Eric Weinstein
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2020–2023
2:13:50 · 705K views · Feb 20, 2020
A long Portal podcast episode in which Bret Weinstein tells Eric Weinstein the story of his lab mice telomere work, the prediction behind it, and what it means for science and aging.
HN recommends it as the full account of the lab mice issue and evolutionary tradeoffs between cancer and longevity, despite its length.
8 comments from Hacker News
>The core claim he makes "all mice are broken" is a hyperbole that a lot of people will tell you is unsubstantiated. He makes it sound like all tests done on mice are flawed because of it. It isn't hyperbole, if Bret's claims are substantiated. The claims being that most lab mice are from the Jackson lab, that all of their mice have extremely long telomeres compared to wild mice, and that this could have serious implications on the potential harm to humans by some drugs - even while also accounting for the fact that mice are already not a good model of humans and that the same drugs are later tested on humans. (I could elaborate on this, but it's covered thoroughly in the paper and podcast.) I agree Eric hasn't satisfactorily proved they didn't change the protocols, but if it is the case that all of their mice still have long telomeres, and if all of the other claims are true (most US researchers still using those mice + the other claims), then the claims "most mice used by US researchers are broken" and "most tests done on mice by US researchers are flawed because of it" are likely also true. I have no idea if the above claims are true, of course, but they should be investigated on their merits. Bret Weinstein's 2002 paper: [LINK] The podcast between Eric and Bret Weinstein covering the full story: this video Not sure if you already listened to the podcast, but if you haven't, I'd recommend listening to all of it.
The answer is yes. It seems the author is reasoning more in the philosophic realm than in evolutionary biology. In this podcast [1] an evolutionary biologist goes into depth about telomeres, evolution and how cancer and longevity are two sides of the same coin. Long story short, having cells die after a number of replications is a postive trade off. It means that when a cell replicates too fast it also dies fast. The opposite are cancer cells, which replicate too fast and don't die. [1] this video
I recommend the book: Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions Generally, all scientific fields have immense issues related to the walled gardens and limitations created by their peers. I also recommend this discussion between Eric and Brett Weinstein which highlights just one example of the major issues: this video
Uh oh, mice in labs are not like humans in this regard at all. Lab Mice have extraordinary cell repair capabilities. My guess is that the AKG slows down cell division. This podcast delves into the problem with lab mice and explains the trade offs that happen on an evolutionary and cellular level in mice with regards to longevity. this video
According to Bret Weinstein who figured out the connection between telomere length and breeding, they seem to have quietly changed the breeding protocols to bring the telomere length back down to be in line with wild type mice. He talks about it in a long interview that gets really interesting about a hour in: this video