Any academics in here?

[CellularIconoclast]

Is anyone else here an academic life scientist or medical researcher?

If so what are your experiences? Do Ray Peat's ideas influence or inspire your research? Do you talk about these ideas with peers or colleagues or keep them to yourself?

 

[Suikerbuik]

Medical researcher in education. Cancer research. Although much is known about certain genes and mutations, the field is still mostly in question about the causes. Some acknowledge the role for estrogen however, it is a known factor in prostate cancer.

Cancer research isn't really about finding the initial cause of mutations. Thought is that you acquire mutations during all your life and once you have acquired the wrong set of mutations, cancer will reveal. It's more like finding therapies and how and if genes with a certain mutations are able to cause cancer. This with the idea you can block for example certain genes with drugs. Drugs make money and money is needed for research. If you have no money, your lab is closed, even the case for university labs. Pharmacy is investing mostly so they decide what studies they support. If government supplies money or foundations, a lot discussion of how the money is being used and still limited. Crowd funding with volunteers is the way to go but most people adhere to money more than they see good research, so.. Just the way things are.

Have to admit that trying to look for a cause of cancer from certain compounds in lab setting is more a waste of money and time too, as may be the current research though.. To some extent however, we now generate data we wouldn't otherwise have.. Then you can say at least how it doesn't work, which is also worth something. If they at least are going to implement that ALL research needs to published, also if it fails, likely this is going to be the case some when. Anyway in the lab you only want one variable and cancer is about multiple, many, environmental factors that can't be simulated in a lab.

Ofcourse think and talk about things but it's not that those people are not aware of an energy issue or else. The emphasis is just not there and it is fairly diffucult to research, also many things happen which we don't know yet. Many genes being researched (which have mutations) are related to metabolism. So the question is, is the warburgh effect, that all cancer researchers are aware of, cause or just a result of certain mutations??

Thinks like metabolism disfunction and entropy, increasing chaos in histology (in general) is associated with more worse outcomes. That is acknowledged. The thing is, Peat has general principles, for cancer research you need molecular background, which is way more difficult than just observations. For example thyroid may help in certain forms of cancer, and in some cancer it promotes cancer. And we work with cancerous samples and not healthy tissue and cancerous samples lead to their own limitations too..

In vivo research on people with cancer applying Peat's principles is the only way to find out what it does for cancer. May not do anything, may help with life extension and/or recovery after chemotherapy. Likely it will not cause mutations to dissappear. And studies on PUFA avoidance and cancer occurrence, but that's not our area of research.

Love to do something in another area of research though, chronic disease for example or nutritional sciences, likely more Peaty ideas can be tested and further detailed.

 

[Suikerbuik]

A shame there not seem not to be more. Bachelors' wives and maidens' children are well taught as they say . Anyway can only support people to change their profession and woman usually do best in these sciences!

 

[Blossom]

A shame there not seem not to be more. Bachelors' wives and maidens' children are well taught as they say . Anyway can only support people to change their profession and woman usually do best in these sciences!

If someone were to go back to school what would you scientific gentlemen recommend?

 

[j.]

Not a shame really, the average academic is a bigger idiot than the average person.

 

[charlie]

 

[j.]

Many academics are against name-calling being socially acceptable because that's all it takes to encourage a smart person to figure things out by themselves. That doesn't mean this type won't resort to name calling, they're the biggest idiots and hypocrites.

And when they make a cute academic looking chart to advocate against name calling (with a fancy name -they can't resist jargon-) , they're even more pathetic.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

If someone were to go back to school what would you scientific gentlemen recommend?

I'd recommend identifying an open minded professor, and volunteering in their lab before taking any classes. In academia classes are a bureaucratic hurdle for career advancement, but nearly all of the actual learning is problem driven. People teach themselves what they need to understand in order to do their research, or solve problems they are interested in. As Ray says: Until you see something as the answer to an urgent question, you can’t see that it has any value. The unexpected can’t be a commodity.

I took undergraduate biology courses after I had been actively doing medical research for five years, and had been trying to solve some of my own health problems. I believe that this context allowed me to learn more from those classes, and to see where the class material may have been mistaken. Most of my classmates were "pre-med" who had never done, and would never do research. I saw this information as key to medical puzzles I was actively attacking, but I am worried many of my classmates saw it as words to memorize in order to gain social status and wealth. This different motivational paradigm influences how we internalize the knowledge, and determines if we will later be able to use it to solve problems.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

And when they make a cute academic looking chart to advocate against name calling (with a fancy name -they can't resist jargon-) , they're even more pathetic.

Paul Graham (who made that chart) isn't an academic, he's an anti-authoritarian independent thinker, who solved many important technological problems. He invented the automated internet store, and the bayesian spam filter (the first effective spam filter). He has a lot of interesting essays here that talk about things like surviving in school as an independent thinker, and how to solve hard problems on your own: http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

 

[Suikerbuik]

The way cellularIconoclast describes is likely the most effective way of learning. Many things you are supposed to learn won't bring you any closer to understanding reality, which is a whole lot different than 'books'. And with Peat's views in mind, if you really do understand at molecular level what he is talking about, you are far beyond the average academic in systems biology.

 

[Blossom]

The way cellularIconoclast describes is likely the most effective way of learning. Many things you are supposed to learn won't bring you any closer to understanding reality, which is a whole lot different than 'books'. And with Peat's views in mind, if you really do understand at molecular level what he is talking about, you are far beyond the average academic in systems biology.

I was interested in an insider perspective so thank you both for answering. I took 3 years undergraduate in biology before switching to an applied science program in my current field. I always regretted the change but had to do it for practical purposes at the time. With my children grown and out of college I'm in a unique spot of being able to follow my own dreams now. I got to thinking on my drive home that at this point I'm probably more interested in an artistic endeavor of some sort anyway. I will always carry a love and appreciation for science in my heart and I do wish we had more open minded scientist like you guys.