Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes

by Nathan H. Lents

It’s possible that, if our ancestors had lived the hunter-gatherer life for a longer time before moving into the modern era of vaccines and surgery, evolution would have continued to perfect human anatomy.

By assembling and analyzing lots of different data points, researchers can find statistical patterns and hidden truths that individuals relying exclusively on their own limited reservoirs of experience cannot possibly see. Yet anecdotes convince us when statistics cannot, because data doesn’t move us; stories do.