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I don't quite know how to adequatly articulate my displeasure with this article but lets try. The article basically seems to be relying on some philosophy and

I don't quite know how to adequatly articulate my displeasure with this article but lets try. The article basically seems to be relying on some philosophy and muddy and different definitions in different contexts (philosophy vs science vs standard usage) of words like "fact". Then it talks about how things are getting more complex and we're spending more effort to learn things now than we used to because "we know all the easy stuff". And seems to conclude that we'll still be no better than religious shamanistic people once we "know all there is to know" and it still won't do us a lot of good. It seems to be advocating give up on science now, with some rational like "while we're ahead". I honestly don't get it. It seems like cloudy wooly thinking, bad arguments. Sure, things are getting more complex and will continue to, but that doesn't mean we should give up, or that "it's mysteries all the way down". Every year we learn more and fix more problems. And we have to and always have had to make a lot of mistakes in the process. The author seems to think we're making more mistakes now and that's an indication the game is almost up. I disagree, medical science is still churning out amazing breakthroughs, like HIV and cancer vaccines this year. And physics is still coming up with amazing things. Just because it's getting harder doesn't mean we should stop or that we'll hit a wall and be able to go no further (and if we can see that wall coming we might want to think about stopping prematurely?) Everytime we thought we'd learned everything we've been able to push on and learn more, discover more depth, and use it more to our advantage. I don't strictly speaking see why that has to stop just because it's getting harder. At least any time soon. Each new level also gives us better tools to work with. And there have always been people saying we know enough now, or it's getting harder so lets stop now. And some have, and many haven't and that's why we still have progress. This is a age old endless reoccurring trend and bares the same ignoring it has always gotten. Or you can step off the train of progress and be left behind. I do not think science is failing us at all in anyway. I think this article is poor on many standards.

polychrome 15y ago
I can see your frustration with this article. I think the point is that we need to come up with new methods to predict and learn from. Just like we came up with a system of linking cause and effect, we need to come up with a system that links multiple causes and effects easily. Making the article relevant to this point, Pfizer spent tons of money developing a drug and bet it would work simply because (at the time) lowering HDL = better cholesterol. No one asked what does HDL do in the body? What does LDL do in the body? What depends on cholesterol? It's kind of like when you come up with a really cool idea but forget to look at the target market to see if it's actually viable.
- mindstab 15y ago
  Not sure it's possibly to just come up with a new system of science and logic that is more convenient. The bigger point is that all of these thing go throug proper testing (double blind, phase 3 etc) and this bigger system does catch them before we just call them facts and unleash them. We are testing them and figuring it out, it's just complex and hard. Same with the search for the Higs Bosen. We're pretty sure it's there, it seems like we even have a bead on it now, but we're still searching and testing big ranges and it takes time. I'm not sure you can just come up with a new way of reasoning to find it. But of course you are welcome to try, just don't tell everyone else they are wasting their time while you are trying, because you might be wrong and wasting your time.
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    I'm not sure John Ioannidis[1] would agree with you. The number of papers he has shown to be incorrect in some way is disturbing. I don't think anybody would say no progress is being made, but we are taking two steps back for every three forward. The article did leave something critical out: what now? Reductionism doesn't seem to be working for systems like the human body (or psychology or climatology or...). So what do we do about it? I think that is what my grandparent reply meant by a new process to deal with complexity, because reductionism is failing to often in these systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._A._Ioannidis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._A._Ioannidis
    - mindstab 15y ago
      I also don't think it's always the case disproving something is a step backwards, that still enhances our understanding of the topic. Sure newton was essentially wrong, but a) newtonian physics is still a fine short hand for near earth simple stuff, and b) it's not like we lost understanding of the world, it was supplanted by a better more precise understanding
      - jerf 15y ago
        "I also don't think it's always the case disproving something is a step backwards, that still enhances our understanding of the topic." In theory, yes, in practice, no. The human body is wildly complicated with an absolutely enormous state space, surrounded by an incomprehensibly larger possible state space that expresses our ignorance about what the body might be actually doing. Throwing a dart at random and eliminating some particular claim about the nature of that state space may impart vanishingly small fractions of a bit of information, roundable to zero with insignificant loss. Not entirely without value? Sure! Worth it? Well, losing the bet and coming up effectively empty in information a certain amount of the time is inevitable, but when you pretty much do nothing but lose, it's time to change your strategy.
winestock 15y ago
Your displeasure probably comes from the paragraph on David Hume. One of the principle criticisms leveled against Hume is that his philosophy makes the natural sciences and even inductive logic itself problematic. On a work-a-day level, scientists and engineers seem to take the same position on causality as that proposed by the medieval scholastics.
bmuon 15y ago
I wouldn't take it that seriously, because to be completely honest, the article sounds to me like a troll post. The title and the content seems to be chosen for the biggest impact and there doesn't seem to be much more to it. The fact is that this questions have been asked and tried to answer many times by scientists, philosophers and epistemologists. For instance, the author chose to talk about Hume but chose not to mention Popper. Falsifiability is the key word here. Science doesn't advance by gathering knowledge about how the world works directly, but by accumulating false results. And besides, the fact that there will always be mysteries is what makes science fun in the first place.
- jebblue 15y ago
  >> the article sounds to me like a troll post I read it as no one knows everything, always proceed with caution.
avar 15y ago
Actually most things in science aren't getting more complex, in fact they're getting less complex. If you're on the bleeding edge of particle physics then sure, things are getting more complex. But most discoveries to be made in science are relatively mundane everyday things, and just a matter of paying attention in a structured manner. E.g. most forms of life on the planet haven't been studied in any detail for the simple reason that nobody's gotten around to it yet, but the methods and tools to do so are much easier than they were 50 or 25 years ago. Anyone can contribute to science, and it's now easier than ever before, and some of those contributions might unearth something we didn't expect.
- polymatter 15y ago
  I am under the impression that the sorts of "paying attention" usually involves $milion equipment and highly qualified and experienced research staff. What sort of study could a lone wanabe do that would actually be publishable?
  - anamax 15y ago
    > What sort of study could a lone wanabe do that would actually be publishable? A huge fraction of sea-life is "undiscovered", especially small stuff. Yes, even at scuba depths.
rayiner 15y ago
The article makes a lot more sense if you think of "science" not as the idealized process, but the actual process as practiced by people at Pfizer, Merck, etc. Read the Hume reference not as a criticism of the scientific method, but rather as a reminder of something we already know (correlation != causation), but that we in practice assume all the time in order to apply science to certain problems. He's saying not that the method is bad, but that things are getting complex enough, at least in medicine, where we're hitting some limits on how easily we can practice science to the necessary level of rigor and precision.
- mindstab 15y ago
  "He's saying not that the method is bad, but that things are getting complex enough, at least in medicine, where we're hitting some limits on how easily we can practice science to the necessary level of rigor and precision." But we are still doing fine and achieving the "necessary level of rigor and precision". The one main example of the article was the drug that was stopped in trials, which is exactly as the process was supposed to work, and yet then the author tries to paint this as a reason or example of the failure of science in general.
  - rayiner 15y ago
    I don't see the author as claiming there is a "failure of science in general" (I didn't read the title of the article literally, however). I think a drug like that getting that far into development, despite targeting an extremely well understood biological pathway, is a decent example of the practice of science in at least some contexts hitting certain limits.
- polyfractal 15y ago
  To nitpick, Pfizer, Merck et. al. don't actually do science. What they do is more akin to spraying buckshot into the bushes and hoping to hit a furry animal hiding somewhere inside. Not that this is a particularly bad approach. It worked amazingly well for the last few decades and has churned out a lot of blockbuster drugs. It is, however, starting to fall apart as all the low hanging fruit has been picked. It's time for the big pharma's to start doing science again. The problem is that big pharma is thoroughly infatuated with quarterly stock prices and not developing new drugs. They are cannibalizing themselves in an effort to keep stock prices up and profits growing. It's better to think of big pharma as remarkably successful marketing engines, not medical science companies. For instance, I know of many scientists that work for big pharma companies which do not have access to any of the scientific literature (past the freely available abstracts). Management will not allow them to purchase these articles. Consider that for a moment. The companies producing your drugs are not even remotely up to speed on cutting edge biological knowledge. *Obligatory "I'm in biology so I'm not making this stuff up" disclaimer.
Alex3917 15y ago
"I disagree, medical science is still churning out amazing breakthroughs, like HIV and cancer vaccines this year. [...] Just because it's getting harder doesn't mean we should stop or that we'll hit a wall and be able to go no further (and if we can see that wall coming we might want to think about stopping prematurely?)" I think both you and the author are incorrect. Medical research has basically become an elaborate scam for not just the reasons mentioned in this article, but at least a dozen other reasons as well. If you look at the last fifty years of pharmacological/nutrition research, there really haven't been more than a handful of important discoveries despite the literally trillions of dollars that have been spent.
- tel 15y ago
  Devil's advocacy: it may be that our rate of medical discovery is about 1 per 100B at the current risk willingness to human life.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  At the risk of this turning into (yet another) argument with you about modern medicine, allow me to suggest that your position is utter crap: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/12/cancer-survival-rates-doubled http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/12/cancer-surviva...
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    >Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, put the improvement down to "faster diagnosis, better surgery, more effective radiotherapy and many new drugs". Notice how new drugs are given the least emphasis of the four factors listed. Plus, one of the biggest reasons so many people are getting cancer is the flawed nutritional advice of the medical establishment. Anyway, clearly there has been some progress, but we would be in a whole other place if the vast majority of the research dollars hadn't been completely wasted. Not to mention all the potential cancer cures that have been made illegal, meaning that it's not even clear the impact of the new drugs is making up for how the medical establishment is screwing us all to begin with.
TechNewb 15y ago
Wired is an old news/magazine. They are just sensationalist now. They are trying to engineer headlines that will last, and while Wired's headlines might last, I don't think the brand will. They are probably hoping for responses such as yours. It's engineered magazine marketing, and not actual content.
paganel 15y ago
> And there have always been people saying we know enough now, or it's getting harder so lets stop now. And some have, and many haven't and that's why we still have progress. I'm not a scientists or anything close to that, but I agree to most of what you sad. What I wanted to add is that there's something extra to be sad about the "let's stop now" part. I'm talking about things like human cloning and, I don't know what its exact name is, "organ harvesting from human clones", let's name it that way. I know that for the most part this is still SF-material, but we're getting there with very big steps, and I think a serious discussion on sensitive subjects like these which would also involve the scientific community must take place rather sooner than later. And before anyone accuses me of being a "religious bigot" or something like that I must tell them that I don't care at all about religion, but I do feel that scientists themselves should stop burying their heads in the "we only do science here"-sandy dunes, and confront the real world.
GlennS 15y ago
I read it expecting the word 'holistic' to pop up at any moment.

polychrome 15y ago

I can see your frustration with this article. I think the point is that we need to come up with new methods to predict and learn from. Just like we came up with a system of linking cause and effect, we need to come up with a system that links multiple causes and effects easily. Making the article relevant to this point, Pfizer spent tons of money developing a drug and bet it would work simply because (at the time) lowering HDL = better cholesterol. No one asked what does HDL do in the body? What does LDL do in the body? What depends on cholesterol? It's kind of like when you come up with a really cool idea but forget to look at the target market to see if it's actually viable.

mindstab 15y ago
Not sure it's possibly to just come up with a new system of science and logic that is more convenient. The bigger point is that all of these thing go throug proper testing (double blind, phase 3 etc) and this bigger system does catch them before we just call them facts and unleash them. We are testing them and figuring it out, it's just complex and hard. Same with the search for the Higs Bosen. We're pretty sure it's there, it seems like we even have a bead on it now, but we're still searching and testing big ranges and it takes time. I'm not sure you can just come up with a new way of reasoning to find it. But of course you are welcome to try, just don't tell everyone else they are wasting their time while you are trying, because you might be wrong and wasting your time.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  I'm not sure John Ioannidis[1] would agree with you. The number of papers he has shown to be incorrect in some way is disturbing. I don't think anybody would say no progress is being made, but we are taking two steps back for every three forward. The article did leave something critical out: what now? Reductionism doesn't seem to be working for systems like the human body (or psychology or climatology or...). So what do we do about it? I think that is what my grandparent reply meant by a new process to deal with complexity, because reductionism is failing to often in these systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._A._Ioannidis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._A._Ioannidis
  - mindstab 15y ago
    I also don't think it's always the case disproving something is a step backwards, that still enhances our understanding of the topic. Sure newton was essentially wrong, but a) newtonian physics is still a fine short hand for near earth simple stuff, and b) it's not like we lost understanding of the world, it was supplanted by a better more precise understanding
    - jerf 15y ago
      "I also don't think it's always the case disproving something is a step backwards, that still enhances our understanding of the topic." In theory, yes, in practice, no. The human body is wildly complicated with an absolutely enormous state space, surrounded by an incomprehensibly larger possible state space that expresses our ignorance about what the body might be actually doing. Throwing a dart at random and eliminating some particular claim about the nature of that state space may impart vanishingly small fractions of a bit of information, roundable to zero with insignificant loss. Not entirely without value? Sure! Worth it? Well, losing the bet and coming up effectively empty in information a certain amount of the time is inevitable, but when you pretty much do nothing but lose, it's time to change your strategy.

winestock 15y ago

Your displeasure probably comes from the paragraph on David Hume. One of the principle criticisms leveled against Hume is that his philosophy makes the natural sciences and even inductive logic itself problematic. On a work-a-day level, scientists and engineers seem to take the same position on causality as that proposed by the medieval scholastics.

bmuon 15y ago

I wouldn't take it that seriously, because to be completely honest, the article sounds to me like a troll post. The title and the content seems to be chosen for the biggest impact and there doesn't seem to be much more to it. The fact is that this questions have been asked and tried to answer many times by scientists, philosophers and epistemologists. For instance, the author chose to talk about Hume but chose not to mention Popper. Falsifiability is the key word here. Science doesn't advance by gathering knowledge about how the world works directly, but by accumulating false results. And besides, the fact that there will always be mysteries is what makes science fun in the first place.

jebblue 15y ago
>> the article sounds to me like a troll post I read it as no one knows everything, always proceed with caution.

avar 15y ago

Actually most things in science aren't getting more complex, in fact they're getting less complex. If you're on the bleeding edge of particle physics then sure, things are getting more complex. But most discoveries to be made in science are relatively mundane everyday things, and just a matter of paying attention in a structured manner. E.g. most forms of life on the planet haven't been studied in any detail for the simple reason that nobody's gotten around to it yet, but the methods and tools to do so are much easier than they were 50 or 25 years ago. Anyone can contribute to science, and it's now easier than ever before, and some of those contributions might unearth something we didn't expect.

polymatter 15y ago
I am under the impression that the sorts of "paying attention" usually involves $milion equipment and highly qualified and experienced research staff. What sort of study could a lone wanabe do that would actually be publishable?
- anamax 15y ago
  > What sort of study could a lone wanabe do that would actually be publishable? A huge fraction of sea-life is "undiscovered", especially small stuff. Yes, even at scuba depths.

rayiner 15y ago

The article makes a lot more sense if you think of "science" not as the idealized process, but the actual process as practiced by people at Pfizer, Merck, etc. Read the Hume reference not as a criticism of the scientific method, but rather as a reminder of something we already know (correlation != causation), but that we in practice assume all the time in order to apply science to certain problems. He's saying not that the method is bad, but that things are getting complex enough, at least in medicine, where we're hitting some limits on how easily we can practice science to the necessary level of rigor and precision.

mindstab 15y ago
"He's saying not that the method is bad, but that things are getting complex enough, at least in medicine, where we're hitting some limits on how easily we can practice science to the necessary level of rigor and precision." But we are still doing fine and achieving the "necessary level of rigor and precision". The one main example of the article was the drug that was stopped in trials, which is exactly as the process was supposed to work, and yet then the author tries to paint this as a reason or example of the failure of science in general.
- rayiner 15y ago
  I don't see the author as claiming there is a "failure of science in general" (I didn't read the title of the article literally, however). I think a drug like that getting that far into development, despite targeting an extremely well understood biological pathway, is a decent example of the practice of science in at least some contexts hitting certain limits.
polyfractal 15y ago
To nitpick, Pfizer, Merck et. al. don't actually do science. What they do is more akin to spraying buckshot into the bushes and hoping to hit a furry animal hiding somewhere inside. Not that this is a particularly bad approach. It worked amazingly well for the last few decades and has churned out a lot of blockbuster drugs. It is, however, starting to fall apart as all the low hanging fruit has been picked. It's time for the big pharma's to start doing science again. The problem is that big pharma is thoroughly infatuated with quarterly stock prices and not developing new drugs. They are cannibalizing themselves in an effort to keep stock prices up and profits growing. It's better to think of big pharma as remarkably successful marketing engines, not medical science companies. For instance, I know of many scientists that work for big pharma companies which do not have access to any of the scientific literature (past the freely available abstracts). Management will not allow them to purchase these articles. Consider that for a moment. The companies producing your drugs are not even remotely up to speed on cutting edge biological knowledge. *Obligatory "I'm in biology so I'm not making this stuff up" disclaimer.

Alex3917 15y ago

"I disagree, medical science is still churning out amazing breakthroughs, like HIV and cancer vaccines this year. [...] Just because it's getting harder doesn't mean we should stop or that we'll hit a wall and be able to go no further (and if we can see that wall coming we might want to think about stopping prematurely?)" I think both you and the author are incorrect. Medical research has basically become an elaborate scam for not just the reasons mentioned in this article, but at least a dozen other reasons as well. If you look at the last fifty years of pharmacological/nutrition research, there really haven't been more than a handful of important discoveries despite the literally trillions of dollars that have been spent.

tel 15y ago
Devil's advocacy: it may be that our rate of medical discovery is about 1 per 100B at the current risk willingness to human life.
burgerbrain 15y ago
At the risk of this turning into (yet another) argument with you about modern medicine, allow me to suggest that your position is utter crap: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/12/cancer-survival-rates-doubled http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/12/cancer-surviva...
- Alex3917 15y ago
  >Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, put the improvement down to "faster diagnosis, better surgery, more effective radiotherapy and many new drugs". Notice how new drugs are given the least emphasis of the four factors listed. Plus, one of the biggest reasons so many people are getting cancer is the flawed nutritional advice of the medical establishment. Anyway, clearly there has been some progress, but we would be in a whole other place if the vast majority of the research dollars hadn't been completely wasted. Not to mention all the potential cancer cures that have been made illegal, meaning that it's not even clear the impact of the new drugs is making up for how the medical establishment is screwing us all to begin with.

TechNewb 15y ago

Wired is an old news/magazine. They are just sensationalist now. They are trying to engineer headlines that will last, and while Wired's headlines might last, I don't think the brand will. They are probably hoping for responses such as yours. It's engineered magazine marketing, and not actual content.

paganel 15y ago

> And there have always been people saying we know enough now, or it's getting harder so lets stop now. And some have, and many haven't and that's why we still have progress. I'm not a scientists or anything close to that, but I agree to most of what you sad. What I wanted to add is that there's something extra to be sad about the "let's stop now" part. I'm talking about things like human cloning and, I don't know what its exact name is, "organ harvesting from human clones", let's name it that way. I know that for the most part this is still SF-material, but we're getting there with very big steps, and I think a serious discussion on sensitive subjects like these which would also involve the scientific community must take place rather sooner than later. And before anyone accuses me of being a "religious bigot" or something like that I must tell them that I don't care at all about religion, but I do feel that scientists themselves should stop burying their heads in the "we only do science here"-sandy dunes, and confront the real world.

GlennS 15y ago

I read it expecting the word 'holistic' to pop up at any moment.