Origins

"Those who assume hypotheses as first principles of their speculations... may indeed form an ingenious romance, but a romance it will still be."
- Roger Cotes, preface to Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, second edition, 1713.

When it comes to trying to explain how all 'this' came to be, it is far too easy to get caught up in a theory that appeals to your desire for a good story. It was mentioned in my first lecture today that percentages of certain elements in Earth's atmosphere correspond to those present in the comets of the outer solar system, and that this has led to the idea that comet impacts gave us our supply of H2O. This is quite a neat little idea.

It put me in mind of exogenesis (theory that life was transferred to Earth from somewhere else) and panspermia (theory that there are 'seeds' of life throughout the universe and that we came from one of those).

The thing about these three theories is that they put the ultimate answers further away. They're satisfying at first, but ultimately mean that tracing the origin of life will require us to hunt through surrounding space, not just turning over rocks here at home.

This is very similar to the problem with creation myths as an ultimate answer. Arguing creation myths goes a little like this:

"How did all this come to be?" - "God made it." - "Ok. How did God come to be?" Explanation of God would require an even bigger and more complex theory, since it would surely have to be at least as complex as what it created. Arguing exogenesis goes, for all intents and purposes, identically:

"How did all this come to be?" - "Simple lifeforms got to Earth's surface on asteroids, comets, etc. and we evolved from them." - "Ok. How did those lifeforms... form."

The answer is one (enormous) step further away. On the plus side, that step could well be further space exploration, an exciting prospect. And the UK has it's very own space agency now.

Tramps Like Us...

I went for a great run today. Almost every step was pure joy, bounding through the park (clumsily, dropping my iPod...) on a sunny day for it's own sake. I had a playlist full of inspirational songs to keep me going, and it made a nice change running in warm air so that my lungs weren't tightening up from chill and pollution. I didn't time it, I could only estimate how far I went, and there was no rush.

I've been running on the balls of my feet this week, after a year of sporadic jogging; landing heel-first. I decided to make the switch due to some problems I was experiencing with my left foot, and so far it seems to be working ok. It was Christopher McDougall's talk at google that inspired me. Check it out here.

I found this video thanks to the freerunner Sticky - see www.stickyparkour.com - who is just about to start over one thousand miles of running and parkour from John O'Groats to Paris. He's raising money for a motor neurone disease charity, details on his site. It is a truly epic feat of endurance he's undertaking and I hope he makes it. (He will).

Kick-Ass

The Daily Mail had this to say of Kick-Ass -

"It deliberately sells a perniciously sexualised view of children and glorifies violence, especially knife and gun crime, in a way that makes it one of the most deeply cynical, shamelessly irresponsible films ever."

When I read that I knew it was going to be good. A one-star review from the Daily Fail? Condemned by their reviewer as evil? Yes, this is one to watch.

The film had some good lines (very much of the type you can imitate with your mates later for a laugh), fight scenes that were gloriously violent and visceral adrenalin-pumpers, swearing in just the right places, a cheeky bit of sex (not pornographic), drug-dealers, and a soundtrack (featuring The Prodigy, Ennio Morricone, Elvis Presley) so good I'm listening to it now, which I can't say I've ever done before.

The heroine of the film is Hit-Girl, and it is to her that the Daily Mail reviewer is referring with the "perniciously sexualised view of children" comment. She's about 11, is only at one point referred to as attractive - by a boy, not a man - and completely dominates every fight she gets into. I'm trying not to spoil by talking about specifics here, but suffice it to say that by about halfway into the film you're likely to be eagerly anticipating her next appearance in a scrap; it's guaranteed to be a well choreographed bloodbath.

I'm not going to go into any more depth about this film - it's not a deep piece of work, just really good fun. Go, watch, hopefully enjoy.