Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

It is what keeps for example homeopathy in business so ..

On 05/02/19, 12:56 PM, "silklist on behalf of Srini RamaKrishnan" 
 wrote:

On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 12:22 PM Deepa Agashe  wrote:

> As I see it, scientific understanding means that we have greater
> repeatability than expected by chance- i.e. the signal to noise ratio is
> high.


So is the placebo effect science? It is greater than expected by chance,
isn't it?

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

As long as a Martin Shkrell-esque big pharma is a convenient whipping boy that 
nobody objects to why at all spoil the argument by bringing cold logic into it?

On 05/02/19, 1:24 PM, "silklist on behalf of Deepa Agashe" 
 wrote:


> On 05-Feb-2019, at 13:02, Srini RamaKrishnan  wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 12:22 PM Deepa Agashe mailto:daga...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>> and the fact that vaccines fail in 1% (or some such small fraction) of
>> humans does not make this understanding unscientific.
> 
> 
> 1% of a 100 million children is 1 million. Even 0.1% is 100,000 kids that
> will definitely have an adverse reaction. It's one thing to accept such
> odds with a terminal disease like cancer, but another matter to infect
> healthy kids with a disease.
> 

So if we have a chance to save 90 million kids we should rather let them 
die? 
It is clear that this is not an ideal situation, but it is how things 
stand. There are too many variables and we must simply do what we can, given 
the overwhelming odds against us being able to identify each and every one of 
them, and worse still, being able to measure each variable for each kid before 
we vaccinate. (I note that none of this makes the research itself unscientific- 
these are practical challenges for which you cannot blame scientists).


> Ideally human beings would be honest and self governed with a love for all
> humanity, but since they are not, fear is what keeps them in line. We
> simply don't have any consequences that scientists and policy makers fear
> enough. Heck even when they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar,
> the fines don't bankrupt companies.

Scientists are not the same as pharma companies. I don’t understand exactly 
what would you like scientists to do. 

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Deepa Agashe]

> On 05-Feb-2019, at 13:02, Srini RamaKrishnan  wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 12:22 PM Deepa Agashe  > wrote:
> 
>> and the fact that vaccines fail in 1% (or some such small fraction) of
>> humans does not make this understanding unscientific.
> 
> 
> 1% of a 100 million children is 1 million. Even 0.1% is 100,000 kids that
> will definitely have an adverse reaction. It's one thing to accept such
> odds with a terminal disease like cancer, but another matter to infect
> healthy kids with a disease.
> 

So if we have a chance to save 90 million kids we should rather let them die? 
It is clear that this is not an ideal situation, but it is how things stand. 
There are too many variables and we must simply do what we can, given the 
overwhelming odds against us being able to identify each and every one of them, 
and worse still, being able to measure each variable for each kid before we 
vaccinate. (I note that none of this makes the research itself unscientific- 
these are practical challenges for which you cannot blame scientists).


> Ideally human beings would be honest and self governed with a love for all
> humanity, but since they are not, fear is what keeps them in line. We
> simply don't have any consequences that scientists and policy makers fear
> enough. Heck even when they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar,
> the fines don't bankrupt companies.

Scientists are not the same as pharma companies. I don’t understand exactly 
what would you like scientists to do. 

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Srini RamaKrishnan]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 1:15 PM Deepa Agashe  wrote:

> Yes, it is. And a very useful one, actually.


Indeed, yet medical systems that rely on it (in addition to other active
agents) are dismissed as quackery, unless it is from a big drug company of
course.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-power-of-drug-color/381156/

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Deepa Agashe]

> On 05-Feb-2019, at 12:56, Srini RamaKrishnan  wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 12:22 PM Deepa Agashe  > wrote:
> 
>> As I see it, scientific understanding means that we have greater
>> repeatability than expected by chance- i.e. the signal to noise ratio is
>> high.
> 
> 
> So is the placebo effect science? It is greater than expected by chance,
> isn't it?

Yes, it is. And a very useful one, actually.

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Srini RamaKrishnan]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 12:32 PM Suresh Ramasubramanian 
wrote:

> Known measurable failure rates
>

It's not the same as building a bridge that comes crashing down - the
fundamental problem is understood in bridge building but due to human error
these failures can occur. However in medicine the science itself is unclear
and therefore the small fraction the 0.5% or 0.1% who fail could well be
the canaries in the coal mine who are succumbing to diseases well before
their brothers. In these cases fundamental changes will never occur unless
we can increase budgets by a hundred fold to account for DNA variations,
ethnic variations, dietary variations etc.

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Srini RamaKrishnan]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 12:22 PM Deepa Agashe  wrote:

>  and the fact that vaccines fail in 1% (or some such small fraction) of
> humans does not make this understanding unscientific.


1% of a 100 million children is 1 million. Even 0.1% is 100,000 kids that
will definitely have an adverse reaction. It's one thing to accept such
odds with a terminal disease like cancer, but another matter to infect
healthy kids with a disease.

Ideally human beings would be honest and self governed with a love for all
humanity, but since they are not, fear is what keeps them in line. We
simply don't have any consequences that scientists and policy makers fear
enough. Heck even when they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar,
the fines don't bankrupt companies.

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Srini RamaKrishnan]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 12:22 PM Deepa Agashe  wrote:

> As I see it, scientific understanding means that we have greater
> repeatability than expected by chance- i.e. the signal to noise ratio is
> high.


So is the placebo effect science? It is greater than expected by chance,
isn't it?

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Known measurable failure rates
Failure rates that reduce based on periodic improvements in a vaccine + in 
clinical protocols
I fail to see what is unscientific here.

On 05/02/19, 11:53 AM, "silklist on behalf of Srini RamaKrishnan" 
 wrote:

Thanks to the many who wrote in to say that science is not the last word on
reality, we now see that science can be wrong, is always only the partial
truth, and the key is to be open to new ideas.

If we see that all of us; scientists and non-scientists alike are in the
business of understanding reality, then we see an equality of purpose.
Nobody has the last word. Equality, like sincerity of purpose and humility,
goodness, peace, aspiration etc. is a very good idea indeed.

Logic is not the only tool with which the human can make sense of reality,
if it was, the human race would be very poor indeed. Science then is no
different from other systems that seek to understand the truth of the
reality we live in.

There was the old testament and then came the new one, and then the
numerous interpretations thereof. Religion too is open to new truths. As is
any knowledge - when the 4 minute mile was first run it was a big deal, it
shattered a myth, now it is not nearly as impossible. Businessmen, authors,
gardeners etc. are each making progress in humanity's understanding of
purpose and finding better solutions to the problem of existence, or
enacting better or newer experiences of existence, along with making plenty
of mistakes along the way.

Dogma is not exclusive to religion, scientists can be dogmatic too,
violently resisting new ideas, like for example, the continental drift
theory, until finally relenting under the weight of evidence. It is human
nature to resist giving up hard won spoils.

Violence is a common impulse in man, maybe too common. We saw during the
cold war the two sides were extremely dogmatic about their position, and
would jail or kill anyone who supported a different idea.

It would be far easier to live in a dictatorship, there would be none of
the messy debate, yet we choose free societies that permit freedom of
religion, freedom of opinion, freedom of the vote. Why is freedom to
question science exempt? I cannot make everyone love the Mona Lisa and I
should not be able to make everyone love my idea.

Things like vaccination are tricky because they are not strictly science.
Science is repeatable, and things that don't work on everyone the same
don't strictly deserve the label of science. That doesn't mean they should
never be made mandatory, there merely has to be a very very high bar before
that is done, and if there are other motives besides the wellness of
humanity then that dilutes the case. Especially because like the death
sentence, the effects of it cannot be reversed.

A child in the sandbox is making discoveries, she is a scientist in her own
world, and her discoveries are just as important as that of any Nobel
Laureate. When we can see every human endeavor as brilliant and necessary,
then we enter the realm of equality - because reality is always subjective.

///

"Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes,
where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we
enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen and experienced is
portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is
communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the
conscious mind but recognized intuitively as meaningful, then we are
engaged in art. Common to both is the loving devotion to that which
transcends personal concern and volition."

Albert Einstein

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Deepa Agashe]

> Things like vaccination are tricky because they are not strictly science.
> Science is repeatable, and things that don't work on everyone the same
> don't strictly deserve the label of science. That doesn't mean they should
> never be made mandatory, there merely has to be a very very high bar before
> that is done, and if there are other motives besides the wellness of
> humanity then that dilutes the case. Especially because like the death
> sentence, the effects of it cannot be reversed.
> 

As I see it, scientific understanding means that we have greater repeatability 
than expected by chance- i.e. the signal to noise ratio is high. In biological 
systems, this “noise” is produced by a million things that make each being 
unique- their genetic code, the specific environment they're in, to their 
specific history (evolutionary and during its development). So if you want to 
say that science is 100% repeatable, then no biologist is a scientist because 
exceptions are the rule in biology. So I don’t agree that repeatability is a 
useful metric in of itself.

In the specific case of vaccination, we have very good understanding of the 
mechanisms involved in how and why vaccines work, and the fact that vaccines 
fail in 1% (or some such small fraction) of humans does not make this 
understanding unscientific. All it means is that there is an as yet unknown (or 
perhaps known) source of “noise” that means that our predictions are not 100% 
precise. So we can keep trying to figure out the sources of noise, and 
hopefully reduce the fraction of unexplained variation. Meanwhile, for 
practical purposes, if there are good data showing that a vaccine will “work” 
for 90% of the population, sign me up. 

 

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Srini RamaKrishnan]

Thanks to the many who wrote in to say that science is not the last word on
reality, we now see that science can be wrong, is always only the partial
truth, and the key is to be open to new ideas.

If we see that all of us; scientists and non-scientists alike are in the
business of understanding reality, then we see an equality of purpose.
Nobody has the last word. Equality, like sincerity of purpose and humility,
goodness, peace, aspiration etc. is a very good idea indeed.

Logic is not the only tool with which the human can make sense of reality,
if it was, the human race would be very poor indeed. Science then is no
different from other systems that seek to understand the truth of the
reality we live in.

There was the old testament and then came the new one, and then the
numerous interpretations thereof. Religion too is open to new truths. As is
any knowledge - when the 4 minute mile was first run it was a big deal, it
shattered a myth, now it is not nearly as impossible. Businessmen, authors,
gardeners etc. are each making progress in humanity's understanding of
purpose and finding better solutions to the problem of existence, or
enacting better or newer experiences of existence, along with making plenty
of mistakes along the way.

Dogma is not exclusive to religion, scientists can be dogmatic too,
violently resisting new ideas, like for example, the continental drift
theory, until finally relenting under the weight of evidence. It is human
nature to resist giving up hard won spoils.

Violence is a common impulse in man, maybe too common. We saw during the
cold war the two sides were extremely dogmatic about their position, and
would jail or kill anyone who supported a different idea.

It would be far easier to live in a dictatorship, there would be none of
the messy debate, yet we choose free societies that permit freedom of
religion, freedom of opinion, freedom of the vote. Why is freedom to
question science exempt? I cannot make everyone love the Mona Lisa and I
should not be able to make everyone love my idea.

Things like vaccination are tricky because they are not strictly science.
Science is repeatable, and things that don't work on everyone the same
don't strictly deserve the label of science. That doesn't mean they should
never be made mandatory, there merely has to be a very very high bar before
that is done, and if there are other motives besides the wellness of
humanity then that dilutes the case. Especially because like the death
sentence, the effects of it cannot be reversed.

A child in the sandbox is making discoveries, she is a scientist in her own
world, and her discoveries are just as important as that of any Nobel
Laureate. When we can see every human endeavor as brilliant and necessary,
then we enter the realm of equality - because reality is always subjective.

///

"Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes,
where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we
enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen and experienced is
portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is
communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the
conscious mind but recognized intuitively as meaningful, then we are
engaged in art. Common to both is the loving devotion to that which
transcends personal concern and volition."

Albert Einstein

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Heather Madrone]

Last bits of information on vaccines:

My kids are grown, and current on their MMR, chickenpox, HPV, tetanus, 
and flu shots. They've also had the rabies series.


I have severe egg allergy and am delighted that egg-free flu shots 
became available a few years ago.


The co-evolution of infectious disease and human beings is a fascinating 
topic. Ewald's _The Evolution of Infectious Disease_ is a little long in 
the tooth, but still a great overview.


I am concerned that we are creating large susceptible adult populations 
with our current vaccination practices and that this will lead to deadly 
epidemics of diseases that used to be endemic in much the same way that 
wildfire suppression has led to much deadlier wildfires.


--h, "stick a fork in me; I'm done," mm

Re: [silk] War on Science?

[Charles Haynes]

On Mon, 4 Feb 2019 at 00:23, Suresh Ramasubramanian 
wrote:

As for crowd diseases being benign and immunity, I'd suggest looking at
> either whooping cough or polio for counter examples.  Or German measles
> (rubella) - which, if a pregnant woman contracts it, is mild for her, but
> can and will cause severe retardation in her child.
>

Chicken pox is mild for (most) children but can lead to later shingles in
adults, and while chickenpox is mild and the risks are low, the risk of the
vaccine is even lower and it contributes to protecting those who can't get
vaccinated.


> Young children ... are repeatedly vaccinated ... against hepatitis B
> and HPV, which they are
> extremely unlikely to contract. Meanwhile the adults who should be
> vaccinated against those diseases mostly aren't.
>

It's important to vaccinate against HPV, and it should happen early.
Granted young children are unlikely to be exposed to HPV, but I think the
risk/reward is clearly on the side of early vaccination.