4 ms·

I actually don't believe this conclusion based off the fact that it would be slam-dunk evidence for the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's, which we don't have.

echelon 3y ago
Multiple pathways could lead to the disease. It's entirely possible that a metabolic dysfunction or viral origin causes immune dysfunction and the downstream dysregulation, misfolding, amyloid/tau signals, etc. There might be multiple entry points to causing this disease.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  That might be true, but I don't think this makes the conclusion any more compelling because it now fails Occam's razor. Chances are greater the conclusion is simply incorrect.
  - echelon 3y ago
    > it now fails Occam's razor. I mean, mechanistically speaking, so does cancer. I don't think that's quite the lens to apply to biological systems. Biology is wildly complex and subverts expectations all the time.
    - boringuser2 3y ago
      It is the lens to apply to any system. You don't defend a tenuous conclusion by doubling down with a tenuous defense. "Science" is constantly inaccurate. I can pull two papers right now with opposing conclusions. Assuming a scientific conclusion is simply incorrect is a pretty good bet, even if you have absolutely no context or idea what is happening at all.
      - echelon 3y ago
        > It is the lens to apply to any system. I can point to countless instances where it fails to adequately guide investigation in biology. Occam's razor leads to premature simplification. When the space is vast, dynamical, and unknown, it's absolutely not a tool. Do you think, for instance, that V(D)J recombination satisfied Occam's razor when we asked ourselves how adaptive immunity worked, or how some forms of diseases such as SCID manifested? There is a metric ton of pure serendipity in the study of biology. We're drawing new connections between systems all the time. This is just a new data point.
        boringuser2 3y ago
        I think you're misunderstanding slightly the utility function of the logical device here. It's not so much that we cannot analyze a complex system using this criterion, it's moreso a tool that allows us to identify a logically tenable pathway for investigating a specific element of reality. For example, a poster above noted that I was misapplying the razor because he went one level below where I was analyzing. He's not necessarily incorrect, and neither am I. You interrogate reality at multiple levels of magnification, which is why you don't need to know how genes specifically work to know that they work and make predictions based on their prevalence, for example.
  - cbsmith 3y ago
    That's a misapplication of the razor here. The simplest explanation for the statistically unusual prevalence of the disease amongst these patients is indeed that there is a causal link.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    Isn't the point that when comparing multiple explanations of a phenomenon one applies Occams razor to pick the "best" one? In this case we don't have any explanations to compare yet, just suggestive lines of research. So it's premature to bring out the razor.

echelon 3y ago

Multiple pathways could lead to the disease. It's entirely possible that a metabolic dysfunction or viral origin causes immune dysfunction and the downstream dysregulation, misfolding, amyloid/tau signals, etc. There might be multiple entry points to causing this disease.

boringuser2 3y ago
That might be true, but I don't think this makes the conclusion any more compelling because it now fails Occam's razor. Chances are greater the conclusion is simply incorrect.
- echelon 3y ago
  > it now fails Occam's razor. I mean, mechanistically speaking, so does cancer. I don't think that's quite the lens to apply to biological systems. Biology is wildly complex and subverts expectations all the time.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    It is the lens to apply to any system. You don't defend a tenuous conclusion by doubling down with a tenuous defense. "Science" is constantly inaccurate. I can pull two papers right now with opposing conclusions. Assuming a scientific conclusion is simply incorrect is a pretty good bet, even if you have absolutely no context or idea what is happening at all.
    - echelon 3y ago
      > It is the lens to apply to any system. I can point to countless instances where it fails to adequately guide investigation in biology. Occam's razor leads to premature simplification. When the space is vast, dynamical, and unknown, it's absolutely not a tool. Do you think, for instance, that V(D)J recombination satisfied Occam's razor when we asked ourselves how adaptive immunity worked, or how some forms of diseases such as SCID manifested? There is a metric ton of pure serendipity in the study of biology. We're drawing new connections between systems all the time. This is just a new data point.
      - boringuser2 3y ago
        I think you're misunderstanding slightly the utility function of the logical device here. It's not so much that we cannot analyze a complex system using this criterion, it's moreso a tool that allows us to identify a logically tenable pathway for investigating a specific element of reality. For example, a poster above noted that I was misapplying the razor because he went one level below where I was analyzing. He's not necessarily incorrect, and neither am I. You interrogate reality at multiple levels of magnification, which is why you don't need to know how genes specifically work to know that they work and make predictions based on their prevalence, for example.
- cbsmith 3y ago
  That's a misapplication of the razor here. The simplest explanation for the statistically unusual prevalence of the disease amongst these patients is indeed that there is a causal link.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  Isn't the point that when comparing multiple explanations of a phenomenon one applies Occams razor to pick the "best" one? In this case we don't have any explanations to compare yet, just suggestive lines of research. So it's premature to bring out the razor.