Actually most things in science aren't getting more complex, in fact they're getting less complex.

If you're on the bleeding edge of particle physics then sure, things are getting more complex. But most discoveries to be made in science are relatively mundane everyday things, and just a matter of paying attention in a structured manner.

E.g. most forms of life on the planet haven't been studied in any detail for the simple reason that nobody's gotten around to it yet, but the methods and tools to do so are much easier than they were 50 or 25 years ago.

Anyone can contribute to science, and it's now easier than ever before, and some of those contributions might unearth something we didn't expect.

I am under the impression that the sorts of "paying attention" usually involves $milion equipment and highly qualified and experienced research staff.

What sort of study could a lone wanabe do that would actually be publishable?

> What sort of study could a lone wanabe do that would actually be publishable?

A huge fraction of sea-life is "undiscovered", especially small stuff. Yes, even at scuba depths.

The article makes a lot more sense if you think of "science" not as the idealized process, but the actual process as practiced by people at Pfizer, Merck, etc. Read the Hume reference not as a criticism of the scientific method, but rather as a reminder of something we already know (correlation != causation), but that we in practice assume all the time in order to apply science to certain problems.

He's saying not that the method is bad, but that things are getting complex enough, at least in medicine, where we're hitting some limits on how easily we can practice science to the necessary level of rigor and precision.

To nitpick, Pfizer, Merck et. al. don't actually do science. What they do is more akin to spraying buckshot into the bushes and hoping to hit a furry animal hiding somewhere inside.

Not that this is a particularly bad approach. It worked amazingly well for the last few decades and has churned out a lot of blockbuster drugs.

It is, however, starting to fall apart as all the low hanging fruit has been picked. It's time for the big pharma's to start doing science again. The problem is that big pharma is thoroughly infatuated with quarterly stock prices and not developing new drugs. They are cannibalizing themselves in an effort to keep stock prices up and profits growing.

It's better to think of big pharma as remarkably successful marketing engines, not medical science companies.

For instance, I know of many scientists that work for big pharma companies which do not have access to any of the scientific literature (past the freely available abstracts). Management will not allow them to purchase these articles.

Consider that for a moment. The companies producing your drugs are not even remotely up to speed on cutting edge biological knowledge.

*Obligatory "I'm in biology so I'm not making this stuff up" disclaimer.

Let me chime in as a biologist that thinks you've hit it right on the head. This is precisely the way to think about the large pharmaceutical companies: marketing companies. They've fired most of their scientists, instead buying positive research results from smaller companies, and market the hell out of the few compounds that have survived the clinical trial lottery.

More than that, the pharmas are absolutely resistant to embracing technology that can save them; they discard scientists that are driving their respective fields forward, and resist the notion that understanding the cell as an information system can provide better returns on their trials.

There are exceptions, when Genentech was run by Art Levinson (a scientist) he was capable of discerning science from bullshit and was an effective CEO. However, I would sell any stock in a pharmaceutical not run by a scientist; such a company may be able to post short-term returns but they're only doing that by selling off any possibility of future success.

"He's saying not that the method is bad, but that things are getting complex enough, at least in medicine, where we're hitting some limits on how easily we can practice science to the necessary level of rigor and precision."

But we are still doing fine and achieving the "necessary level of rigor and precision". The one main example of the article was the drug that was stopped in trials, which is exactly as the process was supposed to work, and yet then the author tries to paint this as a reason or example of the failure of science in general.

I don't see the author as claiming there is a "failure of science in general" (I didn't read the title of the article literally, however). I think a drug like that getting that far into development, despite targeting an extremely well understood biological pathway, is a decent example of the practice of science in at least some contexts hitting certain limits.

An accurate description of the pharma industry (been there, seen it):

Jeffreys, Diarmuid (August 11, 2005). Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug. Bloomsbury USA. p. 73. ISBN 1582346003.

But there is an idea in the article, which does seem to be true: most of our current problems are industrial-technology related (environment, energy etc. consumption, known as "externalities" in economic lies, which is basically abusing Earth -- and therefore ourselves -- in the current "economic" system) and just doing more of the same might not be the way out.

Another "critique": All watched over by machines loving grace and Henrietta Lax by Adam Curtis (BBC documentaries). Adam goes further, with TINA.

I wouldn't take it that seriously, because to be completely honest, the article sounds to me like a troll post. The title and the content seems to be chosen for the biggest impact and there doesn't seem to be much more to it. The fact is that this questions have been asked and tried to answer many times by scientists, philosophers and epistemologists.

For instance, the author chose to talk about Hume but chose not to mention Popper. Falsifiability is the key word here. Science doesn't advance by gathering knowledge about how the world works directly, but by accumulating false results.

And besides, the fact that there will always be mysteries is what makes science fun in the first place.

>> the article sounds to me like a troll post

I read it as no one knows everything, always proceed with caution.

Your displeasure probably comes from the paragraph on David Hume. One of the principle criticisms leveled against Hume is that his philosophy makes the natural sciences and even inductive logic itself problematic.

On a work-a-day level, scientists and engineers seem to take the same position on causality as that proposed by the medieval scholastics.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

"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.

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

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.

> And there have always been people saying we know enough now, or it's getting harder so lets stop now. And some have, and many haven't and that's why we still have progress.

I'm not a scientists or anything close to that, but I agree to most of what you sad. What I wanted to add is that there's something extra to be sad about the "let's stop now" part.

I'm talking about things like human cloning and, I don't know what its exact name is, "organ harvesting from human clones", let's name it that way. I know that for the most part this is still SF-material, but we're getting there with very big steps, and I think a serious discussion on sensitive subjects like these which would also involve the scientific community must take place rather sooner than later.

And before anyone accuses me of being a "religious bigot" or something like that I must tell them that I don't care at all about religion, but I do feel that scientists themselves should stop burying their heads in the "we only do science here"-sandy dunes, and confront the real world.

Wired is an old news/magazine. They are just sensationalist now. They are trying to engineer headlines that will last, and while Wired's headlines might last, I don't think the brand will.

They are probably hoping for responses such as yours. It's engineered magazine marketing, and not actual content.

I read it expecting the word 'holistic' to pop up at any moment.

"I disagree, medical science is still churning out amazing breakthroughs, like HIV and cancer vaccines this year. [...] Just because it's getting harder doesn't mean we should stop or that we'll hit a wall and be able to go no further (and if we can see that wall coming we might want to think about stopping prematurely?)"

I think both you and the author are incorrect. Medical research has basically become an elaborate scam for not just the reasons mentioned in this article, but at least a dozen other reasons as well. If you look at the last fifty years of pharmacological/nutrition research, there really haven't been more than a handful of important discoveries despite the literally trillions of dollars that have been spent.

At the risk of this turning into (yet another) argument with you about modern medicine, allow me to suggest that your position is utter crap: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/12/cancer-surviva...

>Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, put the improvement down to "faster diagnosis, better surgery, more effective radiotherapy and many new drugs".

Notice how new drugs are given the least emphasis of the four factors listed. Plus, one of the biggest reasons so many people are getting cancer is the flawed nutritional advice of the medical establishment.

Anyway, clearly there has been some progress, but we would be in a whole other place if the vast majority of the research dollars hadn't been completely wasted. Not to mention all the potential cancer cures that have been made illegal, meaning that it's not even clear the impact of the new drugs is making up for how the medical establishment is screwing us all to begin with.

There have been a number of successful drugs developed to treat cancer. [1] That said, I've never met a doctor who thinks that drugs are the be-all end-all cure for unhealthy lifestyles. The old Ben Franklin quip "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" still applies today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer_chemotherapy#...

1) Why is this discussion suddenly about drugs in particular?

2) Regardless, I think your expectations are warping your perception.

>Why is this discussion suddenly about drugs in particular?

Because the article was about pharmacology and I said pharmacology in my post.

If that is what you want to discuss, you should take more care with your wording then.

"Medical research has basically become an elaborate scam"

Devil's advocacy: it may be that our rate of medical discovery is about 1 per 100B at the current risk willingness to human life.