notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

Jez Paxman, in That’s the story, talking about a talk at The Story conference Matt Locke organised that I attended on Friday.

Spooner’s talk, which was early in the day (when most people were still shocked at arriving at Jackanory Live rather than How To Convey A Narrative) probably left me feeling more annoyed than any other.

It started off straightforwardly enough, with a slightly boiled down but essentially correct description of the neutrino, but then started to try and connect the particle with “coincidences”, claiming that when - if - a neutrino interacts with the matter in your body, a coincidental happening is the result. This instantly got my back up; it’s close to the sort of “quantum homeopathy” rubbish that New Scientist’s Feedback so often criticises, and left me wondering if Spooner just didn’t understand the science.

As his talk progressed, though, and got more outlandish, I realised that we’d turned a corner, from truth to fiction. I’m so used to people being (unknowingly?) incorrect about physics and science that my first response was not to assume storytelling, but misunderstanding. Evidently I hadn’t yet mentally adjusted to the tone of the conference.

Afterwards, I mentioned this to some of my friends, who spotted the transition from more-or-less correct physics to a story instantly. That’s probably because they don’t share my hangups. Reading Paxman’s quote now, though, I’m wondering if I wasn’t right to feel annoyed at launching a story - a fiction, or even a pack of lies - from a foundation of truths, as it seems to have caused confusion between the science and the story.

On the other hand, maybe I’m reading Paxman wrong, and he too knows that the “complex scientific theories” portrayed weren’t real. As I’ve indicated above, it would hardly be the first time I’ve been too literal-minded.