Yes, I’ve decided to start a blog…there are so many interesting, fantastically cool, strange things happening in the world of, what I loosely call ‘science’ that I’ve decided to throw out a random selection from time to time in this blog. I am definitely not the first and I am unlikely to be the last. Certain topics will probably predominate based on my own background and interests (e.g. human behaviour or palaeontology), but with a bit of luck, you will at the very least be amused / horrified / disgusted / enraged or at the very least, not turning over in your grave thinking about how time could have been better spent.
I must do credit here to fiction writers from all over the world and across genres. My love of reading fiction, as a child and adult, ultimately drove me further into science. The day I realised that science was in many ways stranger than fiction, with so many concoctions that few imaginative writers can parallel, was the day that I hunkered for more. Sometimes, however I think this excitement of the world around us can be lost as some academics and scientists delve ever deeper and deeper into smaller and smaller sub-fields — essentially learning more and more about less and less. No single individual does so intentionally and specialists are needed in all fields. Nevertheless, with this blog I hope to step back grasp the detail and put it back into the bigger picture, connecting up, metaphorically speaking, the different lines that explain the world around us.
I hope you enjoy reading the blog as much as I do writing it. Please leave your thoughts or comments. Science is about looking at the available evidence. There is a lot of it about and interpretation is key, so I am always interested in debates / new evidence / new theories regardless of whether these agree or disagree with what I present.
The Dutch Touch 