Our Tiny World

I've just spent about half an hour watching a three millimetre life going about its business.

Having just finished university, I am now planning a winter in the mountains and thinking about careers and the rest of my life. But whilst my plans are literally mountain-sized, it's easy to ignore the minuscule.

Fortunately, the nature of being a recent graduate means I have an awful lot of time of my hands, so I watched as this fly slowly drank a droplet of water, regurgitated it and drank it again (for reasons I can't fathom) instead of doing a day's work.

Anyway, the less said the better. These photos are cool.

And when it was done drinking it started talking to me - unfortunately, it's tiny voice couldn't penetrate the double glazing...

(If anyone wants to put a comedy voice-over to the video, you're welcome to)

Bread's Locomotive Potential

I feel as though I must have already written about Wikipedia somewhere on here before, but a special mention has become necessary.

I somehow stumbled across the Wikipedia article for the Buttered Cat Paradox, a logical conclusion born of two absolute truths; buttered toast always lands butter-down, and cats always land on their feet.

We can all agree that the system adopted on the website is pretty good; normal people survey the pages to ensure accuracy and good standards across the website. Something George Putland and I found to our annoyance when trying to make a Jono: The Musical article.

A handy label, indeed

The 'citation needed' label is something we're all used to seeing, and is an important part of the encyclopedia as it lets us use caution when reading supposed facts. Definitely a useful tool, it would be difficult to argue otherwise.

What I just found was an example of this that I couldn't really see as necessary. In typical, kill-joy fashion, the paragraph begins 'In reality...' and goes on to explain that cats would be able to land the right way up (as if anyone was in any doubt), but it's the ending that really intrigued me.

I'm pretty sure that should be taken as read. Imagine the citation that would be used if there was one;

2013, Hawking, S. The locomotive properties of bread in its myriad raw and cooked forms. Journal of Applied Physics, 113 (4).

I realise that for a second time I've further diluted the internet with writing related to cats, but if you can't beat them...

Logic; Not Really That Important

Logic: Wikipedia cites its earliest definition as around 900 years old by Averroes and to simply be, "the tool for distinguishing between the true and the false".

Other definitions include "the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning" (Penguin Encyclopaedia); "the science that investigates the principles governing correct or reliable inference." (dictionary.com); and "the science of the laws of discursive thought (James McCosh)"

My favourite has to be Richard Whatley's as it consciously addresses the fact that knowledge is not only the regimented science of truth, but also the beautiful art of explaining it; "the Science, as well as the Art, of reasoning."

Most definitions, though, will agree that logical conclusions are pretty important in our understanding of the world and are a coherent system to analyse our surroundings.

Unfortunately, it seems that some people don't think this to be a good enough system for them, and that their assumptions should be viewed with equal time and respect as the researched views of organisations and experts.

I had, what turned into, a shouting match with a girl who claimed to have heard and seen ghosts in her house – I will admit my usual impartiality and cool-headedness took lunch break without informing me that day.

https://www.facebook.com/ExtraordinaryGhostHunters

The girl said at one point "well if you're going to say that, you might as well discount The Bible then". Not the greatest argumentative tactic to employ against an atheist, but I'll give her that one and move on.

What I can't so easily forgive is her approach to logical thinking. Remembering that almost a millennium ago logic was defined as a tool to distinguish between the true and the false, try to grasp the reasoning behind the following sentence;

"There are some things in the world that can't be explained with logic."

When I heard this, I knew it was a lost battle. There is no way you can have any kind of sensible conversation – let along screamed argument – when the other person disregards logic in their understanding of the world.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is an isolated incident. There are these people everywhere, blindly accepting what they like to think of as true and somehow feeling a sense of righteousness in their ignorance.

The education system is clearly failing if people are leaving school at 16 without any kind of reasoned, unbiased approach to what they read in The Daily Mail, watch on Great British Ghosts or hear in the pub from Tony the local mentalist.

On the topic of Great British Ghosts; what the hell is Michaela Strachan doing presenting this show? She used to do The Really Wild Show – a factual, educational show – and now she's ponsing about with a load of ghost hunters pretending that there's something 'spooky' in an old castle.

On Great British Ghosts website there is a page called Top 10 Ghostly Facts. Well straight away I'm smelling a rat. And the first 'fact' doesn't do much to alleviate this...

"A half-naked, half-frozen chicken haunts the area of Pond Square in London's Highgate!" 

First off, no it doesn't. And secondly, their justification for this is "many have claimed to hear the screeching of a chicken". Well it must be true if the so-called 'many' have claimed it.

They even have to put an exclamation mark to show us how unlikely it is, but assert that it still is definitely a fact.

Also, on a completely separate tangent – a recent work placement boss I had called an exclamation mark an explanation mark. I'd love that if everything that was being explained was rounded off with a '!'. It would just make everything more exciting.

School text books would be incredible, they'd sound like they were those collections of odd facts you sometimes get emailed:

"Your intestine is 20ft long!"
"Adult lungs have a surface area of around 70 square metres!"
"Junior Sumo wrestlers have to wipe the arses of senior Sumo wrestlers!"
"William Shakespeare was died in 1616! He is thought of as one of the greatest British writers!"
"Igneous rocks are formed are formed through the cooling of lava!"
"If a train is travelling at a constant speed of 60 mph, it will take it 7 minutes to travel a distance of 7 miles!"