In addition to understanding our likely evolutionary environment, it helps to take a historical view of medicine. How did humans approach medicine before it became the effective science it is today? The historical record is clear and consistent. Across all times and cultures, people have been eager for medical treatments, even without good evidence that such treatments had therapeutic benefits, and even when the treatments were downright harmful.4 But what these historical remedies lacked in scientific rigor, they more than made up for through elaborate demonstrations of caring and support
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