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[This is the second of many finalists in the book review contest. It\\u2019s not by me - it\\u2019s by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I\\u2019ll be posting about two of these a week for the next few months. When you\\u2019ve read all of them, I\\u2019ll ask you to vote for your favorite, so remember which ones you liked. - SA]

I.

If you\\u2019re looking for the whipping boy for all of medicine, and most of science, look no further than Galen of Pergamon.

As early as 1605, in\\xa0The Advancement of Learning, Francis Bacon is\\xa0taking aim at Galen\\xa0for the \\u201cspecious causes\\u201d that keep us from further advancement in science. He attacks Plato and Aristotle first, of course, but it\\u2019s pretty interesting to see that Galen is the #3 man on his list after these two heavy-hitters.

Centuries went by, but not much changed. Charles Richet, winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, said that Galen and \\u201call the physicians who followed [him] during sixteen centuries, describe humours which they had never seen, and which no one will ever see, for they do not exist.\\u201d Some of the \\u2018humors\\u2019 exist, he says, like blood and bile. But of the \\u201cextraordinary phlegm or pituitary accretion\\u201d he says, \\u201cwhere is it? Who will ever see it? Who has ever seen it? What can we say of this fanciful classification of humours into four groups, of which two are absolutely imaginary?\\u201d

And so on until the present day. In\\xa0Scott\\u2019s review of\\xa0Superforecasting, he quotes Tetlock\\u2019s comment on Galen: