Thread by @raamana_

I painfully finished reading this takedown piece of @HumanBrainProj by @edyong209: theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

I find that a lot of criticism here quite unfair, and also find it really funny to see the small scale simulation researchers criticize the big-scale ones!😀

THREAD

First off, if we start penalizing academics for missing their projected or promised targets, scientific enterprise would mostly be convicted criminals !!

Also, TED talks are like political campaign speeches, and they should be treated as such! With a grain of salt 😀

Critique: "Now you'd have a brain in a computer, and before you had a brain in a skull," Lindsay says. "What does that tell you?"

WTH? Is that even serious criticism?

So by the same token, entire neuroimaging is useless, as they just put pictures of brain a computer? 😇

Critique: “It’s not obvious to me what the very large-scale nature of the simulation would accomplish”

WHAT? That's from someone who themselves perform complex simulations, although at a smaller scale?

Also, we know how complex climate science is, right?

Critique: "How much would we really learn from a disembodied brain in a virtual jar, which isn't connected to eyes, ears, or limbs?"

WHAT? To connect the brain digitally to other parts of the body, we need to be able to put it in the virtual jar first, no?

"Simulating the tissue is doable, but meaningless."

WHAT?

"all of them felt that such efforts should be driven by actual research questions"

WHAT? It seems like reporter only talked to few scientists with a certain biased school of thought!!

Mathematics is fundamental to most science, and how many questions is it driven by?

"HBP is not a well conceived or implemented project and that it is ill suited to be the centerpiece of European neuroscience."

Sure, this is a fair and valid criticism, and I am all for responsible and optimal utilization of the such a big amount of public money.

"It's more that they don't seem to have made a splash proportional to the project's budget"

Sure - push folks back to reduce and avoid any evidence-less hype. All for it!

Anyone knows how much public money into deep learning was wasted due to mere hype and hot air?

There is one thing if clinical or applied neuroscience researchers (trying to build biomarkers, cures, disease modifying therapies etc) criticize priorities for such a big amount of money, but if other basic science researchers criticize even-more-basic-science researchers, 🤔🤔

Also, speaking of proportional impact, what was the cumulative investment into fMRI research, and was it's societal impact proportional to the investment?

Full disclosure: I’ve absolutely no conflicts of interest with the HBP. I’ve never been funded by them nor I coauthored with any HBP PIs.

I’m just another ECR who strongly believes in the importance of simulations, informatics and infrastructure!

👉🏼 crossinvalidation.com