Humans are not adapted for the task of scientific research. Humans are adapted to chase deer across the savanna, throw spears into them, cook them, and then—this is probably the part that takes most of the brains—cleverly argue that they deserve to receive a larger share of the meat.

It's amazing that Albert Einstein managed to repurpose a brain like that for the task of doing physics.

• Eliezer Yudkowsky, My Childhood Role Model

Not a very advanced idea, and most people here probably already realised it -- I did too -- but this essay uniquely managed to strike me with the full weight of just how massive the gap really is.

I used to think "human brains aren't natively made for this stuff, so just take your biases into account and then you're good to go". I did not think "my god, we are so ridiculously underequipped for this."