Skinner Skinner

2010/01/01 Arturo Elosegi Irurtia - Ekologiako katedradunaZientzia eta Teknologia Fakultatea. EHU Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Etika

(Photo: ©iStock Photo.com/Sykono)

Animals always look for patterns, because it is important for our survival. Unfortunately, this desire to find patterns leads us to think that even when there is no pattern we find ourselves, that is, to deceive ourselves. And we run the risk of walking like the doves of Skinner, dancing rain one and another in alternative therapies, convinced that everything, like the dove, works.

Recently seen on television: A Galician fisherman explains to the journalist how octopus is fished. Once extracted from the water, the most important thing is to hit it against the rocks, since in the rest its meat is very hard. In that hit you have to pay a lot of attention: you have to give it an odd number of hits, never par. With 13 or 15 hits it is very soft and with 12, 14 or 16 very hard. Who has spent all his life in octopus knows perfectly what and how to do it.

I have never caught the octopus, less beaten against the stones, but I think that behavior has neither legs nor head, and I think that fisherman is up to the pigeons of Skinner, trying to influence what is not affected. If someone wants to convince me otherwise, they can show me a possible mechanism or a well done experiment. How many times do we not see such beliefs?

To mention a topic that is regaining strength in Euskal Herria, I studied the Moon, because many believe that we must take into account the moon and not only in the rural world. Whoever believes that he knows something about this tells him that the wood must be made on a new moon, since then the trunks are arid. Yes, I know that the Moon produces the tides, but I also know that the gravitational attraction of the Moon is ten million times smaller than that of the Earth, so it can hardly make differences in the amount of water a trunk has. What's more, I know that the water access capacity of the plants (their water potential) is related to the humidity of the earth and the air, which in a single day can produce a much greater difference than the gravitational attraction of the Moon throughout the month. Also, if this issue of water were so evident, would trees not have to marvel on the new moon and take care of themselves in full moon? Have I not taken into account anything? What have I forgotten? The best thing is to consult experts.

Talk to someone who says to know a lot about the influence of the Moon and do something more and more incredible. First of all, that of the New Moon to which I referred above, as the beech, for trees with a smooth leaves arista. For the oaks and for those who like him have the sawn edge, the best time of the waning moon (or, according to the people, full moon). I have tried to make a list of smooth and sawn leaf species with some experts, but don't match! For a smooth one, and therefore to cut into new moon, for the other sawing and diarrhea. And I have not yet found any doubt in their classification.

But let's go ahead. As any expert will explain to you, the Moon has a great influence not only for the environment. If you don't consider it to sow or plant in the countryside, to cut the hair, to scatter the manure, to kill the pig and for other works of daily life, you have to see the reds. Maybe that's why I would have liked the helmet, maybe that's why I started to clear it...

In these cases, relations with the gravitational attraction of the Moon, with the tides or with whom you want are increasingly obscure. But experts insist that yes. And suddenly you will learn that, said by the most expert expert, there is another thing to take into account for ventilation, the sector, haircut, the expansion of the excrement or the slaughter of the pig: never forget that on Friday the Moon changes, that is, it works as if it were a diminishing quarter despite being on the new moon. Of course, without a doubt, and everyone tells you, in addition, how the wood was rotten in a case in which they did not comply with the norm, the manure was opened but the plant did not grow, how the pig was weaved, that they had to throw everything. And the reason for this question on Fridays? Very simple: Jesus Christ was murdered on Friday.

This question of the Moon, like other ancient beliefs, will have a great ethnological interest. Many claim that maintaining these old customs is no harm. A friend of mine, however, is bored to organize his life according to the Moon, but to tell the grandfather that this weekend you have another plan, that next time you will open the excrement.

I'm concerned about one thing: seeing what we deceive ourselves, how modern, well-trained people fall over and over again into belief and anticientifism. What in the Middle Ages was understandable today seems inexcusable to me. But well, the world is full of doves of Skinner.

In another case I will have to write with homeopathy.