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Re:Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria by timr on Wednesday July 30, 2025 @01:05PM (#44736728)
> So the ancient mystery of why we need sleep might have just been answered.

No, science doesn't work that way. The ancient mystery of why we need sleep has a new theory [1].

[1] I am assuming it is new. It might actually be old. I don't know.

Re:Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria by mrbungie on Wednesday July 30, 2025 @01:13PM (#44736848)
I don't think GP was rigorous, but your comment is kind of pedantic, isn't it?

Most people commenting here know that all models are false but some make good predictions, and achieving that status is enough for most laypeople to classify it as a (potential) answer.

Going further, yes, this is a new theory among others, but afaik is the first one with strong evidence.

Re:Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria by timr on Wednesday July 30, 2025 @01:25PM (#44737014)
I don't mean it as an attack on GP, but no, I don't agree that this is pedantic. This happens constantly when science is popularized -- people read one article and leap to the conclusion that a problem has been revolutionized/solved/answered simply because they're reading about it -- and no, the HN audience is no better. Technophiles love a good scientific revolution story.

It's very much a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. Almost nothing in science has an answer, and if you let your brain lock in that way, you forego the opportunity to ask interesting questions. It also leads directly to lots of downstream pathologies common in amongst laypeople (e.g. "The Science is Settled", which it almost never is).

> Going further, yes, this is a new theory among others, but afaik is the first one with strong evidence.

I am not an expert in this field, but others have evidence too. Particularly when asking "why" questions like this, the bar for proof is incredibly high.

Re:Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria by mrbungie on Wednesday July 30, 2025 @04:05PM (#44738895)
It might not be intended as an attack, but it does feels like one (especially that unnecesary jab at technophiles). Also I find it incredibly ironic that you are making so many assumptions about what GP meant, what HN audience understands from the article and what they will make of it just to make a point about philosophy of science and popsci.
Re:Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria by timr on Wednesday July 30, 2025 @05:00PM (#44739429)
It wasn't a "jab". There's no other way to say it -- technophiles fall into this trap constantly.
Re:Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria by ajkjk on Wednesday July 30, 2025 @01:08PM (#44736764)
a completely unnecessary interjection

"might have been answered" is absolutely valid: the correct theory might have been produced

Re:Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria by timr on Wednesday July 30, 2025 @01:13PM (#44736841)
On the contrary, this is such a common misunderstanding that it practically defines the meme of pop science.

Proposal of a hypothesis is not answering. Even if, decades from now and after many additional studies, scientific consensus settles on this hypothesis as "the answer", the first paper to speculate about the idea is still just a speculation. Moreover, if you're an outsider, the speculation is often an idea that's been floating around the field for longer than you've been aware of it.

Basically, just abandon your notion that there is "an answer" to any sufficiently complex scientific question, and you will be better off.

Re:Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria by ajkjk on Wednesday July 30, 2025 @01:56PM (#44737416)
It sounds like you're just dead set on defending the rude way of dismissing someone's comment? "Might just have been answered" is a completely valid description of what happened: the correct hypothesis might have been produced. It is obvious to anyone that it still requires verification; producing an answer is not the same as proving it beyond a shadow of doubt, and no one said it was. You're pretending to debate some philosophy of science but actually are playing pedantic word games to sound smart or gatekeep or something.