Someone with a PhD in microbiology explained to me (a layman) why what Theranos was claiming to do was impossible. She said you cannot test only a single drop of blood for certain things because what you are looking for literally may not be there. You need a full vial of blood to have a reliable chance of finding many things.
1. Is this simple but clear explanation basically correct?
2. If so, how could Theranos hoodwink investors for so long when possibly *millions* of well-educated people around the world knew that what they were claiming to do made no sense?
In: Biology
Why do people gamble? Because hope springs eternal.
History is full of instances where experts said “That’s impossible” only for it to be done later. There’s an infamous quote about heavier-than-air flight taking thousands of years to work out being published like a year before the Wright Bros. did it.
But those kinds of things are pretty well known and published because they did something thought impossible and were worth writing about. Whats not worth writing about is when experts say something is impossible, someone tries it, and well, turns out its probably impossible. Which is the far, far, far, more common situation. But nobody writes about it, because why would you?
So some people decide to bet on the weird guys claiming they can do something experts say can’t be done. Because history shows it happens all the time, right? Maybe it pays out, more likely it doesn’t. Or maybe they just never heard the experts statement on the matter and thought the thing sounded cool.
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