FitzRoy succeeded the first captain who committed suicide due to what was believed to be depression from loneliness. FitzRoy was advised to find a companion in order to escape a similar fate. And Darwin was to be that companion. Later, FitzRoy became disillusioned with Darwin who’s publications flew in the face of his religious beliefs. He even felt guilty for having helped Darwin come up with his theory. Click here for the whole story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_FitzRoy

Pakicetus & Whale
Hyracotherium & Horse
Vieraella & Frog
Phosphatherium & Elephant
Megatherium & Sloth

A neat little factoid. In the second picture, you can see ridges on the fossil bone that give evidence to a penguin’s thermoregulatory system. The ridges are indentations of a sophisticated network of blood vessels. And in my interview with Dan on Critical Wit, he talked about how you can look at the fossil record and see the gradual development of this system that helps penguins maintain their body temperature.

http://www.criticalwitpodcast.com/podcast/critical-wit-11-what-fossils-say-about-penguin-evolution/

I can’t seem to figure out what’s more important, honesty or improving someone’s well-being. In a way, placebos seem like the “little white lie” that people understand to mean justifiable deception. But Gorski and others make convincing arguments that explain why this isn’t so.

It was a long read for me and in some places difficult to understand, I think I’ll read it again later in the year to clarify the final third which looks at the influence of gene sequencing etc. Anyhow, Ann Arbor district library has copies, it’s a good read.

Sometimes, at some points in peoples lives, and for a variety of reasons people find themselves feeling lonely and needing to know someone cares about them, trips to their doctors office may increase for a range of conditions that the doctor can find no cause for. The person may know the condition is not a real one or they may have convinced themselves that they really do have pain, would it be ethical to dispense a placebo in these cases? Would that reassure them ease their loneliness, whilst at the same time in their mind, treating the condition they say they have as a real one?

Or should the doctor give the person the time they need just to talk, ask them to come back again weekly (under the guise of checking on the imaginary pain), in effect treating the loneliness by listening and not adding to the delusion by treating imaginary pain with imaginary remedy.

Personally I believe the doctors should do the latter, take the time to talk, and in my experience they do, but within their time constraints. I think practitioners of woo offer that extra time, especially in the cases where there isn’t a strong relationship with a long term family doctor. The ‘treatment’ is pointless, but as in this example, there is no real pain anyway that doesn’t matter, the time given to the patient is the real treatment. The belief that a physical condition is being treated is upheld by both but in truth it is the loneliness that is being treated.