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4hodmt comments on Open thread, Mar. 14 - Mar. 20, 2016 - Less Wrong
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The part of focusing your efforts on the right task is a rationality skill.
Recently one rationalist wrote on facebook how he used physical rationality to make his his shoulder heal faster after an operation and produce less pain. Having accurate models of reality is very useful in many cases.
Assuming he only had one shoulder operated on, where was the control shoulder?
His doctor was dumbfounded over the result and the doctor has seen control shoulders.
Doctors being dumfounded is a hallmark of irrationalist stories. Not saying this one is - I don't even know the story here - but as someone who grew up around a lot of people who basically believed in magic, I can conjure so many anectotes of people thinking their doctors were blown away by sudden recoveries and miraculous healings. I mostly figure doctors go "oh cool it's going pretty well" and add a bit of color for the patient's benefit.
A lot of doctors will be suprised if someone walks over hot coals and afterwards has no blisters or burning marks. Yet, at Anthony Robbins seminars thousands walk over hot coals and most of them don't develop blisters.
The human body is complex there are a lot of real phenomena that can dumfounded doctors. If you think doctors are infallible you might want to read http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nes/link_evidencebased_medicine_has_been_hijacked/
Whether you take that as evidence that magic exists is a different matter.