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Jean Smith's avatar

Interesting article, thanks! I'm really looking forward to your next paper, however. Back in the early 1970s, when I was a medical biochemist, I wrote a dissertation for my studies. it was called "Testing the efficacy of a subset of herbal remedies and documenting their likely biochemical pathways". Quite eye-opening. And yes, I did find one that worked. It's now banned for human consumption in the UK, but it's routinely given to racehorses.

Dr Jo's avatar

I will value your criticism of my next effort, as I’m sure there will be flaws :)

Jean Smith's avatar

I doubt there will be criticism - my knowledge is half a century old!

Dr Jo's avatar

Ah, but my next post will go back to 1775 :)

Bill Johnston's avatar

Thanks for the great post, of course, but also for the introduction to Angela Collier, who should be the mandatory bucket of cold water that accompanies every single thing Musk, Altman, Thiel and their fellow tech bro ilk actually say out loud… ;)

Mediocrity for Dummies's avatar

Collier is brilliant, thank you. Back in the day we used to joke about what I like to call Universal Domain Theory. If you work hard enough you can map your narrow knowledge to a corresponding point in every other domain and thus achieve magical ✨️ understanding of, wait for it...everything.

Niall Holland's avatar

Wow! What to me is most surprising is the durability of homeopathy against all common sense. The capacity for magical thinking must have conferred some sort of improbable survival advantage at some point in our evolution (like religion?).