I followed the trial, what information is unavailable from that?
>I would rather like to see a detailed teardown of one of the machines to get a sense of how far from working they actually were and what were their blockers
The blockers is what they were trying to do isn't biologically or physically possible. When theranos first got publicity all the experts said what they are trying to do isn't possible with known technology and what we know about capillary blood. That's why I found the navel-gazing so strange.
Did you follow the trial, or did you read reports from people who followed the trial?
I cannot say what was missing from the trial because I do not know what was presented there in detail. Most of those claiming utter certainty, know as little as I do.
> what they were trying to do isn't biologically or physically possible.
I can easily accept that it is beyond our technical means, but I don't accept that it is physically impossible.
If we stipulated that there was a technology that could create an accurate record of a drop of blood at an atomic level, with all structures and bonds intact.
If it were impossible to derivevthe required information from that data, I would agree that it is impossible.
That is an enormous amount of data. Millions of blood cells. Even if you had a single red blood cell there may be sufficient information in it to determine a white blood cell count through data analysis and the fact that they share an environment.
Of course it isn't possible with current technology. That is true of all technologies before they are invented.
It just seems like every claim it is impossible is just a claim that they can't imagine how it would be done. Almost every invention has a crowd claiming it can't be done.
The only real question is do they have a technolocal advance to get past those hurdles. I would guess that they didn't or it wasn't developed quick enough. That is a reasonable point of challenge.
Going straight to it can't be done so it's fraud puts you among those who claimed powered flight was a fraud, as well as the internet, the telephone, transplants, overnight delivery, and today AI.
Okay but can you see how this is a different point than, "The access to the information required for that is not available to most people, we have no basis to judge the narrative for accuracy"? The latter implies that most people literally could not obtain access to the necessary information. The former states that you have not looked into it that much and you doubt others have either. The trial is public record; it is available to everyone.
When I first heard of this company trying to do something that didn't appear to be physically or biologically possible I just assumed it would fizzle out eventually. Good for them if they find people willing to fund their reach for the stars. We need those!
Then the publicity came. I found the navel-gazing extremely strange because it was done without any proof they could do what they said they can do. Very little acknowledgement that they were able to do something that required a Nobel Prize level breakthrough and they did it without any bio-science investors or board members. It also came with a heavy dose of a cult of personality which gave me the ick and made me distrust it all even more. Was so weird and performative rather than hard science. Seemed extremely scammy. Certainly not the making of a company that made huge breakthroughs in biomedicine.
Then they announced their partnership with Walgreens. I assumed at that point I was wrong and they had to have been able to show Walgreens they were able to do what they claimed. I didn't think Walgreens would partner with them without doing their due diligence. I was happy to be proven wrong.
Shortly later it turned out, no, it actually was just a straight up scam and Walgreens didn't do their due diligence. Which is the most obvious outcome, but I was sad Walgreens would be duped so easily.
So I am not dismissive of them because I am dismissive of anyone who tries to find a way to do something that has never been done before - I was dismissive of them because they were an obvious scam based on a weird cult of personality.
>I cannot say what was missing from the trial because I do not know what was presented there in detail
What a bizarre thing to say, if you don't know what information was presented at the trial, how can you concluded "The access to the information required [to determine guilt] is not available to most people, we have no basis to judge the narrative for accuracy????"