led by a few influential people and until they leave others can't get the air they need to make real progress.
I think you're right. Anyone brave enough to suggest areas of investigation where there is evidence this has happened?
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Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Problem was, the model was wrong. I thought despite the fraud, it's still the best model we have[1]? The fact there was fraud doesn't mean the model is immediately incorrect. At best, it means its foundations are shakier than we thought, but it's not a slam dunk repudiation. [1] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-defense-of-the-amyloid-h...
Pretty clearly not. It would seem that beta amyloids correlate with Alzheimer's, but do not cause it. The problem us "consensus science". You could get funding to research beta amyloids, but not to research any competing hypotheses. It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic.
> It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic.
The financial motivation for fraud is all on the side of climate-change denial. Literally trillions of dollars of motivation.
Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty clearly not. It would seem that beta amyloids correlate with Alzheimer's, but do not cause it. The problem us "consensus science". You could get funding to research beta amyloids, but not to research any competing hypotheses. It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic.
> It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic. The financial motivation for fraud is all on the side of climate-change denial. Literally trillions of dollars of motivation.
Hah! What do you call the cap and trade group? The whole trillion dollar "carbon credit market" is a farce built to profit from climate change catastrophism.
Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic. The financial motivation for fraud is all on the side of climate-change denial. Literally trillions of dollars of motivation.
Hah! What do you call the cap and trade group? The whole trillion dollar "carbon credit market" is a farce built to profit from climate change catastrophism.
Small change compared to global fossil fuels. Energy (which is still mostly fossil fuels) is 10% of the world GDP.
Climate-change denial is just like tobacco-cancer denial. It's the same banal "I win, you all lose" mechanism. Enormous resources are available (along with the useful idiots) to propagate falsehoods.
Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Non-sequitur
> Non-sequitur Not sure what you are trying to achieve with comments like this, besides intentional gas lighting. Could've commented with links to scientific articles or papers that disprove my theory. Instead you chose to be ... this?
Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty clearly not. It would seem that beta amyloids correlate with Alzheimer's, but do not cause it. The problem us "consensus science". You could get funding to research beta amyloids, but not to research any competing hypotheses. It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic.
> It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic. I'm not sure I understand this. We've added hundreds of gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere. There's no mystery here, it's basic physics and chemistry that this will change things, and it's accepted that we don't know exactly _how_ things will change. The alternative:…
> There's no mystery here, it's basic physics and chemistry that this will change things, and it's accepted that we don't know exactly _how_ things will change. The alternative: "adding gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere will _not_ change anything" is simply non-sensical. It goes against the basic rules of physics and causality. I'm happy to be proved wrong here, I just legitimately can't see how an alternative position makes any sense.
With any position, you have to distinguish between its thoughtful advocates and its thoughtless ones-every position has both
Any thoughtful “climate change sceptic” is going to say (a) of course the climate is changing-it always has and always will; (b) of course it is implausible than human activity has literally zero impact on that change. But that still doesn’t tell us: (i) the relative scale of anthropogenic versus natural causal factors; (ii) the validity of any specific predictions of future change; (iii) the likely socioeconomic impacts of any future changes that may occur. It is totally possible that a person may affirm (a) and (b) while questioning the “consensus” on (i) and (ii) and (iii)
Personally, I don’t have a strong opinion on the substantive issue - but I wonder about the extent to which mainstream discourse on the topic represents good epistemic hygiene. It is even possible that the sceptics are on the whole more wrong than right, but simultaneously the mainstream response to them is more irrational than rational.
Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic. I'm not sure I understand this. We've added hundreds of gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere. There's no mystery here, it's basic physics and chemistry that this will change things, and it's accepted that we don't know exactly _how_ things will change. The alternative:…
Climate science is much more complicated - there are many things you could disagree with beyond will tons of carbon change things, yes or no. Like are we doomed or will it just get a bit warmer before we switch to solar for example. There are also money issues like with the alzheimer's situation. If climate change is dooming us then we should send more money to climate scientists.
I am baffled by the number of people on HN, presumably a website for and by technical people, who fail to consider secondary and tertiary effects when it fits their worldview to do so.
There is a yawning abyss of states in between extinction and 'boy sure is a few degrees warmer out here' and none of them are good.
Many organisms would benefit from a warmer climate, just not humans.
We rely on extremely narrow conditions for the fragile supply chains and power structures that keep us on the ragged edge of civilized to continue working. We had an extremely mild contagious disease outbreak, by historic standards, and our economy is still feeling the effects!
Imagine the impacts of something like wildly different rainfall patterns, increased rate of global infectious disease, shifted agricultural zones, changes to Jetstream patterns, large scale crop failures, loss of water supplies, temporary local ecosystem collapses etc. These changes are incredibly fast on the scale of what it takes to reach ecological equilibrium.
These of course mean nothing to biological life, writ large. Life will recover and adapt. To fragile human civilization they mean refugee crisis, resource wars, failed infrastructure, and ten thousand other existentially terrible things.
Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Amyloid hypothesis persisted for so long because we didn't have any obvious counterarguments since it is so hard to do studies on the brain. Which also means that it's not a bad hypothesis . What happened is we got the tools to start studying viral associations with other diseases and ... whooops ... suddenly there are associations. The shingles and RSV vaccines seem to affect dementia while others like influenza…
There were no cointerarguments? There was a very simple counterargument: where was the causal data? If none exist why should I counter argue when you hadn't proven it to begin with.
Ah causal data! It’s a shame none of the scientists or statisticians thought of getting causal data. How would we get that? Well maybe we could just inject amyloid into a person’s brain. Or simply remove all the amyloid from a person’s brain. That should do it, right?
I mean an amyloid injection is wildly unethical and it’s also not the natural progression of Alzheimer’s. Removing amyloid is a simple matter of investing billions of dollars into drug development. Also how do you tell whether that was actually “causal” if the patients improve after plaque removal.
I mean come on, you have to work the evidence and the experimental tools that we actually have. This kind of epistemic puritanism doesn’t help anyone.
Re: Why has there been so little progress on Alzheimer's disease?
#310Big Pharma refuses to believe that the gut microbiome plays a significant role in human health. They either don't take it seriously or think it's so complex that it's not worth working on. I think they're totally wrong and that the microbiome is the arbiter of not only Alzheimers but cancer and other metabolic disorders like T2 Diabetes.
Regardless of what you believe, the idea that big pharma doesn't believe in gut microbiome playing a significant role in human health is absolutely wrong as easily seen by the rise of GLP-1 drugs (which affect gut microbiome) and are the blockbuster drugs "big pharma" is investing heavily in currently. Perhaps, go take a look at that.
GLP-1’s are a weak counterpoint. Perhaps go take a look at that yourself.