Hacker News Reader

Comment by md_ | Hacker News Reader

Agreed, and a quick search on pubmed shows some research that backs the claim that these are modern conditions. https://whyy.org/segments/could-old-skulls-help-us-understan... describes a few hypotheses as to why, one of which aligns with Mews’ claim.

I was disappointed the article didn’t engage more with the prospect that Mews is simply (or additionally) a grifter, though.

His very own claim seems to be that you cannot treat adults with his techniques, yet he appears to accept money from adults for treatment nonetheless.

Were the article primarily about the scientific claims, it could have used a more empirical approach. As a profile of a potentially dishonest subject, it also failed to dig deep enough, and Mews’ patients—who have their own psychological issues—may well be the victims.

View on HN

If there are basically no skulls to be found with misaligned teeth and jaws, then what the article says is the mainstream explanation of this - genetics - has to be wrong, because genetics in humans doesn't do anything in 200 years. Especially not going from "~100% good outcomes" to "the majority of individuals have malformed teeth". Literally any other explanation is more plausible. Changes in food seems very plausible. Changes in upbringing as well.

Fantastic comment and exactly correct. The genetics argument is a complete fabrication, what I’ve heard before is that infants don’t eat enough solid food e.g. meat on the bone when younger but instead too much puréed soft food. But I’ve no idea if this is correct. But something is off.

anekdotal evidence of a related principle - after several years of regular hiking i had noticed some slight bone shape changes - a bit larger kind of protrusions where tendons/muscles attach to the bone, so it doesn't sound surprising that the chin bone would respond to the chewing load, especially in the younger years when the things have much higher plasticity.

It is also pretty known that a loss of tooth is with time followed by a local bone loss.

As I understand it, chewing tougher food earlier in life makes the jaw grow to have enough room for more teeth. I wasn't aware this was considered a mystery?

The above WHYY segment suggests an alternative hypothesis of children nursing less and using bottle feeding more.

This seems as credible as Mews’ hypothesis. Neither seems sufficiently validated to be the basis for clinical treatment, from what little I understand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com