[sopooneo]

In Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, the protagonist's father is fond, in later years, of attributing his business success to his lifelong religious devotion. The hero doubts it.

I have been temped in the past to equate this magnate character's conviction to PG's belief that it was Lisp which allowed Viaweb to do so well.

I do not disaprove of religion, functional programming, or psychedelics. But in the instances described, I tend to view them mostly as analogous to Dumbo's magic feather.

[pyre]

With respect to psychedelics, they actually do affect your brain. You'd be hard-pressed to tease apart what portion of the outcome was unaffected by the drug when claiming that the results were all due to the Placebo Effect.

[lutusp]

That's true, but there's no chance to have a control group. No one having an acid trip can possibly compare his subjective experience to someone who's taken a sugar pill. And without control groups and other strict controls, human studies are next to useless.

The above means that the Placebo Effect cannot be realistically guarded against or dismissed.

[pyre]

> The above means that the Placebo Effect cannot be realistically guarded against or dismissed.

This is a little different than the parent's statement (which I was responding to):

> I tend to view them mostly as analogous to Dumbo's magic feather.

[rthomas6]

To be fair, so does lifelong religious devotion.