The Edifice Trap

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Freeman: I want to talk about. the more interesting case. Which is your description of this quest. And what you call the edifice trap so give. our listeners a little background on edifice and why you use that phrase for Dr Freeman. He says it's not by the way the edible complex, although they're rooted in the same Greek myth,. which is that edifice was. father and Mary as mother.

When physician Walter Freeman died in 1972, he still believed that lobotomies were the best treatment for mental illness. A pioneer in the method, he was a deeply confident and charismatic man who eagerly spread the technique in America, long after the rise of alternative treatments that were less destructive. Listen as journalist Megan McArdle and EconTalk's Russ Roberts discuss what McArdle calls the "Oedipus Trap": mistakes that no one can live with, even if they were innocently made, and how admitting such mistakes to ourselves is nearly impossible. They also discuss the complexity of the credo, "follow the science."