rational thought
Pseudo-science: warts and all (M&G)
Friday, May 1st, 2009 | rational thought, science | No Comments
When I was seven or eight, I found a wart growing on my knee. Sounds grim, I know, but bear with me. Someone — an adult, nogal, so it had to be reputable, right? — told me that if you cut a raw potato in half, rubbed it on the wart and buried the potato, the wart would disappear. I think there was something about doing it at full moon, but I didn’t buy that bit.
I was methodical, though, and followed the instructions precisely. The weeping face of the half-potato was rubbed against the offending growth, a small tear hacked through the matted kikuyu grass in the back garden and the potato duly buried. › Continue reading
Darwin and the chicken’s egg (M&G)
Friday, February 27th, 2009 | creation, evolution, rational thought | No Comments
What came first, the chicken or the egg? I’m thrilled to report that after extensive navel contemplation, this quintessential human conundrum has been laid to rest. The answer, which is revealed here, has been right in front of us for decades.
What got me pondering such erudite matters, amid bouts of staring at the wall (as writers are wont to do, louts and layabouts, the lot of us), was the birthday of one Charles Darwin, who breathed his first on February 12 two centuries ago. › Continue reading
On a wing and a prayer (M&G)
Friday, November 28th, 2008 | rational thought, theism | No Comments
As a head of state, to end up in a slick French hospital on your deathbed has to be the ultimate vote of no confidence in your own country’s healthcare system. Zambia’s Levy Mwanawasa was shipped off to Paris after his stroke in June this year. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s president, also popped over to France for surgery on a stomach ulcer.
At least North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il was suitably taken in by the cult of his own personality to stay at home for treatment after his recent brush with the other side. But rumour has it that a French neurosurgeon was imported to treat him. Pyongyang denies this emphatically, but then they would, wouldn’t they?
What is it about the French and their medical prowess?
Robben Island rabbits on the run (M&G)
Friday, November 14th, 2008 | invasive species, rational thought | 1 Comment
Since it’s matric exam time, here’s a question to pop into the life sciences (formerly known as biology) paper. Problem: there’s an island in a bay, surrounded by cold, rough, possibly shark-infested waters; you’re 8km away on the mainland with a box of tortoises. How do you get those tortoises on to the island without using human technology?
Solution: either Natalie du Toit swims them across for you — but she’d have to do it without shark spotters or a boat for backup, or you could wait for the next ice age. This’d drop the sea level as water gets sucked up into polar ice caps. Your tortoises could simply walk across the new muddy flats and colonise the island themselves. Once the ice age was over, the water would trickle back into the bay, cutting the island off from the mainland once more. Any animals trapped on the island would have the place to themselves. They’d be the true original residents.
God, on ice
Friday, September 12th, 2008 | politics, rational thought | No Comments
“I demand the right of reply!” a voice booms from outside my study window, setting the pane aquiver in its frame.
I stumble backwards, toppling the chair which prostrates itself, one wheel spinning absently. The cat bloats like of a puffer fish, moaning angrily.
Peering at us from beyond the glass is an eye the size of a Palates ball. God blinks. Eyelashes, stout as thatching reed, thwack against the pane.
“I see you’ve been fraternising with the enemy,” rumbles the disembodied voice.
The immovable power of flimflam (M&G)
Friday, July 25th, 2008 | Mail & Guardian column, rational thought | No Comments
I have decided to become a fairaeologist — one who studies fairies. I believe I see fairies. I’m sure they exist. So I start a journal, printed and bound at my local copy shop, called the Journal of Advanced Fairaeotics (JAF).
I get a few mates, also fairy believers, to be my “peer reviewers”. I sit up all night with a torch and reckon I see a petite-winged fairy dancing in the moonlight across the daisy heads. I write up my observations, explain my methods, discuss my findings, all of which are published in the JAF: › Continue reading
Goblins in the cupboard (M&G)
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 | Mail & Guardian column, rational thought | No Comments
According to an arcane superstition pre-dating the Enlightenment, I can be a bitch at times. We all can, now and then, but my predisposition was determined by the position of our sun in relation to a specific arrangement of celestial bodies a few hundred light years away, at the time of my birth. If, like me, you came bellowing into this world in late October or most of November, you’re the bearer of grudges and have an almighty sting in your tail. You can’t help it, you’re a Scorpio.
Our relationship with the night skies may have started with astrology — that tottering, nappy-bummed imp that was the early observing human — but since Galileo and Newton we’ve graduated to a more mature relationship with the heavens. › Continue reading
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