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I am continually amazed at how human beings can find a process that works without knowing the 'real' reason behind why it is effective.

• elliottkember 5y ago
  This is exactly the scientific process! Observe results, reproduce conditions, and then figure out how it works later.
• gnu8 5y ago
  This is what happened when the cure for scurvy was discovered, it was eventually lost because it was not understood that ascorbic acid was the reason behind the curative powers of certain foods. https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm
  • pazimzadeh 5y ago
    More along the same lines: Ancient African Cocktail: Beer and a Shot of Antibiotic https://www.livescience.com/11028-ancient-african-cocktail-beer-shot-antibiotic.html https://www.livescience.com/11028-ancient-african-cocktail-b...
• cwkoss 5y ago
  Ayahuasca is interesting in this respect. The effects require the co-ingestion of two different plants - one contains DMT which is usually metabolized too quickly to have a psychoactive effect. The other contains a MAOI that deactivates the enzyme which deactivates DMT, allowing it to have effect. The MAOI plant does have some psychoactive effects alone - and increases the effects of many things, so that's probably how this was discovered, but still pretty amazing that people were able to figure this out through trial and error.