...today would not be its best day. (As much as I wouldn't mind seeing a js alternative gain traction.)

Dr. Stephen T. Colbert has been telling us to think with out gut for even longer.

In 2013, the murder rate would have been about 13 lower. Source:

http://www.txexecutions.org/stats.asp

The answer to that question is always, always no. Except when it's still no, in which case it is no. No.

In conclusion, no.

You ivory tower intellectuals must not lose touch with the world of industrial growth and hard currency. It is all very well and good to pursue these high-minded scientific theories, but research grants are expensive. You must justify your existence by providing not only knowledge but concrete and profitable applications as well.

...then why are we reading about it now? Is it really such an important and decisive finding that we can't wait a few months until it at least gains at least that level of credibility?

Certainly; with a high enough dose, the subject would die.

That aside, the finding is interesting. Based on the summary, I thought that it might just be helping the subjects get closer to the ideal level of psychological arousal for what is probably a simple, routine, and possibly slightly boring task. However, the article states that the subjects were given the pills after having been shown the images, not before, in order to control for that possibility.

There is still one alternative explanation that I can see to a direct chemical effect of caffeine. For the subjects given caffeine after doing the first task in the experimental setting, an association was formed between the setting and getting caffeine. When the subjects returned to do a similar task in the experimental setting again, they received a slight boost in psychological arousal in anticipation of receiving the caffeine. (This kind of effect is commonly seen with many drugs, although I don't know if 200mg of caffeine would induce the effect with a single exposure.) The increased arousal during the follow-up task could explain the increased performance. If they wanted to control for it, one way would be to administer the follow-up task in a different environment than the one in which they did the first task, thereby reducing the impact of any associations with the original setting.

Personally, I don't like Visigoths. Tomorrow, I'll put up a sign: "No spiders or Visigoths allowed." I'm sick and tired of these Visigoths.

The scientific method need not constitute the entirety of a person's belief system for them to decide that, based on its eminently observable practical applications, it is a useful tool.

Yes. One might come to the conclusion that certain other explanations for existence are improbable or unnecessary, as well.

I thought that man was "ish" (aleph-yod-shin) and woman was "isha" (aleph-shin-shin-he).

While I will agree that 65 million years is not long in geological time, any novel life forms trying to develop on Earth have to compete for limited resources with existing organisms that are already well-adapted to their environments. It is probably much less likely for some alternative to cellular life as we know it to develop here in parallel with existing life than it is somewhere that we seed a supply of proteins and amino acids and watch to see what happens.