Kind of an off topic story here, but I think it's a decent anecdote to the discussion about how much we think we have things figured out relative to how much we actually do.
When I was a little kid, 8 or so, I was on vacation with my folks in Costa Rica. We were staying in one of the first real "eco" lodges on the at the time still remote Osa Peninsula. The place was situated on a hill and the gradient was pretty steep. The road leading to the place was crushed stone, and pretty jagged. As any little kid would do, I viewed the road as a good opportunity to see just how fast one could run downhill. Well, I built a pretty good head of steam, quickly couldn't keep up with my legs and completely ate sh*t. My right leg was skinned from my knee to lower shin. Gnarly. So, what is the normal thought process for a pasty white family from the States? "Great, the idiot kid just opened up his knee and we're a long ways from any hospital." So my folks dragged my dumbass to the main area to see what kind of first aid they had there. Instead of neosporin, they had a dude who had grown up in the surrounding rainforest and acted basically as their nature consultant for the area. Dude checked out my knee, said no problem and disapeared off into the jungle. Fast forward an hour later and the guy comes back with a few botanical items. He mashes them up into a paste, covers the wound, and instructs us not to bandage nor touch it. I woke up the next morning with a full scab formed. Another day later the scab began to fall off and within two additional days it was completely healed without a shred of scarring. To this day I've never heard of anything like it, and personally, I think it's best that this little mix hasn't been discovered by Pfizer yet. There's still so much we have yet to learn in our brief little dance with sentience, and I'm always cautious to dismiss things so quickly.
