The team found that those with slick vacuums (about a quarter of the human population) respond poorly to placebos while those with hinky vacuums (another quarte

The team found that those with slick vacuums (about a quarter of the human population) respond poorly to placebos while those with hinky vacuums (another quarter of the population) respond extremely well and those with a mix (half the population) are in the middle. The placebo effect is well known, understanding it is fundamental to designing a trial, and it has been studied a lot. It strains credulity to suppose that a hard partition like this (one quarter of humans respond weakly, period), if it existed, would not have been discovered long ago. You wouldn't need to find genes or proteins or any of that stuff, you'd just need to check if placebo response in individuals is reasonably consistent over time.