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Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

stanforddaily.com

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Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#51

Post by jyxent »

wolverine876 wrote: post #39
ekianjo wrote: post #34

> This retraction is Tessier-Lavigne’s fourth in as many months, a stunning turn of events for a researcher of his stature. That says a lot about how worthless the whole science journal and peer review process is. At this rate your assumption is that 50% of what is published is complete junk.

That would be a far less scientific, and true, conclusion than what was in the papers. From the article: > Retractions remain exceedingly rare for scientific papers: Just eight out of every 10,000 are retracted, according to a Retraction Watch database.

You misunderstand. The issue is that many more papers should be retracted. A paper this major that couldn't be replicated still took another decade to be retracted.

There are many more papers that are less cited that will never get looked at in enough detail to discover fraud.

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#52

Post by jjtheblunt »

nahsra wrote: post #44
jjtheblunt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doudna didnt discover CRISPR; her fellow Nobel recipient Emmanuelle Charpentier did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuelle_Charpentier?wprov=s...

Yes, "discovered" was too way strong of a word there, and apologies to Charpentier. Thanks for the correction. However, she did win the Nobel prize and I have found source after source that suggests she seemed to be fundamental to the development of the science. My point remains -- you could literally substitute her name with one of a thousand names associated with high profile biomedical miracles to have originated…

Yeah I’m thankful you brought it up. There’s a really well done documentary about their individual and then collaborative work but i’ve not found it. Will update with link if i do.

Update: might be

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/human-nature/

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#53

Post by laidoffamazon »

paulcole wrote: post #37
laidoffamazon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that MIT grads are objectively superior to the rest of us that didn't get into any elite schools in basically every dimension I'd wager it's fairly high. With that said, the Square interview process isn't as algorithmic as most tech or finance companies and is instead more collaborative, so the raw IQ most MIT grads would use for their Jane Street interviews probably doesn't apply here.

> Given that MIT grads are objectively superior to the rest of us that didn't get into any elite schools in basically every dimension I'd wager it's fairly high. Genuflect when you say that fella.

You jest, but is it not accurate?

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#54

Post by vlovich123 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #39
ekianjo wrote: post #34

> This retraction is Tessier-Lavigne’s fourth in as many months, a stunning turn of events for a researcher of his stature. That says a lot about how worthless the whole science journal and peer review process is. At this rate your assumption is that 50% of what is published is complete junk.

That would be a far less scientific, and true, conclusion than what was in the papers. From the article: > Retractions remain exceedingly rare for scientific papers: Just eight out of every 10,000 are retracted, according to a Retraction Watch database.

All a small retraction rate tells us is that it’s very difficult to get a retraction. But as with peer review, whether or not there’s a lot of retractions tells you little about the quality of the unretracted papers.

Think about how much attention has to be paid for retractions to happen, how long the work existed without retraction, how difficult it was to get a retraction for outright fraud (ignoring work that itself was poor quality). This maybe says more about the incentives against retraction which then explains the low retraction counts better than whether or not the remaining papers are good. After all, the papers that have been retracted are high citation count papers that are foundational for certain avenues of research (this one for Alzheimer’s, the other famous fraudulent work about honesty pledges, etc). What does this say about all the papers that then cite these papers as work they’re basing theirs off of. What about the papers that then “agree” with papers that turn out to be completely fraudulent?

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#55

Post by ralph84 »

nonrepeating wrote: post #5

As a young man, I would have given nearly anything to attend Stanford or MIT, but I knew I wasn’t quite up to their standards. Now I find their presidents are not up to mine.

They are operated by and for the elite. Sociopaths are overrepresented in the elite.

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#56

Post by pfannkuchen »

roddylindsay wrote: post #12

Fun fact: Theo Baker, the student journalist for the Stanford Daily who broke (and continues to break) major portions of this Marc Tessier-Lavigne scandal, is the son of Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the NY Times.

Wonder if this is a case of journalism in the blood, or having media connections others don’t have (probably both).

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#57

Post by wolverine876 »

echelon wrote: post #8
nonrepeating wrote: post #5

As a young man, I would have given nearly anything to attend Stanford or MIT, but I knew I wasn’t quite up to their standards. Now I find their presidents are not up to mine.

I worked at a fintech that employed both MIT graduates and people that didn't go to college at all. With our hiring and interview process serving as a great filter, it was impossible to tell who fell into which population until they told you.

Here's my anecdote: In extensive exposure to a top-25 global university, and to a top-10 elite one, there was a big difference in the student body and the education. The latter was a different world; the education was innovative, brilliant, demanding at a very high level that I didn't anticipate. The students operated at a different level, world-class talent with shocking intelligence and, for their age, experience, being prepared - in a good way - to be world leaders.

Maybe a very simple comparison is between young tennis players that work with a local pro and go to tennis camp, and the super-talented ones working with elite professional coaches, the kind that train world champions. It was clear that there is no way you could teach yourself at anywhere near the level of top-10, nor find that education at most schools. And remember that your peers are part of your education - you won't find that population of peers either.

I know some institutions hire only from the elite, top-10 schools. I used to think it was 83% prejudice, but after those experiences I understand why. It's still lazy and unfair, but I also see significant reasons for it, maybe 33% prejudice.

(Possibly other top-10 schools aren't as good as the one I have experience with, of course.)

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#58

Post by wolverine876 »

jyxent wrote: post #51
wolverine876 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a far less scientific, and true, conclusion than what was in the papers. From the article: > Retractions remain exceedingly rare for scientific papers: Just eight out of every 10,000 are retracted, according to a Retraction Watch database.

You misunderstand. The issue is that many more papers should be retracted. A paper this major that couldn't be replicated still took another decade to be retracted. There are many more papers that are less cited that will never get looked at in enough detail to discover fraud.

You're just making up results, sans data. Your paper won't even pass peer review - on HN.

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#59

Post by wolverine876 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #54
wolverine876 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a far less scientific, and true, conclusion than what was in the papers. From the article: > Retractions remain exceedingly rare for scientific papers: Just eight out of every 10,000 are retracted, according to a Retraction Watch database.

All a small retraction rate tells us is that it’s very difficult to get a retraction. But as with peer review, whether or not there’s a lot of retractions tells you little about the quality of the unretracted papers. Think about how much attention has to be paid for retractions to happen, how long the work existed without retraction, how difficult it was to get a retraction for outright fraud (ignoring work that itse…

> All a small retraction rate tells us is that it’s very difficult to get a retraction.

You're just making the data fit your preconceived beliefs, which would is how we get fraudulant research.

Re: Blockbuster Alzheimer's paper retracted by former Stanford president

#60

Post by wolverine876 »

ekianjo wrote: post #45
wolverine876 wrote: post #30

> Retractions remain exceedingly rare for scientific papers: Just eight out of every 10,000 are retracted, according to a Retraction Watch database. Reading HN, one might get the impression that it's much higher.

Its not because most of stuff is not retracted that its valid. Most studies are never replicated...

What data do you have to support that?
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