Placebo

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/magazine/placebo-effect-medicine.html?ref=nyt-es&mcid=nyt-es&subid=article (What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick?)

 

This resonated with me :

"Kaptchuk also has a deeper unease about Hall’s discovery. The placebo effect can’t be totally reduced to its molecules, he feels certain — and while research like Hall’s will surely enhance its credibility, he also sees a risk in playing his game on scientific turf. “Once you start measuring the placebo effect in a quantitative way,” he says, “you’re transforming it to be something other than what it is. You suck out what was previously there and turn it into science.” Reduced to its molecules, he fears, the placebo effect may become “yet another thing on the conveyor belt of routinized care.”

Of course there is value to scientifically studying this stuff, but it can be a reductionist mindset to view something like the placebo effect as genetically deterministic. Certainly there are many factors at work here!