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Comment by nine_k | Hacker News Reader

As somebody said, if a old and renowned scientist says something is possible, he's most likely right; if he says something is impossible, he has a very serious chance of being wrong.

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Clarke’s First Law: “ When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

"If an expert says something can be done he is probably correct, but if he says it is impossible then consider getting another opinion." — Richard Hamming

If it is possible, it's possible in the sense that it's possible to approach lightspeed with a chemical rocket. The predominant method in modern neuroscience for recording from a large number of cells is fluorescent microscopy with genetically encoded fluorescent sensors. Whole brain imaging is now routine (at least for drosophila, and albeit probably not at cellular resolution), afaik ephys tops out at 1000s of cells.

Gotta keep in mind that there are already several extant well-funded and highly motivated organizations devoted to studying the brain... and they're not doing whole-brain ephys.. they're doing advanced fluorescent microscopy

On February 25, a director at the CDC held a White House press briefing in which she said that the CDC anticipates that lockdowns will be necessary to contain COVID-19 [0]. In response, President Trump held a press conference on Feb 26 in which he said that the number of US COVID-19 cases is going to be 0 within a couple of days [1].

What I'm saying is that you can ignore and disparage the experts all you like and sometimes get away with it. But then sometimes reality sets in.

[0] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-sp...

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres...

I mean, there's a difference between "impossible" and "impossible today".

and when an md/phd says something is "impossible today" and a salesman who thinks biology is a "software problem" says it's possible for the right price, I know who I'll bet on

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