Ryan, thank you, I really appreciate your time, and that is exactly the sort of thing that someone needs to say to me. I have come to the conclusion that I must be trolling.

My idea, which I have arrived at quite independently by a long chain of dodgy inferences from a minor puzzle to do with my own illness, it now seems to me can be summed up as:

Almost all the remaining unexplained human ailments can be explained as disorders of the endocrine system.

This idea seems to have been first thought of in the 1940s, and independently deduced, observed, or inferred many times since. If true, it would have a great number of disturbing implications. If untrue but widely believed, it would cause a catastrophe.

Now I look for them, there are published books suggesting this, and an entire tradition of alternative medicine based on it. Which reports success. But then, they would say that, wouldn't they?

And yet no one except a few quacks believes it.

And so my mystery is now:

Where is the obvious refutation that means that it is false?

I apologise for wasting everyone's time. I am not being sarcastic.

I realise that my argument is 'You cannot prove me wrong, and therefore I must be right'

I realise just how bad that argument is.

I realise that I have blundered into a complicated subject that I am not in the least qualified to discuss.

I have already had to discard one simple obvious explanation for a complicated problem (they are almost always wrong). I do not like to believe in chocolate teapots.

I am asking for help in discarding another one.

What on earth is Less Wrong for, if it is not for this?

I do not imply that you must waste your time helping me. But I am damned sure that someone needs to say it plainly. It has fooled me. It is causing havoc. Why is it not true?