When "Settled Science" Is Wrong

When fads in science are excepted as the only viable path, it stops being science, and just becomes a lot of grant money flowing through the system. The maddening saga of how an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure for decades

In the 30 years that biomedical researchers have worked determinedly to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, their counterparts have developed drugs that helped cut deaths from cardiovascular disease by more than half, and cancer drugs able to eliminate tumors that had been incurable. But for Alzheimer’s, not only is there no cure, there is not even a disease-slowing treatment.

So why is that?

In more than two dozen interviews, scientists whose ideas fell outside the dogma recounted how, for decades, believers in the dominant hypothesis suppressed research on alternative ideas: They influenced what studies got published in top journals, which scientists got funded, who got tenure, and who got speaking slots at reputation-buffing scientific conferences.

In other words, their pet theory became the accepted dogma, and if you wanted to sit at the "cool kids table" you had better get in line. Too bad none of that worked.

Go read the whole thing, and then we can talk about 'settled science.'

Hat tip to Instapundit