3 ms·
It's about as good a phrase as 'correlation does not imply causation'. Obviously it's wrong for any correlation that's the result of causation, but it's true en
by bigDinosaur 4y ago
It's about as good a phrase as 'correlation does not imply causation'. Obviously it's wrong for any correlation that's the result of causation, but it's true enough to be a frustratingly good criticism despite its dumb simplicity. So it is with mice models which have repeatedly failed to transfer findings to humans. The list of reasons in your link is mainly about how easy they are to work with, and the 'similarities' is glossed over, but obviously there are vastly superior animal models which are dramatically closer to humans to test on than mice. It's just not done nearly as much due to how difficult it is, and arguably how horribly unethical it is to test on non-human apes.
- themitigating 4y agoSaying my source glosses over something doesn't mean the assertion is wrong, it only means it doesn't go into detail. Here's a tad more complex paper with examples https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987984/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987984/ The similarities and ethical concerns are why mice are used. However my original comment was because the post implied the research was wrong because they "don't look like mouse". Which I said was overy simplistic and arrogant. As if then a researcher reading that comment would suddenly realize "wait..were not mice, this and all other studies are worthless. I used mice for no reason but couldn't think of a reason not to or how they are different"
- bigDinosaur 4y agoYes, just like 'correlation does not imply causation' requires an actual alternative explanation to be proposed, so does 'it's just mice'. We don't really disagree on that.