>> The problem is that there are thousands of laboratory discoveries that
>> don't apply to the real world, especially in medicine.

I thought the following paragraphs from a recent Nutrition News Focus was
ironically right in line with this topic:

"Accompanying a report that obesity was related to newly diagnosed
cases of asthma in adult women was an editorial in the November 22,
1999 Archives of Internal Medicine whose title was "The Association of
Asthma and Obesity: Is it Real or a Matter of Definition, Presbyterian
Ministers' Salaries, and Earlobe Creases?".  The authors of the
editorial took exception with many of the conclusions in the research
study.  < http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/159/21/2513>

The editorial pointed out how unreliable diagnoses of asthma are, even
when made by physicians.  The authors cited statistics that up to 65%
of diagnoses are in error.  They also pointed out that statistical
associations do not prove cause and effect.  There was a close
association during the 1950s between salaries of Presbyterian
ministers in Massachusetts and the price of rum in Havana.  While the
association is real there is no causal relationship.  Similarly, in
the early 1980s earlobe creases were thought to predict heart disease
until it was realized that both conditions are strongly related to
obesity.  Until that realization, dozens of studies were conducted."

>>You could travel back 790,000 years and still find someone to
>> light your fire: archaeologists have collected evidence that early
humans
>> mastered fire much earlier than previously thought.
>> Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London, UK,
>> suggests that the use of fire would have enriched the hominids' social
lives
>> too. People may have gathered around camp-fires, staying awake longer
and
>> interacting more than before.

I find this fascinating. If true, does it not contradict assumptions made
by the raw foodists and the "Lights Out" crowd? I think three quarter of a
millions years would be plenty of time for humans to adapt to cooked foods
and staying up late.....