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Why is progress in biology so slow?

sam-rodriques.com · 1,654 words · saved by 9 readers

I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about why biology is hard. The goal of biomedical research is nominally to cure disease. However, most people don’t seem to be very serious about it. When a biotech startup says it’s out to cure a disease, it usually means it wants to find an intervention that will increase lifespan by 3 months. Success usually means an IPO, regardless of whether the drug eventually succeeds or fails. When the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative says they want to cure all dise

I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about why biology is hard. The goal of biomedical research is nominally to cure disease. However, most people don’t seem to be very serious about it. When a biotech startup says it’s out to cure a disease, it usually means it wants to find an intervention that will increase lifespan by 3 months. Success usually means an IPO, regardless of whether the drug eventually succeeds or fails. When the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative says they want to cure all disease by 2100, people mostly chuckle at the naïveté. By contrast, when OpenAI said they want to make A

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