Free Republic

You can learn an awful lot about human psychology by walking your dog. It’s where human and canine instincts collide in a daily tangle of projection and foibles. Take my oldest dog. She’s a mongrel with a keen nose for the weird and the wonderful, and she has always been a little… finely tuned. Given I’m about to tell you that you can learn a lot about an owner from a dog, I should stress that this is not always the case. My dogs’ good qualities are obviously down to me, or at least the fruits of my training, but...

"As a rule, I have found that the greater brain a man has, and the better educated, the easier it has been to mystify him." So said master illusionist Harry Houdini. He said it during his spat with Sherlock Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle over the latter’s belief in seances and fairies. Despite being a literary genius, Conan Doyle nevertheless had some foolish ideas. He’s not alone. Researchers have even coined ‘Nobel Disease,’ referring to the tendency for some Nobel Prize winners to embrace unconventional beliefs. Charles Richet, for instance, won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine...