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Caitlin R: The Brain’s Need to Find Patterns

Caitlin Raymond/LinkedIn

Sep 1, 2026, 17:42

Caitlin R: The Brain’s Need to Find Patterns

Caitlin R, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Transfusion Medicine at University of Wisconsin-Madison, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Why do we love a good story about blood type?

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks writing about the strange narratives that gather around the one piece of biology we all happen to know about ourselves: diet myths that won’t die, and a fictional link between blood type and personality.

Every time, the same question nagged at me.

Why does blood type generate so much story?

So I went looking for the answer, and it took me to London in 1944.

Bombs were falling on the city in a pattern Londoners were sure was intentional: some neighborhoods hit again and again, others spared entirely.

The theory was spies, feeding targeting data across the Channel. An actuary named R. D. Clarke ran the numbers instead of running with the theory.

Textbook random distribution.

No spies. No sparing. Just chance, and a city full of brains doing the one thing they cannot help but do: finding a story in it anyway.

That’s the real subject of my latest post.

Your brain isn’t a camera recording the world, it’s a prediction engine, constantly filling in gaps and hunting for patterns, whether or not a pattern is actually there.

It’s the same machinery behind your blind spot getting filled in, a joke landing, a conspiracy theory taking hold, and yes, a blood type myth refusing to die.

One system. No off switch. Link in the comments.”

Caitlin R: The Brain’s Need to Find Patterns