Category: Social commentary

  • Why DIY funerals are a bad idea

    Imagine a time, say, in an English village around the thirteenth century. Life revolved around the church and services were held on sundays and holy-days. For better or worse the priest was the guide and mentor. Death was common and unlike today the format of the funeral service followed a strict pattern. Certain prayers were…

  • Cognitive dissonance

    Cognitive dissonance has been defined as the perception of contradictory information. I have written about the importance of cognitive dissonance before. In fact, I would argue that it is essential for a healthy evolution of the mind. If you hear an opinion that contradicts the view of the world you hold there are three options:…

  • On making mistakes

    Many so-called ‘self-help gurus’ will tell you that making mistakes is part of life. You have to make a mistake in order to learn. In fact I recall a business investor who invested in startups saying that he was wary of investing in someone who hadn’t had a business already. If they had a successful…

  • Problem solving

    I read that a well know entrepreneur (I think it was Elon Musk) said that schools should teach problem solving. Well, schools nowadays teach some strange subjects and have moved away from the ‘old fashioned’ three R’s, so I’m sure it would fit in with the views of many progressive school principles. For instance, there…

  • The myth of science

    I’ve written many times before about science and what is called the philosophy of science. That is, the rules of science, the scientific method and the assumptions that scientists make when they do experiments. Nowadays an understanding of real science is becoming more and more important as ‘science’ (or what is referred to as science)…

  • Numbers and words

    There’s an old Jewish joke of the man who sends his son to school – presumably at some expense – so that he could become successful. When the son returns home the father asks him what he has learnt: “We learnt that if I have two apples and Greta has three apples we have five…

  • Micro-aggressions and gender neutral pronouns

    I was recently told by someone that had I looked at her profile I would have noticed her preferred pronouns that I should be using instead of using the words ‘she’ and ‘her’. What she didn’t realise was that it wasn’t that I didn’t know — it was that I didn’t care. Or to be more precise,…

  • So you want the vaccine to prevent Covid

    Leaving aside the conspiracy theorists, everyone knows that Covid is a killer that can threaten the existence of the human race. We are told that thousands of people are dying daily from Covid and unless we wear masks and take steps to avoid contact with other people the outcome will be overloaded health services and…

  • People don’t examine facts, they see things through an ideological lens

    Some time ago I wrote an article (The girl with the X ray eyes) on a documentary how CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) under the leadership of Prof. Richard Wiseman set out to discredit a Russian girl Natasha Demkina. The documentary was an attempt to debunk the claims but it was…

  • The enemy is not who you think it is

    There’s a movie from around 2010 called ‘V for Vendetta’. It depicts a UK where a right-wing authoritarian regime has come to power and a vigilante (V) takes on the ruling government. The characteristics of the ruling party are: right-wing, intolerant of minorities, pro religion, and resented by the mass of the population. In reality…