3 ms·

This was great until the bit about medicine. Medicine has made huge, tremendous progress in the past 30 years. And there are still many serendipitous discoverie

This was great until the bit about medicine. Medicine has made huge, tremendous progress in the past 30 years. And there are still many serendipitous discoveries happening that lead to new drugs. I mean jesus for the first time ever, a company is going to put up a drug for approval to treat alzheimers. Let's not lump medicine in with physics, please. Medicine has always been skeptical of theories without data and, while maybe facing issues, they aren't the same as physics. Its ironic that a physicist, criticizing others physicists, make a common mistake that all physicists make: over simplification and acting like everything is just like physics with slight modifications.

achillesheels 7y ago
I’m going to have to disagree. Anyone in pharma or med devices can tell you that major innovation is basically outsourced to venture capitalists, where if successful through clinical trials (always a big if), it can become acquired. This is not a method for radical innovation, e.g. a device to stop a hazardous insulin metabolic response to digestion versus the current insulin-pump market.
czbond 7y ago
I disagree at the 'rank and file' level, which is different than Pharma. Pharma is mainly scientists and engineers paid for years to noodle a problem. Rank and file physicians are often Sensors (immediate world around them) and Feelers (tuned to people's feelings) - which are different than the personality traits required to push past status quo, take risks, and innovate.
YayamiOmate 7y ago
Yeah, I am not sure about that. To keep up with pace and statistical rigorousness medicine would have to be disturbingly and outrageously unethical. It also deals with more complex issues. To me it's bound to work on less reliable data.
letitgo12345 7y ago
Let's not take just her word for the entire field of physics (even fundamental physics) either.
jcranmer 7y ago
> I mean jesus for the first time ever, a company is going to put up a drug for approval to treat alzheimers. Derek Lowe isn't quite so optimistic about it: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/23/the-return-of-aducanumab https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/23/th... (tl;dr--the anti-amyloid hypothesis you should be extremely skeptical about, and the inconsistency in the trial data here is signalling that statistical fluke should be a high concern).
- dekhn 7y ago
  if you really want to read more, check out https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/aducanumab-analysis.html https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/aducanumab-analysis.html There's a reason I went back to being a software engineer at an internet company working on ML models that actually work- clinical trials have a long way to go before they produce results that can be really trusted.
otabdeveloper4 7y ago
Medicine is not about "drugs". You might at well claim that medicine made great strides because so many new and exciting leeches were discovered.
deleted 7y ago
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achillesheels 7y ago

I’m going to have to disagree. Anyone in pharma or med devices can tell you that major innovation is basically outsourced to venture capitalists, where if successful through clinical trials (always a big if), it can become acquired. This is not a method for radical innovation, e.g. a device to stop a hazardous insulin metabolic response to digestion versus the current insulin-pump market.

czbond 7y ago

I disagree at the 'rank and file' level, which is different than Pharma. Pharma is mainly scientists and engineers paid for years to noodle a problem. Rank and file physicians are often Sensors (immediate world around them) and Feelers (tuned to people's feelings) - which are different than the personality traits required to push past status quo, take risks, and innovate.

YayamiOmate 7y ago

Yeah, I am not sure about that. To keep up with pace and statistical rigorousness medicine would have to be disturbingly and outrageously unethical. It also deals with more complex issues. To me it's bound to work on less reliable data.

letitgo12345 7y ago

Let's not take just her word for the entire field of physics (even fundamental physics) either.

jcranmer 7y ago

> I mean jesus for the first time ever, a company is going to put up a drug for approval to treat alzheimers. Derek Lowe isn't quite so optimistic about it: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/23/the-return-of-aducanumab https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/23/th... (tl;dr--the anti-amyloid hypothesis you should be extremely skeptical about, and the inconsistency in the trial data here is signalling that statistical fluke should be a high concern).

dekhn 7y ago
if you really want to read more, check out https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/aducanumab-analysis.html https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/aducanumab-analysis.html There's a reason I went back to being a software engineer at an internet company working on ML models that actually work- clinical trials have a long way to go before they produce results that can be really trusted.

otabdeveloper4 7y ago

Medicine is not about "drugs". You might at well claim that medicine made great strides because so many new and exciting leeches were discovered.

deleted 7y ago

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