Even obvious scientific findings are important. Sometimes the obvious isn't necessarily true, and is why such phenomena still warrant investigation.

Until the late 19th century the Western medical consensus overwhelmingly agreed that bloodletting was a valuable cure-all medical treatment for all sorts of ailments. Regardless the efficacy of bloodletting was empirically investigated and in this case the results suggested the opposite of the obvious was true. In almost all cases bloodletting did more harm that good and increased the risk of mortality. Bloodletting is argued to be the cause of George Washington's death after 4lbs of blood was drained to treat a throat infection.

While admittedly it took some time for the medical and scientific communities to be convinced, based on these findings they eventually did a complete 180 and ceased the use of bloodletting as a means of treatment for all but a select few specific conditions.

That is why science is so cool - it is a self-correcting process that actively seeks and promotes the truth even in the face of overwhelming "obvious" assumptions to the contrary.

So think about that the next time you feel yourself about to say "well isn't it obvious?" to a scientific finding.

@Ryan S
"In-fact, there is never any other reason for engaging in an intimate relationship with another human being except ego. We want to be loved. Which isn't love."

You can support that point all you like with philosophical musings, but blanket statements like that violate the single cause fallacy. It is a fallacious oversimplification to say that anything as complex as human behaviour has only one possible cause.

I once saw a doco on kids with androgen insensitivity syndrome (aka genetic males with the outwards appearance of females) that discussed research that showed that kids with this condition despite being raised as girls preferred typical boy toys like trucks, even prior to diagnosis when everyone thought they were girls.

Perhaps gender-typing is not entirely responsible for the girl/boy divide in toy preference.

Lol at the presenter. I never thought spiders could be cute!

Funny how movies about exorcisms never (at least not to my knowledge) show the repercusions of these priests' actions on the lives of the victims.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (losely based on the true story of Anneliese Michel who was killed by the neglect of her priest and family) seemed to be making an attempt to do this, with the inclusion of the court case with the prosecution arguing that the priest and her family neglected her to death. However then the movie implied that the prosecution lawyer was being haunted by the same deamons who killed Emily. While entertaining, the film's attempt to justify the exorcist's actions by promoting the supernatural is no doubt insulting to the memory of Anneliese.

Exorcists prevent the mentally ill/epileptic from getting the real psychological and medical help they need by encouraging the idea they are possessed through the power of suggestion to the detriment of victims everywhere.

They may not realise what they are doing is wrong, but that does not mean they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions.

PTSD is not a modern ailment, we just gave it a name in modern times.

I don't see how being treated in a new environment will teach you to deal with all the triggers associated with the environment in which you live. For example if you were in a horrific car crash, when you return to where you live you're still going to have flashbacks associated with cars/traffic. People may feel it's working because such an environment has an absence of triggers, until they return home.

And Ryan S, very rarely do placebos offer a real, permanent cure, especially in a condition as persistent as PTSD. It can however offer temporary improvements.

Perhaps to keep his feet soft and delicious.

Jesus. Are we sure he isn't a psychopath?

@ Jdoozie
"look at the majority of males now, they look and act more homosexual than any men in history"

Clearly you have never seen saturday night fever.

Dada may have been extreme, but it had a profound impact on art, culture, and music that we still see today.

Ryan S, early experiments by Piaget suggested that object permanence developed just prior to 2 years. Over time, developmental psychologists improved their experimental methodology so that it appeared object permanence developed at around 9-12 months. More recent experiments suggest that it may develop as early as 3 months, but until more experiments are conducted 9-12 months remains the generally accepted stage of development where object permanence develops.

2 year olds tend to have a fairly-well developed concept of object permanence. Developmental psychologists tend to argue that they way 2 year olds react when they lose sight of their parents relies generally on their their attachment style. You may already be familiar, but look up Mary Ainsworth's "strange situation" experiment for more details.

"the bottom line is that nature — the kids’ genes — mostly determines who they’ll be; the power of nurture, he says, is minimal."

That is certainly not the scientific concensus. While identical twins raised in different environments share more in common than fraternal twins, there are many factors for which a large percentage of ability cannot be accounted for by genetics. While genes may play a larger role than nature, the influence of nature is far from minimal.

"say nevermore"

This would probably affect the ability to localise sounds for a while.