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Sorry, all these arguments seem like non-sequiturs to me. Physicists might pray together in the cafeteria to come up with good ideas. It doesn't mean God answe

by nonbel 10y ago

Sorry, all these arguments seem like non-sequiturs to me. Physicists might pray together in the cafeteria to come up with good ideas. It doesn't mean God answered their prayers when they have one. Useful laws need not be exactly correct. You can keep adjusting to stay on course to account for the error due to any simplifications. Sure causality seems like it must be at least some kind of heuristic, that doesn't mean looking for causes is the best, or even a good, use of time.

epistasis 10y ago
Well, your arguments seem equally non-sequiter to me. I spend a lot of time in the world of correlations, in biology. They're not so useful. It's much better to get a causation: a knob that when you turn it you get a response, rather than no response. If you can't see the utility of the two, then perhaps there's not much to discuss?
- nonbel 10y ago
  >"Well, your arguments seem equally non-sequiter to me." Fair enough. >"I spend a lot of time in the world of correlations, in biology." I left that field. One reason was because I realized so much of my time was wasted after I attempted to attach numbers to things like "# of receptors required to fit the narrative". Sure "A causes B", but it must be for some reason totally different from what is usually proposed (and could probably be considered a boring experimental artifact). I just don't care if "A causes B". I want to know for "f(A) ~ B", what is f? >"It's much better to get a causation: a knob that when you turn it you get a response, rather than no response." Reminds me of this paper: "Biologists summarize their results with the help of all-too-well recognizable diagrams, in which a favorite protein is placed in the middle and connected to everything else with two-way arrows. Even if a diagram makes overall sense (Fig. 3a), it is usually useless for a quantitative analysis, which limits its predictive or investigative value to a very narrow range. The language used by biologists for verbal communications is not better and is not unlike that used by stock market analysts. Both are vague (e.g., a balance between pro- and anti-apoptotic bcl-2 proteins appears to control the cell viability, and seems to correlate in long-term with the ability to form tumors) and avoid clear predictions." https://bml.bioe.uic.edu/BML/Stuff/Stuff_files/biologist%20fix%20radio.pdf https://bml.bioe.uic.edu/BML/Stuff/Stuff_files/biologist%20f...
  - epistasis 10y ago
    I think that you would really really like modern causality research if you bothered to look into it. It's all about f(A) ~ B, but recognizes that there are different ways of varying B. Do you disconnect B from the rest of its influences when you vary it, or are you letting them vary. If you try to model f(A) ~ B in biological systems without simultaneously modeling causality, then it's going to go wrong. This happened to me in year 2 of grad school. The bayesian network built around data without modeling the causality was wrong, the one that took into account the causality from the knockout experiments was right.
solipsism 10y ago
Sure causality seems like it must be at least some kind of heuristic, that doesn't mean looking for causes is the best, or even a good, use of time I wonder if you'll recommend your doctor use that bit of wisdom the next time you're sick.
- nonbel 10y ago
  After graduate training in biomed, I am horrified of going to a doctor. After seeing what goes on (ie, lots and lots of NHST + p-hacking), it is really difficult for me to understand how anyone can tell if modern medicine is helping or hurting people overall. It would actually be miraculous to me if it is the former, to the point I would be tempted to believe there is some occult driving force leading humans in the right direction. However, I was thinking about similar the other day regarding the dentist. Say I go get a teeth cleaning. Did the polishing cause my teeth to be cleaner, or did the cleaner teeth cause the dentist to do the polishing? I feel like there is some kind of semantic game being played there.
  - solipsism 10y ago
    Did the polishing cause my teeth to be cleaner, or did the cleaner teeth cause the dentist to do the polishing? Wow...
    - nonbel 10y ago
      I don't think it is that dumb. If the teeth were not going to get cleaner, the dentist would not have taken the action of polishing them. Therefore, cleaner teeth caused the dentist to polish the teeth. Eh, maybe it is a dumb example, but I'd appreciate if you could put your finger on it rather than sarcasm.

by nonbel 10y ago

epistasis 10y ago

Well, your arguments seem equally non-sequiter to me. I spend a lot of time in the world of correlations, in biology. They're not so useful. It's much better to get a causation: a knob that when you turn it you get a response, rather than no response. If you can't see the utility of the two, then perhaps there's not much to discuss?

nonbel 10y ago
>"Well, your arguments seem equally non-sequiter to me." Fair enough. >"I spend a lot of time in the world of correlations, in biology." I left that field. One reason was because I realized so much of my time was wasted after I attempted to attach numbers to things like "# of receptors required to fit the narrative". Sure "A causes B", but it must be for some reason totally different from what is usually proposed (and could probably be considered a boring experimental artifact). I just don't care if "A causes B". I want to know for "f(A) ~ B", what is f? >"It's much better to get a causation: a knob that when you turn it you get a response, rather than no response." Reminds me of this paper: "Biologists summarize their results with the help of all-too-well recognizable diagrams, in which a favorite protein is placed in the middle and connected to everything else with two-way arrows. Even if a diagram makes overall sense (Fig. 3a), it is usually useless for a quantitative analysis, which limits its predictive or investigative value to a very narrow range. The language used by biologists for verbal communications is not better and is not unlike that used by stock market analysts. Both are vague (e.g., a balance between pro- and anti-apoptotic bcl-2 proteins appears to control the cell viability, and seems to correlate in long-term with the ability to form tumors) and avoid clear predictions." https://bml.bioe.uic.edu/BML/Stuff/Stuff_files/biologist%20fix%20radio.pdf https://bml.bioe.uic.edu/BML/Stuff/Stuff_files/biologist%20f...
- epistasis 10y ago
  I think that you would really really like modern causality research if you bothered to look into it. It's all about f(A) ~ B, but recognizes that there are different ways of varying B. Do you disconnect B from the rest of its influences when you vary it, or are you letting them vary. If you try to model f(A) ~ B in biological systems without simultaneously modeling causality, then it's going to go wrong. This happened to me in year 2 of grad school. The bayesian network built around data without modeling the causality was wrong, the one that took into account the causality from the knockout experiments was right.

solipsism 10y ago

Sure causality seems like it must be at least some kind of heuristic, that doesn't mean looking for causes is the best, or even a good, use of time I wonder if you'll recommend your doctor use that bit of wisdom the next time you're sick.

nonbel 10y ago
After graduate training in biomed, I am horrified of going to a doctor. After seeing what goes on (ie, lots and lots of NHST + p-hacking), it is really difficult for me to understand how anyone can tell if modern medicine is helping or hurting people overall. It would actually be miraculous to me if it is the former, to the point I would be tempted to believe there is some occult driving force leading humans in the right direction. However, I was thinking about similar the other day regarding the dentist. Say I go get a teeth cleaning. Did the polishing cause my teeth to be cleaner, or did the cleaner teeth cause the dentist to do the polishing? I feel like there is some kind of semantic game being played there.
- solipsism 10y ago
  Did the polishing cause my teeth to be cleaner, or did the cleaner teeth cause the dentist to do the polishing? Wow...
  - nonbel 10y ago
    I don't think it is that dumb. If the teeth were not going to get cleaner, the dentist would not have taken the action of polishing them. Therefore, cleaner teeth caused the dentist to polish the teeth. Eh, maybe it is a dumb example, but I'd appreciate if you could put your finger on it rather than sarcasm.