There is nothing better than an expert, or in this case, a scientist, who can laugh at themselves.
Part of the problem so many ‘experts’ have is their ego doesn’t allow them to admit mistakes and so when it’s obvious they screwed up (and boy howdy, have they ever been screwing up lately), they do themselves no favors with this attitude. See Fauci.
This thread from John Kennedy, a self-proclaimed scientist, may well be the best thing you will read today, ESPECIALLY when so many on the Left and in the media love the phrase, ‘some scientists think’ and they use it to justify THEIR agendas.
Take a gander:
When an article says "some scientists think" then remember this: I, a scientist, once thought I could fit a whole orange in my mouth. I could, it turns out, get it in there, but I hadn't given sufficient thought to the reverse operation.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
A WHOLE orange … really?!
Keep going.
I should also, on reflection, have practiced in private. I had an audience, which grew as my initial satisfaction at an hypothesis well proven, slipped rapidly through stages of qualm, disquiet, then alarm (mild through severe) and ended in full blown panic.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
*popcorn*
When one panics, one's muscles tense, which is of course, the opposite of what I needed here. I had been quite relaxed at the start, but now I couldn't get a finger between the orange and the very taut edges of my mouth.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
Above and below, the orange, which was now under some pressure, deformed to make a nearly perfect seal against my teeth. I hadn't previously been aware of how much oxygen one needs to consume an orange, but I was made aware of it now by its sudden and ongoing lack.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
Yup.
I forgot for a moment that I had nostrils and tried to breathe in hard through my mouth. I have big lungs. When the doctor tested my lung capacity, I blew the end clean off the cardboard tube.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
HA HA HA HA HA HA
I've always been vaguely proud of that; mostly for want of more tangible achievements and because I am, when all is said and done, the kind of person otherwise predisposed to shove a whole orange in his mouth without cause.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
It takes a special sort.
From now on, things which had been unfolding at an almost leisurely pace, started to happen rather fast. So, I will take this opportunity to say that no one had actually tried to help me up till now. This was not for lack of opportunity.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
Later, someone mentioned the kind of details – veins like worms scribbling incomprehensible messages across my forehead, eyes popping out as if on stalks, laced with tiny red veins – which one can only truly apprehend at a distance that wouldn't have made help impossible.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
But back to the imploding orange. Although it didn't diminish appreciably in volume upon implosion, the released juice vaporised, turning into a burning acidic cloud that instantly flooded my lungs.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
Ouch.
My lungs very sensibly responded by collapsing rapidly aided by an involuntary and powerful spasm from my diaphragm.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
Double ouch.
The vapour and oily zest from the orange's skin mixed with mucus scoured from my lungs (that spread flat, we must remember, would cover a tennis court) as well as the last of my residual oxygen, exited now through my rediscovered nostrils as a magnificently abundant yellow foam.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
Admit it, you’re visualizing this.
And, having a volume in excess of what could easily egress at speed via those narrow tubes, it also squirted out through nearby exits, including around my eyes.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
GROSS yet AWESOME.
Even that wasn't enough and the build up of pressure finally proved too much for the orange, which left my mouth like grapeshot from a cannon, like the superluminal jets generated by matter falling towards a black hole at relativistic speed.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
And now, we’re dead.
Temporarily blind and gasping in my own private world of consequences, I was unaware of the cone of devastation that I had unleashed upon the unluckier segment of my audience, occupying roughly one steradian of solid angle to my front.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
When I finally recovered my senses and the cycle of whooping inhalation and coughing fits had exhausted itself, I was greeted not by the concern that I felt such a brush with death merited, but with a disgust that later reflection suggests may not have been wholly unwarranted.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
So, anyway, whenever you read "some scientists think", think about me and recalibrate the lower end of your expectations accordingly.
— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) August 3, 2022
Lower your expectations accordingly.
Heh.
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