Addendum: In the other direction, one could point out that the authors were searching for “an approximation of an approximation of a neuron”, not “an approximation of a neuron”. (insight stolen from here.) Their ground truth was a fancier neuron model, not a real neuron. Even the fancier model is a simplification of real life. For example, if I recall correctly, neurons have been observed to do funny things like store state variables via changes in gene expression. Even the fancier model wouldn’t capture that. As in my parent comment, I think these kinds of things are highly relevant to simulating worms, and not terribly relevant to reverse-engineering the algorithms underlying human intelligence.
Addendum: In the other direction, one could point out that the authors were searching for “an approximation of an approximation of a neuron”, not “an approximation of a neuron”. (insight stolen from here.) Their ground truth was a fancier neuron model, not a real neuron. Even the fancier model is a simplification of real life. For example, if I recall correctly, neurons have been observed to do funny things like store state variables via changes in gene expression. Even the fancier model wouldn’t capture that. As in my parent comment, I think these kinds of things are highly relevant to simulating worms, and not terribly relevant to reverse-engineering the algorithms underlying human intelligence.