And Then Our Money Disappeared… (A Warning)

Small print, we all love reading it, don't we? We’re into buying something online, but at the last moment there’s a little box saying that ‘Terms and conditions’ apply- so do we accept? Yes. Of course we do accept them, stop wasting my time, I want to buy that thing. We tick the box, because checking out every ‘Terms and conditions’ document would fill our days with trying to understand all sorts of legal gobbledegook (understandable only to lawyers, accountants and other Higher Beings), and nothing else would get done. So we tick the box for Yes, and hope that the people in charge have our best interests at heart. Which they do, of course. Every time. Of course.

But sometimes, not reading the small print can get you into trouble. So allow me to share a true story that might serve as a kind of warning about what can go wrong...

Bake-off, Channel 4, and The End of Civilisation As We Know It.

Oh dear. Oh deary me.

The sky has fallen in. Parliament must be recalled. COBRA must meet to discuss the security implications. The Queen must be informed. And a few nights ago, the announcement even made the headlines of the main BBC News, ahead of one or two other tiny items about more mayhem going on around the world.

The Great British Bake-off is leaving the BBC, to enter the commercial waters of Channel 4. Apocalypse Now, apparently.

An Angel's Dictionary

Many years ago, Ambrose Bierce published a satirical 'Cynics Word-Book’ (retitled ‘The Devil's Dictionary') of cynical definitions about Life, the Universe and Everything, based on his observations about life in San Francisco during the 1860s. It’s all wonderfully dark, but let’s begin the New Year with some (slightly more wordy) alternatives.

Faith

‘(n.) Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.’ (Ambrose Bierce)

 ‘The good thing about Science is that’s it’s true whether or not you believe in it.’ (Modern T-shirt slogan)   Fail. Anyone saying that doesn’t understand Science, which is all about making a hypothesis, then testing it to destruction. Any body of knowledge is based on a series of interconnecting hypotheses about why things are the way they are, all subject to change, depending on whoever comes up with a better hypothesis that then needs to be considered and tested.

Some hypotheses (eg Newton’s laws of thermodynamics) have stood the test of time better than others (phrenology, eugenics) but they’re all up for testing. Establishing the Truth in Science requires a lot of belief that the Truth is Out There waiting to be discovered, and it can sometimes be stranger than we can possibly imagine (Thank you, Professor Brian Cox).