Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16891

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Hoffman JR, Brody H
The Boy Who Cried Unicorn: A Parable
Annals of Emercency Medicine 2005 July 7; 46:(1):93
http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(04)01681-6/fulltext

Abstract:

Once upon a time, there was a boy who wished to make a lot of money. One day, while looking at a horse, he got a great idea-didn’t most people believe in the magical properties of unicorns to ameliorate or even cure disease?

The boy had of course never seen a unicorn, so he simply put the horse in a pasture and ran around town shouting, “See the unicorn! Only $5!” The townspeople happily paid to be let in, but once they saw it was only a horse, they threatened to drive the boy out of town.

Surprisingly, though, a few of the people were so desperate that they came back again, and paid again-a chance to see a unicorn, however unlikely, was surely better than no chance at all.

Still, the boy realized he’d never get rich this way, so it was back to the drawing board. “Perhaps I can invest a little of my earnings to improve my search for a real unicorn,” he thought. And so he did. In a curio shop, he found a lovely horn that could be tied on to a horse’s head. One of the scouts he hired found a horse with an unusually pointy head. “See the latest, most genuine unicorn!” he announced, with great fanfare. “Only $10.”

It wasn’t perfect, but people often see what they wish to see. So profits did improve, and now the boy was able to hire unicorn experts, and even alchemists-scientists who would surely be able to transform a horse into a unicorn!

He branched out into elixirs and potions, and he “studied” their effects. Some did have a measurable (if not necessarily meaningful) impact. Compared to no treatment at all, that is.

Most of his money was even better spent-on marketing experts. He advertised with the town crier and backed his claims with numerous “references”-all in the boy’s possession, but “for business reasons not available for public review at this time.” He put a pig in the pasture beside the horse-since the horse looked so much more like a unicorn than did the pig, well …

He hired other boys to hand out quill pens with a picture of the unicorn. He paid famous spokesmen to talk about the critical search for newer and better unicorns. He even discovered (some might say “invented”) brand-new diseases and “pre-diseases,” and he was able to show how very many people suffered from these-even if they didn’t know it!

More and more people became believers. More and more sufferers testified to the benefits they’d reaped. Some required a small fee for this testimony, but only to repay them for their time, of course. The boy was a hero. People declared, “Sure he makes a hefty profit, but don’t we all benefit from his work?” Business was good, even at $50 a look! (There was inflation even back then; besides, argued the boy, I have to charge a bit more, so I can pay for the research and development required to find the next unicorn.)

Still, not everything was perfect. The tanners and peddlers and iron masons-who bore a lot of the cost-threatened to move their businesses elsewhere. And a whole group of scholars spoke out, more and more vocally, claiming that most of his “breakthroughs” weren’t anything of the sort.

Which leads us to the last and strangest part of our story. One day-by pure luck, or brilliant planning, or pure alchemy, or some combination-the boy actually discovered a unicorn in the forest. (At least that’s what I’ve been told. Or maybe he’s on the verge of discovering it. I’m really not sure.) You know what came next (or will come next). When the town heard the familiar cry, “See the best ever unicorn; it’s the wisest $1,000 you’ll ever spend!”-some of them believed him and rushed to hand over the money. Some bewailed the fact that they simply couldn’t afford it. And some wondered whether even a real unicorn was worth completely breaking the bank. And some skeptics said, “Shame on you if you let yourself be fooled again; it’s only the boy who cries unicorn.” And some of us wondered, “Even if it is a real unicorn he’s got this time, how would we ever know?”