I find this article troubling for two reasons: it fails to back up with evidence some of its boldest claims, and it suffers from the same problems presented by it's own argument.
Claims like this one:
> "First, all of the easy causes have been found, which means that scientists are now forced to search for ever-subtler correlations, mining that mountain of facts for the tiniest of associations."
May be true, but the author presents no evidence to support them, with relevant studies, articles, etc..
The second, much more troubling problem however, is that the argument suffers fromt the very problem it presents! The author's conclusion that the returns on scientific research are diminishing due to an inherent flaw in conclusions being drawn from correlations-- is itself a correlation. He's correlating the increasing cost of research to the increasing difficulty of finding new correlations in the data.
There are other, simpler, less circular and philosophical explanations for why the returns on pharmaceutical research have decreased, such as increasingly strict regulations and fear of risk on the part of regulatory organizations. See this TED talk, where Juan Enriquez talks about these issues: http://www.tedmed.com/videos-info?name=Juan_Enriquez_at_TEDM...
Comments
I find this article troubling for two reasons: it fails to back up with evidence some of its boldest claims, and it suffers from the same problems presented by it's own argument.
Claims like this one:
> "First, all of the easy causes have been found, which means that scientists are now forced to search for ever-subtler correlations, mining that mountain of facts for the tiniest of associations."
May be true, but the author presents no evidence to support them, with relevant studies, articles, etc..
The second, much more troubling problem however, is that the argument suffers fromt the very problem it presents! The author's conclusion that the returns on scientific research are diminishing due to an inherent flaw in conclusions being drawn from correlations-- is itself a correlation. He's correlating the increasing cost of research to the increasing difficulty of finding new correlations in the data.
There are other, simpler, less circular and philosophical explanations for why the returns on pharmaceutical research have decreased, such as increasingly strict regulations and fear of risk on the part of regulatory organizations. See this TED talk, where Juan Enriquez talks about these issues: http://www.tedmed.com/videos-info?name=Juan_Enriquez_at_TEDM...