I observed that neither the technique “use_python(‘path’)” nor the tactic of Sys.setenv(RETICULATE_PYTHON = ‘path’) in .RProfile worked for me (of course I am sure it must have worked for others.)
In any case the line at terminal,
which -a python python3
did produce two paths to choose from (one for python2 and one for python3 installed on my mac), so then I was able to create a “.Renviron” file in my home directory with this single line in it:
RETICULATE_PYTHON="/usr/local/bin/python3"
After I restarted RStudio, library(reticulate)
activates the desired python3, and repl_python()
opens a python3 interactive window, etc. etc.