[polychrome]

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.

[schwabacher]

People did ask these things though. If you search pub med there are hundreds of papers on HDL, LDL, and their interactions with other molecules. The bet Pfizer made may not even have been a bad bet, just an unlucky one. And now we know a little bit more about HDL and it's effect on cholesterol.

Human biology is an extremely complex, chaotic system. Just because we don't know everything about it yet, that doesn't mean we will never understand it, or that we are not making progress.

You have a good point about finding ways to look at multiple causes and effects at the same time. There is some very cool work using machine learning techniques like clustering and SVMs on transcriptomic/proteomic data to try to understand relationships between genes. I would be very surprised if they don't have people doing this at Pfizer, but maybe having a few more could have helped them in this case.

[mindstab]

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]

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

[mindstab]

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]

"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.

[mindstab]

Which may be acceptable if we read science to equate to biochemisty.

But the author said "Science is failing us" not "Biochemistry".

And I still disagree, there is still tons of new amazing and effective stuff being churned out. If you want to draw a line in the sand and try not taking and new medicines invented after today and see how you do fine, but I'm going to keep up because I still think there is a lot that can be done and we've barely started

[polychrome]

I agree with you there. And maybe the point here really is that this industry in particular is plagued with bad science.

Point well taken. Human arrogance does always seem to be the largest problem in any system.