4 ms·

What is the thesis here? Inaction because of insufficient certainty? Isn't that the exact issue that landed us in this mess? Science requires action in the f

What is the thesis here? Inaction because of insufficient certainty? Isn't that the exact issue that landed us in this mess? Science requires action in the face of uncertainty.

abetusk 4y ago
The thesis is that we should be experimenting on how to get best results. In other words, we should treat science funding scientifically, testing hypothesis, examining results and course correcting based on the evidence. To your point about inaction, from the article: """ This does not mean we should wait decades before implementing any change. Waiting for strong, crystal-clear evidence to act would be engaging in the same flawed thinking that led to the claim that “there is no evidence that masks work” which we heard last year—the costs of delays or inaction would be high. Demands for open access, “red teaming” science, or running multiple-lab reproducibility studies (be it in the social or life sciences, or elsewhere) shouldn’t get stalled by the lack of RCTs. Where there are strong theoretical considerations, indirect evidence, and broad agreement that a proposal will improve science, without a serious cost if we’re wrong, we should just go ahead in at least some cases, and assess the benefits afterwards. """ The last paragraph sums up the thesis: """ Those interested in meta-science may disagree about what the best way to reform science is, but all of us can agree that we need more evidence about the proposals being made. We have many interesting, reasonable ideas ready to be tried. It is a glaring irony that the very same institutions that enable practitioners of the scientific method to do their work don’t apply that same method to themselves. It is time to change that. """
- fiprofessor 4y ago
  Do people really find the thing mentioned in the last paragraph that ironic? To be honest, I do not (except, maybe, if the scientists are economists who work in industrial organization, or something). Many natural scientists I know are deeply skeptical of our ability to accrue this kind of subtle knowledge about complex human processes and social organizations through experiments...
- thrown_22 4y ago
  >. Waiting for strong, crystal-clear evidence to act would be engaging in the same flawed thinking that led to the claim that “there is no evidence that masks work” which we heard last year—the costs of delays or inaction would be high. We are getting a real time test to the question of if mask mandates work in the wild: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-22/nz-jacinda-ardern-covid-zero-destroyed-by-omicron/101246908 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-22/nz-jacinda-ardern-cov... Australia has no mask mandates, NZ does. NZ has a higher death and hospitalization rate than Australia. The answer is that it's health theater on par with shoe removal at airports. Of course we have the typical bait and switch of pretending that masks as used in an operation theater are in any way the same as the crumpled cloth mask from your pocket.
  - abetusk 4y ago
    I don't really know what you're talking about. NZ looks to me to have a lower death rate than Australia. See [0]. I haven't done a deep dive of the literature but from what I understand wearing face masks is pretty well established to correlate with lower infection rates. A Google search gives [1] which seems pretty reputable to me. It sounds like you're picking a fight about your personal cause celebre? The original article is talking about trying to figure out how to build evidence. The underlying assumption is that once you have evidence, you use it to inform decisions. You're pushing a false narrative by not only ignoring evidence but also misinterpreting or lying about the evidence that's available. [0] https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?data=deaths&location=Australia&location=New+Zealand https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?data=deaths&location=Austra... [1] https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/Documents/nCoV/COVID-WWKSF/2022/03/wwksf-mask-mandates-population-level-outcomes.pdf?sc_lang=en https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/Documents/nCoV/CO...
    - mike_hearn 4y ago
      He mentioned masks because the article itself uses masks as an example of a belief the author claims is false, as cited in the post above. By the way, lots of people believe masks don't work. You can line up places that differ only by mask mandate status and observe that the case curves are the same. There are many situations like that, but in theory you only need one to disprove the claim that mask mandates (always) work. The case against masks is made by Ian Miller in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Unmasked-Global-Failure-COVID-Mandates/dp/1637583761 https://www.amazon.com/Unmasked-Global-Failure-COVID-Mandate...
fuzzfactor 4y ago
If Yoda were a scientist he would say something like, No proposal No committee No eminence No hesitation Just do
- ModernMech 4y ago
  I would love to just do! But I need money to just do. Approximately a million dollars. Who is going to give me a million dollars without a proposal as to my plan on how to spend that? Is one person going to be the decision maker on who gets money? That seems like it would be susceptible to strong biases. A committee could make decisions with less bias. And how will they discern between proposals? Money isn’t unlimited, and a million dollars is a lot of money — you don’t want to just give that away to anybody. Some prior track record of success on the part of the applicant would help demonstrate their ability to accomplish the proposed research. Maybe they would demonstrate that prowess somehow, through written means perhaps, like a document, published for all to read. So from first principles we’ve arrived back at the current situation. I don’t think things are perfect, but throwing out the whole system without understanding why it’s there will just lead to more dysfunction. Yes no one likes writing grants, and yes publishing can be gamed. But until you solve the fact that research costs money, and a few people have control over most of the available money, then we’re (scientists) going to have to spend a lot of time convincing them to give us some of what they have.
  - fuzzfactor 4y ago
    Everything you say is so true and the last line is the way its always been: >research costs money, and a few people have control over most of the available money, then we’re (scientists) going to have to spend a lot of time convincing them to give us some of what they have. Definitely, and I think it pays to be very adaptable whether you are operating with an academic approach or not. Institutions that have developed over sometimes hundreds of years can be hard to beat. I wouldn't want to stop that kind of progress. But I think there should be alternatives, and I do think a lottery has its place. >I need money to just do. Approximately a million dollars. I'm a lot worse off than that. It would take $10 million to build the kind of lab I need, to deploy the full one percent of my findings. So I would have to accept the situation, being likely to settle for less than one percent and focus on that. And to potentially scale up from there I think I'd have much better luck by personal meetings & communication with money people compared to what results I could expect from issuing scientific papers. Where I have had some good luck when reaching a commercially viable milestone. But that's seriously a lot of money so I would have to really be ready for some high-touch sales. >Who is going to give me a million dollars without a proposal as to my plan on how to spend that? I know what you mean. And I'm at the other end of the spectrum, without a PhD. Making outright grants even more elusive today. I would have to be very persuasive about how I would return their money, and in multiples rather than just margins. So that would be a lot of explaining to do. Which is why I built my first lab 30 years ago entirely from recycled materials. There wasn't $10 million forthcoming back then either. I'm glad I didn't wait.

What is the thesis here? Inaction because of insufficient certainty? Isn't that the exact issue that landed us in this mess? Science requires action in the face of uncertainty.

abetusk 4y ago

The thesis is that we should be experimenting on how to get best results. In other words, we should treat science funding scientifically, testing hypothesis, examining results and course correcting based on the evidence. To your point about inaction, from the article: """ This does not mean we should wait decades before implementing any change. Waiting for strong, crystal-clear evidence to act would be engaging in the same flawed thinking that led to the claim that “there is no evidence that masks work” which we heard last year—the costs of delays or inaction would be high. Demands for open access, “red teaming” science, or running multiple-lab reproducibility studies (be it in the social or life sciences, or elsewhere) shouldn’t get stalled by the lack of RCTs. Where there are strong theoretical considerations, indirect evidence, and broad agreement that a proposal will improve science, without a serious cost if we’re wrong, we should just go ahead in at least some cases, and assess the benefits afterwards. """ The last paragraph sums up the thesis: """ Those interested in meta-science may disagree about what the best way to reform science is, but all of us can agree that we need more evidence about the proposals being made. We have many interesting, reasonable ideas ready to be tried. It is a glaring irony that the very same institutions that enable practitioners of the scientific method to do their work don’t apply that same method to themselves. It is time to change that. """

fiprofessor 4y ago
Do people really find the thing mentioned in the last paragraph that ironic? To be honest, I do not (except, maybe, if the scientists are economists who work in industrial organization, or something). Many natural scientists I know are deeply skeptical of our ability to accrue this kind of subtle knowledge about complex human processes and social organizations through experiments...
thrown_22 4y ago
>. Waiting for strong, crystal-clear evidence to act would be engaging in the same flawed thinking that led to the claim that “there is no evidence that masks work” which we heard last year—the costs of delays or inaction would be high. We are getting a real time test to the question of if mask mandates work in the wild: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-22/nz-jacinda-ardern-covid-zero-destroyed-by-omicron/101246908 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-22/nz-jacinda-ardern-cov... Australia has no mask mandates, NZ does. NZ has a higher death and hospitalization rate than Australia. The answer is that it's health theater on par with shoe removal at airports. Of course we have the typical bait and switch of pretending that masks as used in an operation theater are in any way the same as the crumpled cloth mask from your pocket.
- abetusk 4y ago
  I don't really know what you're talking about. NZ looks to me to have a lower death rate than Australia. See [0]. I haven't done a deep dive of the literature but from what I understand wearing face masks is pretty well established to correlate with lower infection rates. A Google search gives [1] which seems pretty reputable to me. It sounds like you're picking a fight about your personal cause celebre? The original article is talking about trying to figure out how to build evidence. The underlying assumption is that once you have evidence, you use it to inform decisions. You're pushing a false narrative by not only ignoring evidence but also misinterpreting or lying about the evidence that's available. [0] https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?data=deaths&location=Australia&location=New+Zealand https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?data=deaths&location=Austra... [1] https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/Documents/nCoV/COVID-WWKSF/2022/03/wwksf-mask-mandates-population-level-outcomes.pdf?sc_lang=en https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/Documents/nCoV/CO...
  - mike_hearn 4y ago
    He mentioned masks because the article itself uses masks as an example of a belief the author claims is false, as cited in the post above. By the way, lots of people believe masks don't work. You can line up places that differ only by mask mandate status and observe that the case curves are the same. There are many situations like that, but in theory you only need one to disprove the claim that mask mandates (always) work. The case against masks is made by Ian Miller in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Unmasked-Global-Failure-COVID-Mandates/dp/1637583761 https://www.amazon.com/Unmasked-Global-Failure-COVID-Mandate...

fuzzfactor 4y ago

If Yoda were a scientist he would say something like, No proposal No committee No eminence No hesitation Just do

ModernMech 4y ago
I would love to just do! But I need money to just do. Approximately a million dollars. Who is going to give me a million dollars without a proposal as to my plan on how to spend that? Is one person going to be the decision maker on who gets money? That seems like it would be susceptible to strong biases. A committee could make decisions with less bias. And how will they discern between proposals? Money isn’t unlimited, and a million dollars is a lot of money — you don’t want to just give that away to anybody. Some prior track record of success on the part of the applicant would help demonstrate their ability to accomplish the proposed research. Maybe they would demonstrate that prowess somehow, through written means perhaps, like a document, published for all to read. So from first principles we’ve arrived back at the current situation. I don’t think things are perfect, but throwing out the whole system without understanding why it’s there will just lead to more dysfunction. Yes no one likes writing grants, and yes publishing can be gamed. But until you solve the fact that research costs money, and a few people have control over most of the available money, then we’re (scientists) going to have to spend a lot of time convincing them to give us some of what they have.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  Everything you say is so true and the last line is the way its always been: >research costs money, and a few people have control over most of the available money, then we’re (scientists) going to have to spend a lot of time convincing them to give us some of what they have. Definitely, and I think it pays to be very adaptable whether you are operating with an academic approach or not. Institutions that have developed over sometimes hundreds of years can be hard to beat. I wouldn't want to stop that kind of progress. But I think there should be alternatives, and I do think a lottery has its place. >I need money to just do. Approximately a million dollars. I'm a lot worse off than that. It would take $10 million to build the kind of lab I need, to deploy the full one percent of my findings. So I would have to accept the situation, being likely to settle for less than one percent and focus on that. And to potentially scale up from there I think I'd have much better luck by personal meetings & communication with money people compared to what results I could expect from issuing scientific papers. Where I have had some good luck when reaching a commercially viable milestone. But that's seriously a lot of money so I would have to really be ready for some high-touch sales. >Who is going to give me a million dollars without a proposal as to my plan on how to spend that? I know what you mean. And I'm at the other end of the spectrum, without a PhD. Making outright grants even more elusive today. I would have to be very persuasive about how I would return their money, and in multiples rather than just margins. So that would be a lot of explaining to do. Which is why I built my first lab 30 years ago entirely from recycled materials. There wasn't $10 million forthcoming back then either. I'm glad I didn't wait.