The Straw

For a long time, stretching back to about the time when I left school, I have been baffled by the ignorance and blindness of people.

Science. Its what we call the understanding and knowledge of the universe. It encompasses everything from the tiniest sub atomic particle, to entire spiralling galaxies. From the thoughts inside my head, to the internet I am displaying them onto. And as the old saying goes, it works. Bitches.

So why then, if we have spent thousands of years on this tiny spinning rock, observing and testing everything around us, do people believe in things that not only go against these well established principles, but defy everything we know?

Today, my tolerance to accept peoples backwards superstitions broke. Like a game of Buckaroo, this was the last piece of novelty luggage that caused me to kick everything off.

Before this, I had a tolerance (albeit, very limited) for people and their various unsupported, untestable, backwards beliefs. Friday the 13th, black cats, mirrors etc, i could listen to people rabbit on about their superstitions and not say much.

Today, i heard a story relating to a tragic death of a young man. Two family members (his aunty and mother) both saw toads last Friday sat on their doorsteps. Then, later that same day, a frog was hopping around a supermarket very close to where he had died. This was seen as a sign, and too much to be coincidence. They later researched it (if you can call it that) on the internet about seeing a toad after someone has passed away and came to the conclusion that it was true.

Now, i am very sorry for the loss of their family member, it is a tragic thing to happen to someone, but this is madness. What they are saying, is that they are discounting everything we have known and learned about the universe, ecology and zoology, and choose to believe that two people seeing a toad on the same day cannot be explained by natural means. Read that back. Two people, seeing a toad, cannot be explained and must have been part of something supernatural. Its about the most ridiculous thing ive ever heard.

The worst part is, you cant even put this down to grief, or stress because people unconnected to the family believe it. I cannot understand it. Some very basic maths can tell you how daft it is.

The current population of the UK stands at around 62 million people. While there is no official number of common toads in the UK, it is, as its name suggests, extremely common, especially this time of year as we enter into spring. Seeing it on one of 7 days. Are these people really saying that 2 out of 62,000,000 people, that know each other, seeing a common animal on the same day cannot be explained? If 11,111 people saw a polar bear, being ridden by a dodo, wearing roller-skates, at 11:11.11 on the 11th of November, then, maybe, we could say that this thing needs investigating. Until that happens, we can explain the sight of a toad.

To wonder about the world is what makes us human. To question and to inquire, these things set us apart as a species. To suggest that something "cannot be explained" means that you throw out the work of Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Darwin, Schroedinger, Maxwell et all. Visionaries, founding fathers of the world we have now, scientists that not only pushed the boundaries of our knowledge, but positively exploded our minds to the wonders of our universe. They showed the world that everything could be understood, everything had a natural explanation. It is beautiful. Everything, from the smallest sub-atomic particle, to the largest spiralling galaxy, could be explained by science.

"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe, is that it is comprehensible" - Albert Einstein.