Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007) • Hacker News Board

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#81

Post by bitL » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

newswasboring wrote: post #27

vilhelm_s wrote: post #22

In the next issue, the journal published a bunch of letters noting that she had rediscovered the trapezoid rule. https://kconrad.math.uconn.edu/math1132s20/handouts/taicomme... Mary Tai herself also replied and explained the background to the paper a bit more: > While a doctoral candidate working on my dissertation at Columbia University in 1981, I needed to calculate total area under a curve. During a session with m…

I was really on the author's side till I read these responses. Initially in my head it was just a case of misunderstanding or ignorance, but through her letters she has made clear that she thinks it is significant enough. This is borne out by her tone which is palpatably aggressive and contradictory at some points. She says she didn't publish this model for glory, but she also named it after herself. Also, no effort…

> She says she didn't publish this model for glory, but she also named it after herself.

Aren't many Nobel Prizes in Economics done like that? Take some well-known math/physics formula, rename variables to make them represent some economic quantities, name the resulting formula after oneself, publish, get the prize?

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#82

Post by II2II » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

perryizgr8 wrote: post #76

Isn't basic calculus a mandatory high school course? How would such a scholarly person be entirely unaware of calculus? Edit: I'm surprised, but it's quite impressive to have discovered the same concept Newton did, all on your own!

Calculus is not mandatory for high school graduation in many places, but I would shocked if it was not mandatory for university admission in any science based discipline.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#83

Post by thu2111 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

stuartbman wrote: post #26

I think it's important to note why the 75 citations isn't just 75 dummies who also haven't heard of integration. If you're writing a diabetes paper and want to use integration for your analysis (even if you are fully aware of its background), you'll be forced to justify your approach and defend it's applicability to diabetes. Far easier to say 'as per Tai et al...' and take it as given. You see this a lot- 'we used […

So it's not 75 dummies, it's 75 people who have to please dummies who can't be just sent a wikipedia link for calculus? That's even worse!

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#84

Post by Xcelerate » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

jack_riminton wrote: post #67

OskarS wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For instance there's a trend for medical students to believe less in evolution than other biology students I don't find that particularly surprising, actually! I would assume that most subfields of biology relies more on deep understanding of evolution than medicine does. Like, if you're a botanist or entomologist or whatever, you need to have a very understanding of speciation and evolutionary pressure and whatnot…

Well they’re more likely to believe in God than the general public so yes that’s entirely possible https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/survey-shows...

I seem to recall seeing a breakdown of belief in God by discipline, and it was the opposite of what I would have expected. Abstract mathematicians were the most likely to believe in some form of God, followed by physicists, with biologists being the least likely to believe. Considering how complex and unpredictable biological science is compared to something like particle physics, I was surprised by this.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#85

Post by tjs8rj » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #81

newswasboring wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really on the author's side till I read these responses. Initially in my head it was just a case of misunderstanding or ignorance, but through her letters she has made clear that she thinks it is significant enough. This is borne out by her tone which is palpatably aggressive and contradictory at some points. She says she didn't publish this model for glory, but she also named it after herself. Also, no effort…

> She says she didn't publish this model for glory, but she also named it after herself. Aren't many Nobel Prizes in Economics done like that? Take some well-known math/physics formula, rename variables to make them represent some economic quantities, name the resulting formula after oneself, publish, get the prize?

Any examples? Not something I've ever noticed but would love to read about.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#86

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

airhead969 wrote: post #64

dreamcompiler wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Osteopaths in the UK and most other countries are quacks. Osteopaths in the US are real physicians. This is not a trick of labeling: In the US osteopath training is a science-based, rigorous medical program identical to that of an MD. Yes DOs are also trained in the historical "chiropractic"-like stuff, but most of the ones I know deemphasize that in practice.

Why have it at all? It's magical thinking like religion that needs to be debunked and obliterated. Religion and quackery have no place in scientific medicine!

[deleted]

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#87

Post by tacon » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

tjs8rj wrote: post #85

bitL wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She says she didn't publish this model for glory, but she also named it after herself. Aren't many Nobel Prizes in Economics done like that? Take some well-known math/physics formula, rename variables to make them represent some economic quantities, name the resulting formula after oneself, publish, get the prize?

Any examples? Not something I've ever noticed but would love to read about.

I think the Black-Scholes option pricing model reapplied a well known result from neutron transport in nuclear engineering.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#88

Post by newswasboring » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #81

newswasboring wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really on the author's side till I read these responses. Initially in my head it was just a case of misunderstanding or ignorance, but through her letters she has made clear that she thinks it is significant enough. This is borne out by her tone which is palpatably aggressive and contradictory at some points. She says she didn't publish this model for glory, but she also named it after herself. Also, no effort…

> She says she didn't publish this model for glory, but she also named it after herself. Aren't many Nobel Prizes in Economics done like that? Take some well-known math/physics formula, rename variables to make them represent some economic quantities, name the resulting formula after oneself, publish, get the prize?

> rename variables to make them represent some economic quantities

You cannot trivialize this step. Most people's job in data analysis is basically this. Figuring out what quantity fits where in the formula _is_ the research.

edit: To make it clear, it would have been fine if here model explained something using trapezoidal formula. But she seems to be claiming the formula, not a model.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#89

Post by pbourke » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

airhead969 wrote: post #66

leereeves wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And MDs come from the historical branch of medicine that prescribed bloodletting and heroin. Now both MDs and DOs take a more modern approach. > Osteopathic medical school curricula are virtually identical to those at schools granting the MD degree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Osteopathic_Medicine...

And surgeons came from barbers. What's your point? Virtually isn't the same. There is no need for DOs. Period.

Doesn’t the need arise from the constrained supply of MDs?

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)

#90

Post by marcosdumay » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

airhead969 wrote: post #42

Robotbeat wrote: post #39

I appreciate the dig at fellow physicists for not recognizing group theory. As a physicist myself, I’m somewhat impressed by the power of many mathematical abstractions which have not yet utilized. Although I think this Avenue of discovery (searching in mathematics textbooks for things to apply to physics) is now fairly well-mined.

Interesting. I've watched nuclear engineers struggle with higher-order programming concepts and biomedical informatists (MD + PhD CS) struggle with software engineering. And, damn, I saw some exceptionally-beautiful code from some security researcher grad students.. like 17 levels of nested blocks. I guess not everyone can use Rust, Haskell, OCaml, or Idris. :sigh emoji:

Scientists make particularly bad software engineers. You'll get all kinds of problems, and nearly no good code, in any discipline you care to look.

Take the same people and put them for a year in a more predictable environment, and they start to write much better code. (And yeah, this natural experiment happens all the time.)