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// Filed under: Life on Wednesday April 25th 2007, 8:41 pm So, Simon and I are in the kitchen, and we’re drying the dishes. And what better time, my friends, to discuss the nutritional value of a carrot. This begins when my mother remarks that she read in a report recently that the nutritional value of a carrot substantially improved after boiling. Simon pounces. “Ridiculous!” he cries, stabbing his index finger into the sky. “How can mere water add anything to a carrot that wasn’t already there! I spurn your voodoo magicks and all who swear fealty to their cause!” It’s all I can do to restrain him as he sprays bile into my face and gnashes his angry, aspiring-biologist-teeth in my mother’s general direction. “Fie!” I hiss in his throbbing ears. “What evidence do you have to support this claim! Our mother cites a publication of repute! You cite merely your own unsubstantiated judgements!” He tears free of my grasp, wielding a teatowel as lesser men wield broadswords or battle-axes. “It’s common sense, you unwashed jackanapes! I don’t need to prove it! I know I am right.” “But,” I say, “how can you know that you are right, if you have no proof or evidence with which to back up your spurious claims?” “Tim, you are a small-minded nitwit, and therefore much of what I say will be lost on you,” he begins, his muttonchops dancing in the soft breeze of the kitchen. “It is a held tenet of Glorious Science that nothing can ever, truly, be known. To know something, one must be able to prove something to be right, and nothing can ever be proven absolutely right - only absolutely wrong.” “So basically, dear brother - what you are saying to me in effect is that the only thing you can be certain of, is that you can never be certain?” “Correct.” “And yet you know - you are certain - without any proof or evidence to back you up, that a carrot, once boiled, could not possibly have increased in nutritional content?” “Right.” // 12 Comments 
// Filed under: Random on Tuesday April 24th 2007, 12:14 pm // 5 Comments
// Filed under: Life on Tuesday April 03rd 2007, 10:13 pm // 8 Comments
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