This morning we awoke to a gloomy day but we were well prepared for the couple of cheery care workers when they arrived promptly just before 8.00am to get Meg up and dressed. Then it was case of watching some depressing news about the waves of violence and the political dilemmas posed by this. With his background as the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Prime Minister’s most immediate response is to organise a series of special courts sitting 24 hours a day if necessary and to get lawbreakers processed as rapidly as possible. In the face of the violence that has sweeping across the country over the last night or so, I have been reflecting upon the role of social media in helping to distribute fake news around the country. I have to say with a certain degree of sadness that most of my professional life, I have been inducted and reinforced into a belief system which constantly stresses ‘Evidence! Evidence!’ This, of course is the hallmark of the scientific community and I have always been impressed by the work of Karl Popper who stressed the importance of ‘falsifiability’ and we should frame our scientific hypotheses in such a way that they are capable of disproof (to ensure we do not selectively adduce evidence that reinforces our own world view) So the principle of falsifiability is best illustrated by the observation that the existence of one black swan (in Australia) is sufficient to show that the logical proposition ‘All swans are white’ is, indeed, false. Through a career in sociology but with a strong interest in research methods, reinforced by an MSc in the Sociology of Science and later elaborated by an interest in, and some facility with statistics, I have always tried to follow the evidence wherever it might lead. But social media is more concerned with disseminating what are called ‘narratives’ where scientific evidence is just regarded as one ‘account’ to be set alongside other narratives or accounts that propagate a different world view. But to return to the riots sweeping across the country, so many of our citizens are regarding what they are read on social media as ‘the truth’ then fairly ugly rumours which can be proved to be demonstrably false form the backdrop which informs the violence of the mobs across the country. Whilst using the word ‘mob’ I seem to remember from my undergraduate days there was a fairly academic discussion in the 1960’s that whatever happened to ‘the mob’ that seemed to dominate the 18th and 19th centuries and against which the ‘Riot Act’ was framed. The ‘mob’ is populated by what Marx would have called the ‘lumpenproletariat’ but in which today’s language we would classify as those depressed and deprived areas often in inner cities that have felt left behind in the economic history of modern Britain. After we had our weekly visit from our Eucharistic minister from our local church, we journeyed down to Waitrose from where we picked up a copy of our Sunday newspaper and then made our way to the park to meet up with our University of Birmingham friend. With him, I discussed some of the themes mentioned above as we both profess an adherence to the scientific method and are equally interested in how widespread is the scientific ethic in today’s age and times. I recall to mind that there have often debates in our national life about the role to be accorded to science in today’s society. In the nineteenth century, there were massive debates over the primacy of science over religion and one is reminded of the huge debates following the publication of Darwin’s ‘The Origins of Species’ and nearer to our time there was a massive debate popularised by the novelist C. P. Snow on the ‘Two cultures’ Its thesis was that science and the humanities, which represented ‘the intellectual life of the whole of western society’, had become split into ‘two cultures’ and that this division was a major handicap to both in solving the world’s problems.
On our way up the hill, we popped in to see our Irish friends that we had seen on the way down to the park this morning. They had requested that we visit them on the way home but we had not expected a surprise ‘mini party’ which they put on for us (ham sandwiches, cake). Knowing that Meg’s wheelchair was difficult to get over their threshold, our friends had set up a table of chairs and chairs at the entrance to their garage and also invited along a neighbour who we have come to know very well – a French lady who used to teach both French and Spanish in her working life. It is always very refreshing to talk with this lady but then she gave us the sad news that she had taken the decision to sell up her house and then move to Sandbach in Cheshire so as to live much nearer to her daughter. She explained to us as practically nearly 90 years of age and in full possession of her faculties, nonetheless her present house and garden were getting too much for her to maintain so she was going to de-clutter, rationalise her possessions of furniture and then move in the Spring. Meg and I were saddened by this news and, in particular, the thought that a very kindred spirit would be moving away but we could admire that our friend was taking absolutely the right decision and doing the right thing whilst she could instead of being forced into doing things too rapidly which might happen in an emergency. We had to race up the hill to be in time for the carers late morning call which we were. Then they informed us that there had been another large car smash occurring at the other end of Kidderminster Road and this time near to the entrance of the park. We had not noticed this morning but had we glanced left rather than right as we were leaving our friends, then we might have noticed some more road mayhem around us. Reflecting upon the terrible crash that we saw last Wednesday, I have made some back of the envelope type calculations and now know that we were only 2 seconds away from the point at which the crash occurred. Had the car veered to the right rather than to the left when the driver evidently and ultimately lost control, we may well have lost our lives or been severely injured. So, as one of the carers opined, there must be some being ‘up there’ looking after us.
© Mike Hart [2024]