A couple of Wallace links to start off with, as this week marked the 100th anniversary of his death… then the rest of the regular half-dozen to help you start the weekend.
Something that I need to listen to
Selected items featuring the work of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), British biologist, anthropologist, geographer, environmentalist, and human rights advocate. The man who, independently of Darwin, arrived to the same conclusion on natural selection. In 1858 he corresponded with Darwin about his theory, prompting Darwin to finally publish the famous work, On the Origin of Species, in 1859.
A strange chapter in Wallace’s life
When Hampden advertised his infamous Flat Earth Wager in 1870, the terms were simple enough: he would pay 500 British pounds to anyone who could provide absolute proof of a round Earth. Given the size of the reward (which was a hefty sum in those days), Wallace was tempted enough to discuss the wager with Charles Lyell. After Lyell suggested that “It may stop these foolish people to have it plainly shown them”, Wallace accepted the challenge. As an experienced land surveyor, designing an appropriate proof seemed simple enough (but he should have realized the offer was too good to be true). Hampden appointed fellow flat-earther William Carpenter as his referee while Wallace appointed science journalist J.J. Walsh. Both Hampden and Walsh put up 500 pounds in a London bank for safekeeping and Wallace signed an agreement that he would repay Walsh if he lost the bet.
Ant patterns on fly wings? (via Morgan Jackson)
Putting everything together, it leads me to believe we may be choosing to see ants where they don’t actually exist. Much like how we see sharks in the clouds or Jesus in our toast (a psychological phenomenon called Pareidolia), I think we’ve become so conditioned to expect ornate patterns on wings to be mimicking something else that we’re forcing objects to appear everywhere, even if there’s no evolutionary or behavioural explanation for it. It’s important that we don’t let our human-centric points of view, emotions and opinions bias our interpretation of what’s really going on.
Your growing pile of unread books
And all I have to do is turn away from this computer, reach over, and take one of their books from a shelf of my private library.
Procrastination Part I (and Part II)
No, “avoid procrastination” is only good advice for fake procrastinators—those people that are like, “I totally go on Facebook a few times every day at work—I’m such a procrastinator!” The same people that will say to a real procrastinator something like, “Just don’t procrastinate and you’ll be fine.”
…we didn’t always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 12 hours long, and began with a sleep of three to four hours, wakefulness of two to three hours, then sleep again until morning.