The Thin End

During this Coronavirus pandemic, We often hear it said that we should 'follow the science'.  That, of course, is better than simply dipping your finger in the air to test the humidity!  But can the science work fast enough to inform debate when it comes to the difficult decisions to be made by politicians?  The answer is that it cannot.   The problem is that science works through a long process of experimentation or data acquisition, writing of papers, which then go through a peer review before being published. Cutting short any of this process weakens the strength of the science.  With the Covid-19 pandemic, events are occurring faster than science can function. What then happens is mostly speculation based on judgement, whether by specialists or not. Epidemiologists, virologists etc. are called upon to give their view on what is likely to happen. Few of them stress the problem that science doesn't work that way.  We all either feel ...

Social media is full of pitfalls, where understanding is concerned.  Face to face encounters with others involves a great deal of facial expression, hand gestures, body language. In short, emotion matters.   Our body language tells much more than the words we utter. Of course, we can use emojis in our messages -  or we can add kisses, xx, after our abrupt response, softening the impact of, say, a disagreement.   There are a hundred and one ways of saying 'sorry', but how do you say it 'as if you mean it'? See what I mean :) ?   I wasn't rude :) Do take care :) Beware of negative emojis?  Negative emojis are more likely to be poorly processed. A new study , published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour,  now shows that men and women process emojis differently.  On the whole, it seems that women rate negative emojis to be more negative than do men  :(.  While positive emojis :) are about equally interpreted. Some...