Conclusions [to my last scientific paper] 1/6 If I could transport my understanding of basic kinetics forty years back, I would have been a much better synthetic chemist. As a synthetic chemist, selectivities are merely ratios to be optimized, but as a kineticist they are parallel reaction pathways that may have different concentration dependencies at critical branch points. Truly gifted synthetic chemists like E. J. Corey, David Evans, and Clark Still displayed unique understandings of physical principles underlying their methods and syntheses. I have asserted repeatedly to my students, but not publicly until now, that the bifurcation of physical organic and synthetic organic chemistries into separate disciplines driven by pressures to specialize has weakened both fields. Of course, physical organic chemistry felt the pain first as the organic community at large lost interest in the problems they were pursuing and defunded much of it. Decades later the relentless quest of synthetic chemists to finish the large molecule or attain the high enantioselectivity undermined the patience required to probe the underlying first principles. My early critics were also right, however: a decidedly mechanism-driven approach to method development can coexist with, but not easily compete with, empiricism.