Dear Blog Reader.
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am doing fine. Last
week, I wrote about the travails of caterpillars and their attacks on the unsuspecting
and a bit naïve. I was trying to be kind; hoping that the reason the victims
were in contact with these poisonous little buggers is that their parents had
not raised them right. Parents who did not know better because they were not
paying attention in high school biology or they did not have a jar to collect
insects and then prematurely send lightning bugs to lightning bug heaven
because no lightning bug ever survives no matter how much grass you put in the
jar or how many holes you put in the lid with a 16 penny nail and hammer. So
caterpillars are attacking the most vulnerable among us. Except for my fun and
games playing splat at 16 mph, humanity seems to be doing very little to rid
ourselves of the scourge of children’s allergic reaction pictures on Facebook.
I was sharing the vision of gut splatters on the road with a
co-worker and they said “yeah, what do those blond caterpillars mean for how
bad the winter is going to be?” I am thinking “pay attention here. The topic
that I am talking about has nothing to do with winter weather severity and
everything to do with vector analysis and practical story problem skills.” If a
bike leaves the house 4 miles away travelling 16 mph and the caterpillar
decides to cross the 20 foot country road going a foot a minute how far will
the biker have to swerve from his usual track of 2 ft from the shoulder? Why are
we more reliant on caterpillars for our winter weather forecasts rather than as
excellent story problem references?
My co-worker went on to make a classic entomological
mistake. “I have seen a lot of those blond wooly worms. Doesn’t blond mean that
it will be a mild winter?” By misidentifying a regular old death deserving
caterpillar as the sage winter prognosticating wooly worm, they had doomed
themselves to a winter of discontent. Armed with poor information, their winter
will be without the guideposts readily available to old timers through out the
centuries. I was going to offer subtle correction; “what you saw was not the
traditional wooly worm. They are brown and black in segments.” However, I could
tell that their knowledge was so tightly held and my explaining skills so poor
that frustration would ensue. It was time to cut my losses and go back to work
on a spreadsheet. “Sure looks like a mild winter,” was all I could muster.
We do put a lot of faith in these signs of the future. We
seem to be searching for any sign of what it coming; for the forecast. It
doesn’t matter how good the prognosticator is at their craft. They could have
never have gotten it correct and we will still give them credit and believe a
least a little bit what they are predicting for our future. I am chief among
suckers on this topic. I am holding fervently to the idea that the Super Bowl
will be played in a blizzard in New
York
I say bold because it was quite specific; a specific
meteorological phenomena on a specific weekend in a specific spot. Most seers
know to keep it vague and leave the results open to interpretation. Last year
the wooly worm and the persimmon tree predicted a snowy early winter. Their
advocates hung their hat on the brutal 3 inch blizzard on December 26. Yep, the
wooly worm’s esteem catapulted based on the overreaction of the meteorological
community and a panic prone public. The misappropriated attribution of accuracy
has boosted his reputation to such an extent that people are rushing out and
misidentifying our diminutive prophets and raising the status of your common
blond caterpillar.
Insects and weather are not the only predictors in which we
put our faith. This was made very clear to me while visiting my daughter and
son-in-law earlier this fall. Being very smart people, they read a lot of books
and in this case internet articles about books. They came across a book that
makes personality and life success predictions based on your birthday. The
article made it very clear that these predictions were NOT astrology which
makes the same predictions based on . . . your birthday. No these predictions
had the force of science behind it.
These scientists had culled the supermarket check out lane
for stars of another type. Celebrities from all walks of life were included.
From Einstein to Cher , they were all there.
After star identification, these scientists categorized their personality
traits and spewed forth that everyone born in the same 7 day period has the
same traits. It strikes me that the sample would be a bit skewed towards
nihilistic, narcissistic, nutcases. How are you going to overcome your obvious
personality flaws if you were born this year on July 3rd when you
are following in the foot steps of Tom Cruise?
You are doomed; you poor cute little nutcase you.
As Ludicris (sorry all of you September 11 babies), as
ludicrous as it may sound we do admire our stars. The ancients loved them in
the sky and we, like the Greeks and Romans, look to them up on our Mt Olympus
and read the oracles of their lives on the end cap in front of the checkout
line. Now we worship at their feet in hopes that their good fortune and coping
skills will reflect however dimly on our lives. I think that many of us are
susceptible to this transference. I am. I read the article, looked at the
Amazon description, read an excerpt. I was almost hooked by the part that
predicts relationship compatibility based on the respective birthdays of the
couple.
I am sorry to say that the Lovely Miss Beverly and I have
been living a lie for the past 28 years. Our passion should have flamed out
about 26 years ago if you believe people who have made it an academic pursuit
to study the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Kardashian. Maybe we would be
better off choosing a bit stronger foundation for predicting the future.
Or just not worry about it, and deal with it when we meet.
Take care,
Roger
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