[bglazer]

Ah causal data! It’s a shame none of the scientists or statisticians thought of getting causal data. How would we get that? Well maybe we could just inject amyloid into a person’s brain. Or simply remove all the amyloid from a person’s brain. That should do it, right?

I mean an amyloid injection is wildly unethical and it’s also not the natural progression of Alzheimer’s. Removing amyloid is a simple matter of investing billions of dollars into drug development. Also how do you tell whether that was actually “causal” if the patients improve after plaque removal.

I mean come on, you have to work the evidence and the experimental tools that we actually have. This kind of epistemic puritanism doesn’t help anyone.

[bsder]

> Well maybe we could just inject amyloid into a person’s brain.

Erm, we kinda did? People who got cadaver-derived human growth hormone from Alzheimer's patients got Alzheimer's.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02729-2

And we just had an actual autopsy confirm a case: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/new-evidence-strengthen...