4 ms·

The system seems to select for people who are fit and healthy enough, and live long enough, to make the ordeal to get admitted to cancer trials. This means the

by sieste 3y ago

The system seems to select for people who are fit and healthy enough, and live long enough, to make the ordeal to get admitted to cancer trials. This means the results are not representative, and effectiveness of these trials is probably overestimated. Very depressing.

lumost 3y ago
This is probably true for most/all aging related conditions. Obviously, people can and do get such conditions while young - but for many, it's just a question of which condition becomes untreatable first. I'm cautiously hopeful that anti-aging related treatments will help improve this situation.
inopinatus 3y ago
Imagine training for years in medicine, microbiology, biochemistry, statistical methods and so forth, then obtaining many more years of painstaking, mostly fruitless, and occasionally fruitful experience in designing and executing research and even entire research programs, correlating and validating results, sharing process improvement findings with equally capable peers, attending to ever more stringent regulation, worrying frequently over how to properly and carefully eliminate error and bias and the myriad sources thereof, only for some rando on the internet to dismiss your hard-won and nuanced understanding of how protocol and technique can lead to results that genuinely, in gestalt, improve the human condition, with "probably overestimated".
- tayo42 3y ago
  Your probably used to it. The most predictable comments on anything about a study are "mice" and "N ="
- A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
  Your comment is a form of appeal to authority, and one which I think is unjustified under the circumstances. There are, and have been, a great many problems with the medical literature -- and in the way clinical trials are run. The article in OP highlights one potential problem, which would be difficult for researchers to fully account for. We shouldn't default to: "Surely they know what they're doing and it's no concern at all. Besides, how dare you cast doubt upon the good sense of those researchers." That clinical trials are biased in favor of those who show up for them -- and that the ones who show up are, regardless of disease staging, in some sense subjectively "healthier" than those who can't summon the energy to deal with it -- is a legitimate concern. What evidence is there that it's routinely taken into account? We shouldn't take it on faith, and pointing to some framed credentials is no answer at all.
  - inopinatus 3y ago
    Actually it's a warning against making lazy assumptions, trite dismissals, and generally being an asshole, because of the human consequences. There's no appeal to authority, because that is an argument to support a claim, and no claim has been made. This here is rhetoric, subtype pathos: I merely ask you to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone that competent. If you've never met someone that competent and thereby doubt their literal existence, then I'm sorry for you. Make your own statement, sure, don't twist the words of mine to say something they didn't. Edit to add, more bluntly: the assumption of incompetence seems to me as much a fallacy (perhaps of the general class of attribution bias) as any argument from authority. I will now be so bold as to make a claim, or even a series of claims: that humanity continues to push back the boundaries of ignorance, and that is what we call science, via the process of research, and it is a process driven by people, often well-meaning people many of whom put their heart & soul into it, and notwithstanding the myriad inefficiencies and inequities in the system, it is not depressing at all.
    - A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
      What you were responding to was hardly a lazy assumption, and there was nothing rude about it. > "I merely ask you to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone that competent." The principle of nullius in verba must apply regardless of how competent one imagines researchers are. If you've spotted a potential methodological problem, you can't just imagine it's solved or handwave it away. You should have a look for yourself and see how it was solved, if solved it was.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - inopinatus 3y ago
        If that is your view then we are hardly in contradiction, except in our reading of the original remark. The exemplary individual I described earlier would undoubtedly also look backwards, at what mistakes were made, but also forward, to what improvements can be found. quo me cumque rapit tempestas. Again, this is not a depressing sentiment.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- sieste 3y ago
  The highly trained, nuanced, capable scientist you are describing is unfortunately only a small part of the bigger "system" I referred to, which also involves regulators, insurers, phone line operators, hospital staff etc (as described in the article). I don't think that the person who designs and evaluates the trial can control or correct for the biases introduced by all these additional factors. The only thing they can hope for is that the many errors average each other out, but the situation described by the article looks as though all errors point in the same direction...

by sieste 3y ago

lumost 3y ago

This is probably true for most/all aging related conditions. Obviously, people can and do get such conditions while young - but for many, it's just a question of which condition becomes untreatable first. I'm cautiously hopeful that anti-aging related treatments will help improve this situation.

inopinatus 3y ago

Imagine training for years in medicine, microbiology, biochemistry, statistical methods and so forth, then obtaining many more years of painstaking, mostly fruitless, and occasionally fruitful experience in designing and executing research and even entire research programs, correlating and validating results, sharing process improvement findings with equally capable peers, attending to ever more stringent regulation, worrying frequently over how to properly and carefully eliminate error and bias and the myriad sources thereof, only for some rando on the internet to dismiss your hard-won and nuanced understanding of how protocol and technique can lead to results that genuinely, in gestalt, improve the human condition, with "probably overestimated".

tayo42 3y ago
Your probably used to it. The most predictable comments on anything about a study are "mice" and "N ="
A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
Your comment is a form of appeal to authority, and one which I think is unjustified under the circumstances. There are, and have been, a great many problems with the medical literature -- and in the way clinical trials are run. The article in OP highlights one potential problem, which would be difficult for researchers to fully account for. We shouldn't default to: "Surely they know what they're doing and it's no concern at all. Besides, how dare you cast doubt upon the good sense of those researchers." That clinical trials are biased in favor of those who show up for them -- and that the ones who show up are, regardless of disease staging, in some sense subjectively "healthier" than those who can't summon the energy to deal with it -- is a legitimate concern. What evidence is there that it's routinely taken into account? We shouldn't take it on faith, and pointing to some framed credentials is no answer at all.
- inopinatus 3y ago
  Actually it's a warning against making lazy assumptions, trite dismissals, and generally being an asshole, because of the human consequences. There's no appeal to authority, because that is an argument to support a claim, and no claim has been made. This here is rhetoric, subtype pathos: I merely ask you to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone that competent. If you've never met someone that competent and thereby doubt their literal existence, then I'm sorry for you. Make your own statement, sure, don't twist the words of mine to say something they didn't. Edit to add, more bluntly: the assumption of incompetence seems to me as much a fallacy (perhaps of the general class of attribution bias) as any argument from authority. I will now be so bold as to make a claim, or even a series of claims: that humanity continues to push back the boundaries of ignorance, and that is what we call science, via the process of research, and it is a process driven by people, often well-meaning people many of whom put their heart & soul into it, and notwithstanding the myriad inefficiencies and inequities in the system, it is not depressing at all.
  - A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
    What you were responding to was hardly a lazy assumption, and there was nothing rude about it. > "I merely ask you to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone that competent." The principle of nullius in verba must apply regardless of how competent one imagines researchers are. If you've spotted a potential methodological problem, you can't just imagine it's solved or handwave it away. You should have a look for yourself and see how it was solved, if solved it was.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - inopinatus 3y ago
      If that is your view then we are hardly in contradiction, except in our reading of the original remark. The exemplary individual I described earlier would undoubtedly also look backwards, at what mistakes were made, but also forward, to what improvements can be found. quo me cumque rapit tempestas. Again, this is not a depressing sentiment.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sieste 3y ago
The highly trained, nuanced, capable scientist you are describing is unfortunately only a small part of the bigger "system" I referred to, which also involves regulators, insurers, phone line operators, hospital staff etc (as described in the article). I don't think that the person who designs and evaluates the trial can control or correct for the biases introduced by all these additional factors. The only thing they can hope for is that the many errors average each other out, but the situation described by the article looks as though all errors point in the same direction...