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Full Title: A Texas scientist was called ‘foolish’ for arguing the immune system could fight cancer. Then he won the Nobel Prize. It got a little mangled with

Full Title: A Texas scientist was called ‘foolish’ for arguing the immune system could fight cancer. Then he won the Nobel Prize. It got a little mangled with the length constraint.

jhbadger 8y ago
And in-between the critiques of his idea and the prize winning, Allison actually showed evidence that checkpoint blockade worked. That's what kind of annoys me about stories that describe science in these terms. It's as if the authors want the reader to take away the moral "Don't criticize scientists with seemingly crazy ideas; they might be right!". But criticizing crazy ideas up until the point where they are shown not to be crazy is exactly how science works.
- doitLP 8y ago
  True, but it is also important to be aware of the hand-wavy hubris/entrenched viewpoints that might prevent those ideas from having the chance to prove themselves right. “Science proceeds one funeral at a time”
  - chrisbrandow 8y ago
    It’s a fundamental tension in the scientific method. We create models for how reality works. We _know_ that they are imperfect and incomplete, but at times we forget and therefore treat an idea or even observation that violates the model as “impossible”. Multiple observations ultimately dispel this failure but single observations are easy to dismiss. This is also why crazy but ultimately correct ideas are difficult to distinguish from crazy and wrong ideas. And academics spend a lot of time teaching people to understand the models, and are always looking for errors that arise from an incomplete or incorrect understanding of the models. So, it is very natural to treat new theories that violate an incomplete model the same way. Especially in fields like medicine where it is nearly impossible to truly isolate single factors and outcomes.
- trickstra 8y ago
  True, though there is a difference between criticizing by saying "you have a logical mistake here and wrong data here", and saying "you are a fool, this will never work". Even to a crazy idea.
  - afarrell 8y ago
    No idea is above scrutiny. Ridicule is mostly harmful.
    - trickstra 8y ago
      I agree with the first part. "You are a fool!" is not scrutiny. Edit: sorry, I read it wrong. I agree with the second part too
- ip26 8y ago
  Is that really the moral? I am more of the opinion that we're just suckers for an underdog.

Full Title: A Texas scientist was called ‘foolish’ for arguing the immune system could fight cancer. Then he won the Nobel Prize. It got a little mangled with the length constraint.

jhbadger 8y ago

And in-between the critiques of his idea and the prize winning, Allison actually showed evidence that checkpoint blockade worked. That's what kind of annoys me about stories that describe science in these terms. It's as if the authors want the reader to take away the moral "Don't criticize scientists with seemingly crazy ideas; they might be right!". But criticizing crazy ideas up until the point where they are shown not to be crazy is exactly how science works.

doitLP 8y ago
True, but it is also important to be aware of the hand-wavy hubris/entrenched viewpoints that might prevent those ideas from having the chance to prove themselves right. “Science proceeds one funeral at a time”
- chrisbrandow 8y ago
  It’s a fundamental tension in the scientific method. We create models for how reality works. We _know_ that they are imperfect and incomplete, but at times we forget and therefore treat an idea or even observation that violates the model as “impossible”. Multiple observations ultimately dispel this failure but single observations are easy to dismiss. This is also why crazy but ultimately correct ideas are difficult to distinguish from crazy and wrong ideas. And academics spend a lot of time teaching people to understand the models, and are always looking for errors that arise from an incomplete or incorrect understanding of the models. So, it is very natural to treat new theories that violate an incomplete model the same way. Especially in fields like medicine where it is nearly impossible to truly isolate single factors and outcomes.
trickstra 8y ago
True, though there is a difference between criticizing by saying "you have a logical mistake here and wrong data here", and saying "you are a fool, this will never work". Even to a crazy idea.
- afarrell 8y ago
  No idea is above scrutiny. Ridicule is mostly harmful.
  - trickstra 8y ago
    I agree with the first part. "You are a fool!" is not scrutiny. Edit: sorry, I read it wrong. I agree with the second part too
ip26 8y ago
Is that really the moral? I am more of the opinion that we're just suckers for an underdog.