The myth of scientific infallibility

Blood lettingI’ve never liked Woody Allen. His nebbish-centered humor never worked for me and, as he aged in his films, I found distasteful his young leading ladies. I really didn’t need to see him play out his creepy romantic fantasies before my eyes, especially if I was paying for the privilege of seeing it.

Having said that, there’s one scene in a Woody Allen movie that I’ve always found to be not just funny but wise:

I thought of that scene when I read Charles Krauthammer’s column today about the various theories that held sway in the scientific world over the years, and which were subsequently proven to be terribly wrong.  For an elegant writer like Krauthammer, it’s a an easy step from reminding readers about blood-letting to telling them about all the economic fallacies underlying Obamacare’s passage.