There are clear and obvious ways that something like Folding could produce valuable results.
Which it has not. 10 years it has run, and the paper count seems to be dropping.
What is the prior probability for Folding@home justifying either its sins of commission or sins of omission? Now, what’s the posterior probability, conditional on what we have (not) observed, of it now retroactively justifying all past expenses, and then its ongoing expenses?
edit: Also at best you don’t seem to have any better justification for thinking that the probability of significant success is astronomically low than I do for thinking that it’s low but not astronomically so, so this aspect of the argument isn’t really going anywhere.
Folding has already incurred somewhere around $100m in total expenses. Do the Bayesian update on a 1/10th chance not happening… It’s not epsilon or zero, I’ll tell you that!
Let me ask you something. I know what evidence would convince me that Folding was a good idea: show me a drug based on Folding results or a therapy change or something like that. But is there any evidence that could convince you that Folding is not a good idea? Because everything you’ve said seems like it could apply to any project.
Which it has not. 10 years it has run, and the paper count seems to be dropping.
What is the prior probability for Folding@home justifying either its sins of commission or sins of omission? Now, what’s the posterior probability, conditional on what we have (not) observed, of it now retroactively justifying all past expenses, and then its ongoing expenses?
It costs up to a billion dollars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development) and up to 14 years (http://www.addictiontreatmentmagazine.com/addiction-treatment/what-it-takes-to-bring-new-treatment-drugs-to-market/) to create a new drug once the basic idea is discovered, and seeing as the companies doing this stay in business, that level of investment must be (reasonably) worthwhile economically. Folding is a drop in the bucket compared to that and even if it never achieves anything serious and is eventually shut down, it seems like it was worth trying—and there’s still a chance that it could discover something important about proteins.
edit: Also at best you don’t seem to have any better justification for thinking that the probability of significant success is astronomically low than I do for thinking that it’s low but not astronomically so, so this aspect of the argument isn’t really going anywhere.
Folding has already incurred somewhere around $100m in total expenses. Do the Bayesian update on a 1/10th chance not happening… It’s not epsilon or zero, I’ll tell you that!
Let me ask you something. I know what evidence would convince me that Folding was a good idea: show me a drug based on Folding results or a therapy change or something like that. But is there any evidence that could convince you that Folding is not a good idea? Because everything you’ve said seems like it could apply to any project.