Discussion Guide — Chapter 9

1. "One trial. Two numbers. Which is the real one?"

Open with this and let them argue before you explain. Listen for: the move from "one must be wrong" to "they answer different questions." When someone gets there, ask them to state both questions in plain language, and write both on the board.

2. "Compress this result for a headline."

Run the transmission exercise live. Listen for: what they drop first, and whether they notice themselves doing it. Afterward, ask: at which step did anyone say something false? The answer — much later than expected, if at all — is the point, and it lands harder because they produced the chain.

3. "Retatrutide: 24%. Tirzepatide: 21%. Which is better?"

Listen for: whether anyone asks about phase before answering. If nobody does, that is your teaching moment. Then run the twenty-compounds demonstration and ask again.

4. "Both GIP agonists and GIP antagonists are being developed for obesity. What do you make of that?"

Listen for: comfort with unresolved mechanism. Some students find it scandalous; some find it exciting. Both reactions are worth surfacing. Then ask: what would you conclude if a field only ever pursued one hypothesis at a time? The answer — that it would look more confident and be less likely to be right — reframes the untidiness as functioning rather than failing.

5. "Orforglipron isn't a peptide. Why is it in a peptide book?"

Good closing question. Listen for: the recognition that the target is a peptide receptor and the ligand is not — and that if a small molecule can activate a class B GPCR, several of this book's delivery arguments have an escape route. Then ask what that would do to cost, to access, and to the compounding market. Chapter 12 becomes much more interesting after this.

6. "This book keeps saying 'as of 2026.' Does that make it less useful?"

Worth asking once in Part II. Listen for: students distinguishing the verdicts, which age, from the method, which does not. A student who says "the ratings will be wrong in five years and the six questions won't" has understood what the book is for.