That's completely unacceptable on HN. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
Thank you for all of the work you do to keep this as civil a place one could possibly expect to find that’s open to the general public on the internet.
‘Utterly wrong’ is a harsh conclusion. You may want a touch of humility yourself. Amyloid plaques are the defining feature of AD and assuredly provide vital clues about the biomolecular processes driving AD across the brain. There is renewed interest in the what causative role amyloid plays [1]. Whether plaques are causative or a byproduct is an open question, especially when we consider the heterogeneity in neurodegenerative diseases. AD itself probably is an umbrella term capturing several subtypes (such as CAA). Whatever role amyloid plays, the OP is correct: correlates open interesting research avenues and this is an interesting paper if for no other reason we have few predictors of who will develop AD.
How can you identify a mechanism of action if you don't have any idea of what the possible agents are? Don't you first have to identify some of the molecules that may be involved, before you figure out which ones are causal and how that causality plays out?
I agree with you. I think being proven utterly wrong is a huge accomplishment nonetheless. We shouldn’t be sure of ourselves, but we should treasure any progress even if it’s in the form of negating causes rather than isolating them.