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Meaningness's profile
David Chapman
David Chapman
David Chapman
@Meaningness

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David Chapman

@Meaningness

Better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—around problems of meaning and meaninglessness; self and society; ethics, purpose, and value.

meaningness.com/about-my-sites
Joined September 2010

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    1. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      🎙 Decades of neuro research wasted because "we wanted to be REAL SCIENTISTS." @BrentWRoberts at 15:00 on @fourbeerspod NIMH funded only candidate-gene and fMRI studies, because SCIENCE, and both of those turned out to be science-free mirages.https://fourbeers.fireside.fm/22 

      2 replies 42 retweets 126 likes
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    2. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      @BrentWRoberts dutifully pursued the 5-HTTLPR mutation, which was supposed to cause depression. By 2010 he realized it doesn't and abandoned the project. Yet, after seemingly conclusive evidence, funding inertia means we're still wasting time & $$ on it.https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/05/07/5-httlpr-a-pointed-review/ …

      5 replies 3 retweets 24 likes
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    3. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      In the early 90s, my late sister (subsequently Chair of the neurosci program at UC Davis) explained fMRI to me. I said “what can you learn from that, if the resolution sucks so badly?” and she said “probably nothing” >

      2 replies 8 retweets 35 likes
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    4. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      > and I said “but single-cell recording is pretty well played out, right?” and she said “yeah, but at least it actually works.” So she kept doing it, and fMRI turned out to be mostly a great way to fake yourself out, as she predicted. It is NUCLEAR and EXPENSIVE, though…

      1 reply 2 retweets 18 likes
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    5. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      David Chapman Retweeted David Chapman

      The 2014 dead-salmon paper was a major wakeup call for “fMRI mostly isn’t a thing,” rather like the 2010 Bem ESP paper:https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/479081792192802817 …

      David Chapman added,

      David Chapman @Meaningness
      Neuroscience (fMRI) shows dead salmon can distinguish human emotions: http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.jpg …
      6 replies 5 retweets 29 likes
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    6. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      The point is not that it was wrong to pursue candidate-gene or fMRI work. There were valid reasons for excitement amid uncertainty in both cases (although also good a priori reasons to think neither could work, which turned out to be correct).

      1 reply 2 retweets 10 likes
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    7. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      This is what we need most I think! More scientists pursuing lines of inquiry that probably won’t work. So long as they MIGHT work, and haven’t been reasonably thoroughly shown to fail. “We KNOW this doesn’t work, but I can get funding for it”: time to reevaluate your career.

      1 reply 8 retweets 40 likes
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    8. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      (If I sound ranty about this, it’s because I left my scientific career after concluding that my very-well-funded field was a dead end.)

      1 reply 0 retweets 27 likes
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    9. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      Shortly before she died, my sister said that as a graduate student, she expected that neuroscience would actually figure out how brains work over the course of her career. In fact, it’s made almost no progress in decades. Tons of detailed factoids but no new broad understanding.

      3 replies 4 retweets 48 likes
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    10. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      My sister said that over her career, the number of funded neuroscientists and papers published increased ten-fold, but the number of reliable papers published was constant. She would never say this, but think she believed >>90% of scientists should not be doing science.

      1 reply 5 retweets 47 likes
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      David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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      It’s hard (and probably pointless) to divvy up blame between individual scientists and the perverse institutional incentives. In the @BrentWRoberts @fourbeerspod episode, there’s plenty of interesting examples of both.

      11:12 AM - 29 May 2019
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      • Michael Rojek Giffin Sam West Twisted Fate Alex Criddle 2.6 Billion Parameter Reply Guy Robin Taylor № Underground Town Tequehead
      1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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          Common bad preferences of science funders, who usually lack vision and understanding, include: - Superficially looks more like physics than other approaches in the field - Requires large, expensive new equipment - Has “momentum” (created by their own funding)

          2 replies 3 retweets 48 likes
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        3. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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          I worked briefly at Thinking Machines, which built the Connection Machine, which was by far the largest, most expensive supercomputer of the late 80s. Nearly all were sold on the basis of “it’s a very large, very sleek black box that costs a gigantic amount of money.”

          3 replies 4 retweets 27 likes
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        4. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 29 May 2019
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          Billions of dollars are being spent on the current wave of “deep learning” AI. - Superficially looks more like physics than other approaches in the field - Requires large, expensive new equipment - Has “momentum” (created by previous funding)

          4 replies 5 retweets 46 likes
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        5. End of conversation

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