Is it that “being fat” increases the risk? Or is that what makes us fat — such as an energy dense, nutrient-poor diet — increase the risk? Semantic quibble … and of course, the answer may be “both” as fat is not inert tissue.

Pottenger and his cats certainly show that there is a way out of this, but there is a considerable challenge to do so!

If the adult’s obesity is determined by the child, but the child’s obesity doesn’t seem to have anything to do with diet, then we reach the point either where we’re supposed to believe that the problem is a nation of sinful, gluttonous infants, or that this obesity crisis is almost entirely the result of genetics.

DICKENS WAS THE MAIN REPRESENTATIVE VOICE OF WHAT WE CALL ‘VICTORIAN-ERA’ OR ‘VICTORIANISM’ OR ‘VICTORIANA’!
HE WAS VERY KEEN OBSERVER OF HIS TIMES AND THE ABSURDITIES THEREOF!A GREAT HUMANIST,DICKENS PORTRAYED SOCIAL EVILS AND SOCIETAL ILLS OF HIS TIMES IN GREAT ACCURATE DETAILS.HE WAS NOT A PREACHER,THOUGH. . .JUST AN AUTHENTIC SPOKESMAN OF THE VICTORIAN BRITAIN.
HIS NOVELS LIKE ‘ OLIVER-TWIST’ WERE VERY INSTRUMENTAL IN HASTENING REFORMS LIKE THE LITERACY,LABOR REFORMS!WHEN HE WROTE HIS FIRST NOVEL, THE BRITISH LITERACY RATE WAS AROUND 50 PERCENT. . .WHEN HE DIED AT D AGE OF 58,THE LITERACY RATE WAS IN NINETIES!

The phrase ‘up and at ‘em’ or ‘go get ‘em’ may come from hæm, not them. I recently realized that ‘attaboy’ may be another case of the 2nd half of a demonstrative pronoun, so I was glad to find an article addressing the phrase in a serious academic way. Thank you. -Bri

Nevertheless, mushrooms are indeed fascinating, and I would like to learn more.

The Johns Hopkins study doesn’t tell us anything about God. Instead it tells us something interesting and possibly enlightening about people, and how our brains work.

Frankly I agree with you; there probably is no God. But to use that Johns Hopkins study as a tenuous platform for your own views (IMHO) deeply undermines your otherwise excellent scholarship. If I were you, I would stick with the mushrooms. I would like to read your book, but if it mentions God in this context, then I am sorry, I won’t be buying it.

You also state that by upsetting the neocortex the brain conjures deities from thin air – but what if, in fact, it just means the brain is perceiving deities that were already there?

I remember years ago, scientists providing absolute proof that smokers were wrong when they said cigarettes calm them down. They presented a battery of facts, such as increased heart rates, to show it quite simply was not the case. Now they know that cigarettes contain natural anti-depressants and that approx 1/3 of long term smokers become clinically depressed when they quit smoking.

I tend to think that when, let’s call them “folk ideas” have been around for a long time that there is some truth to them and science is the one that needs time to catch up.

Isabella