Scholars' Journal 2024

Scholars’ Journal 2024

A selection of articles written by our Scholars

The Scholars' Journal has been printed on carbon balanced paper and has offset 0.036 tonnes of CO2 through Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) reduction projects thereby offsetting carbon emissions and helping to prevent climate change.

Cokethorpe School

Scholars’ Journal 2024 Introduction

Following my recent Enlightenment Lecture on the history of ostracism and cancel culture, I am delighted to write the foreword for Cokethorpe’s 2024 Scholars' Journal. As the Cokethorpe Scholars’ Journal articles show, good scholarship allows us to make the most of our individual talents in the service of knowledge and creativity. Cultivating good scholarly habits at school enhances all aspects of life further down the line: it shapes how we communicate, equips us with independence of thought, and makes us more curious about the world. As a PhD candidate, I still implement the critical thinking and essay writing skills I developed while at school.

Whilst doing research is a collaborative activity which contributes to a shared bank of knowledge, it also reflects each scholar’s individuality. The wonderful range of the Scholars’ Journal articles is a testament to the independence and originality of the pupils at Cokethorpe. Nancy Christensen (Lower Sixth, Swift) applied the economic and social theories of Adam Smith and Malcolm Gladwell to argue for investment into the African fashion industry, showing impressively wide reading. Another fascinating article which blended aesthetics with pragmatic economic research was Harry Adams’ (Lower Sixth, Harcourt)analysis of biomimicry in architectural design. Emmeline Black (Fourth Form, Feilden) asked a more abstract question: ‘At what point does a cult become a religion?’, drawing from a remarkable range of examples of cult leaders throughout history and challenging the usefulness of a term as broad as ‘cult’. Oscar Luckett (Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh) also took on an ambitious question: ‘Is the perfect lie truly possible?’ He discussed FBI spy-catching as well as his own experiences playing poker, which was a fantastic use of practical research to address a perennial question.

Caellum Sharp (Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh) confronted one of the most existential questions there is: ‘What is consciousness?’ After disentangling several highly complex theories of consciousness from reductionism to panpsychism, he evoked a topical comparison between human consciousness and AI. Alex May’s (Fourth Form, Vanbrugh) deep dive into the ethical and practical questions surrounding AI in the workplace reminds us that AI is a tool which should facilitate creativity rather than replace it. Some pupils researched the ancient world: Finn Van Landeghem (Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh) combined breadth and depth in his study of literary criticism in Ancient Greek and Roman texts from Pindar’s Odes to Virgil’s Eclogues to Ovid’s Amores. Others asked contemporary scientific questions: Lottie Graves (Second Form, Gascoigne) addressed common misconceptions about coeliac disease and investigated how the rise of veganism can encourage the food industry to expand their accommodations to those with coeliac.

It was a joy to read the Scholars’ Journal articles. I wish the very best to the scholars in their future endeavours, which I am sure will make the School proud.

Jane Cooper MA (Oxon) Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford

Curiosity might drive a person to enquire, but it requires intellectual ambition to get to that point in the first place. Determination can energise a scholar to learn, but it requires wise study habits to adapt to changing situations when goals are not easily attained.

Should you be a scholar now, aspiring to be one in the future, or looking back on your past achievements as you read this many years hence, we hope this journal demonstrates the wisdom of Immanuel Kant: 'Dare to be curious.'

Miss Hutchinson and Mr Elkin-Jones Heads of Scholars

Contents

The Scholars’ Journal is a collection of articles created by pupils from First Form to Lower Sixth. The articles represent a selection of work across a wide range of disciplines.

The Arts and Philosophy

What is Art?

Amelie Boyle - Fourth Form

Should We Invest in the African Fashion Industry?

Nancy Christensen - Lower Sixth

How Does the 2017 Lowery Film A Ghost Story Give Answers to the Ontological Question of Legacy?

Sam Farr - Lower Sixth

How Have Cats Become Domesticated Throughout History?

Alex Hancox - Fourth Form

Beyond the Pastoral: How Did the Greeks and Romans do Literary Criticism?

Finn Van Landeghem - Lower Sixth

What is a Genius?

Evie Walker - Fourth Form

To What Extent Was the Political State of Argentina the Reason They Set Out to Take the Falkland Islands in 1982?

Sam Weldon - Fourth Form

Social Sciences

At What Point Does a Cult Become a Religion?

Emmeline Black - Fourth Form

How Did Harold Shipman Murder an Estimated 250 People Before He Was Caught?

Will Chandler - First Form

To What Extent Can We Trust Our Episodic Memory?

Eva Graves - Third Form

What Motivates Serial Murderers?

Luella Hickey - Third Form

Reality Versus Rhetoric in Sport: Are Women Being Presented as Being Something They are Not?

Ella Hogeboom - Fourth Form

From Farm to Fork: Can We Trust the Food We Eat?

George Keates - Lower Sixth

6-27

28-59

Truth, Deception, and the Human Mind: Is the Perfect Lie Truly Possible?

Oscar Luckett - Lower Sixth

Post Darwinism, are Science and Religion Able to Coexist?

Ellie Lunn - Fourth Form

What is Consciousness?

Caellum Sharp - Lower Sixth

How Well Do Our Prisons Meet Their Objectives?

Katy Stiger - Third Form

STEM

Is the Harnessing of Nature's Wisdom Through Biomimicry a Valuable Pursuit?

Harry Adams - Lower Sixth

Free to Choose: What Can the Coeliac Community Learn from the Rise of Veganism?

Lottie Graves - Second Form

What Will the Implications be of Using AI in the Workplace?

Alex May - Fourth Form

mRNA Vaccines: Will This New Technology be a Game Changer?

Simran Panesar - Lower Sixth

60-77

Could we Build a Bridge an Atom Thin? A Thought Experiment in Quantum Physics

Freya Vincent - Second Form

Appendix 78-79

Additional references

Design and Layout: Mr Brownless (Creative Officer) Cover image created with Adobe Firefly, an AI image generator.

What is Art?

Amelie Boyle, Fourth Form, Harcourt House. Trevis Scholar - Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

There is no one way to determine the definition of art. Art, like true beauty, is defined by the eye of the beholder. If one person feels a connection to a piece, feels emotion, feels it speaks to them, they might consider that to be a piece of art. The piece may conjure up different emotions, or none at all, for another person. The emotion a person feels towards a piece need not be positive. It can evoke anger or conjure up emotions that may not have surfaced if they were expressed aloud. Art could even question and challenge the meaning of art itself. An example of this is Duchamp’s Urinal (Fountain, 1917) which, a hundred years ago, changed art forever. This controversial piece, signed by the mysterious ‘R. Mutt’, made people rethink what art meant, and asked the difficult question, ‘What is art?’ The urinal proved that a piece of art need not have been made by the creator; ‘everyday’ objects could be art and displayed in a gallery. In so doing, elevating them to something more than their original intended purpose (Grovier, 2017). Art can be chosen.

I have been interested in art from an early age. I study Art at GCSE and am an Art Award holder. I have pondered this question for many years and my views are constantly evolving. Art is such a vast topic. It surrounds us in our daily lives in many different forms and yet we do not necessarily realise the meaning behind it, not just from the artist’s point of view but our own view as well. How, though, do we determine what art is? The Oxford English Dictionary defines art as ‘the expression or application of creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form

such as painting, drawing or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power’. I found this definition both interesting and useful. It was useful in that it helped me to put boundaries to the question, narrowing my focus to specific types of media, painting, drawing and sculpture, but then taking a broad approach to the use of these materials – from cave paintings to Tracy Emin’s My Bed (1998). The latter really redefined what art is and how we as a viewing public saw art, although I struggle to convince my parents that the

state of my bedroom has artistic value! Perhaps that reinforces the point that, personally, I believe art can be whatever the individual sees as artistically beautiful or emotional for them. It can broaden our horizons, enable us to travel into the past, can encompass yearnings, dreams, or the meaning of life but it can just come out of the blue, when you least expect it (Fondation Beyeler, 2012). I chose Bice Curiger’s quote to include with this journal article; his perception of the power of art really resonates with me as, I believe, it enhances our everyday lives.

Throughout the ages art has changed and evolved in a number of different ways. In the past, artworks were made out of certain materials, such as oil paint, marble, and bronze; however, now art is made from a vast array of materials including digital and internet art. Art is no longer defined by the material used. The reasons for making art differ greatly from artist to artist. We have come to realise, after many years of debate that there is no one way to define what art looks like. In his book, Playing to the Gallery (2016), Grayson Perry explains how a ‘test for art’ was proposed by one of his tutors. He called it the rubbish dump test. ‘You should place the artwork being tested on to a rubbish dump and it only qualified if a passerby spotted it and wondered why an artwork had been thrown away’ (Perry, 2016, p.68). Later, Grayson makes a really valid point that now the rubbish dump could be art! This demonstrates how quickly art evolves and new ideas about what art can be come to light.

So, at what point does something become art and how can we ‘test’ whether something is art? Whilst there is no firm definition or guidelines, it has much to do with how it is appreciated. The material used does not necessarily determine when something has become art, so does art lie in the way in which things are made? Or is it to do with the artist? Artists can create extremely diverse works, but whether those works are recognised, appreciated, and accepted and bought as art is beyond their control. Is it still a piece of art if the viewing public draws meaning from the painting unintended by the artist, or has the art in some way ‘failed’ because it has not been interpreted as the artist had hoped (Fondation Beyeler, 2012)? I would argue that the viewers judgement has more weight than the artist’s intention. If a viewer finds a piece artistic, then it is. Every age redefines what art is. For instance, Van Gogh only became celebrated as an artist after his death.

Attempting to apply science to define a mechanism for testing whether something is art feels to me like it misses the very powerful point about art itself. Art, to me, is not meant to be constrained by conforming to a formula from which ‘success’ as an artform can be determined. My research would suggest that I am

‘Art opens up new ways of seeing the world. Art liberates us from being imprisoned by conventions and habits of perception and thinking. Art liberates us from mundane functioning in day-to-day life.’

Bice Curiger, curator, Kunsthaus Zurich (Fondation Beyeler, 2012, p.121)

not alone in that view. Nonetheless, there are some common themes which can be applied to a piece that help to shape whether it can truly be called ‘art’. This issue is that like the art itself, our perception of what is artistic changes from generation to generation as it does from person to person. If one was pressed to define a test for ‘art’, one could focus around four themes; the making of the work, the artist and their intention, the perception of the viewing public, and the longevity of a piece as deemed artful – in essence, does it stand the test of time (Fondation Beyeler, 2012). Such tests cannot be applied strictly. Art is not an objective matter.

It is fascinating to attempt to apply these theories to a range of works in order to assess relative value. The cave paintings at Lascaux caves, in France, have been studied by archaeologists and art historians since their discovery in 1940. It is widely agreed that the images adorning the cave walls were created as pieces of art to entertain and delight their audience, as opposed to being a series of images depicting what the local population had recently hunted. The paintings still attract audiences from across the world today who are mesmerised by them, which 17,000 years on from their creation is testament to their longevity. Will Damien Hirst’s shark still be deemed to be art 17,000 years from now? Created in 1991, this piece titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living questions, as Fountain did in 1917, whether an artwork had to be created by the artist and what constituted ‘art’. Today, it is seen as iconic and has come to symbolise Brit Art. I believe it qualifies as art as it creates feeling, whether positive or negative. For most viewers this will be the closest they will ever come to a shark and so they are able to see this creature in a completely different light, which is what the artist intended.

The graphic style of the Bayeux Tapestry could not be a more different art form to the medium used for the shark, yet it is renowned and has inspired popular culture since its conception. It is often referred to as one of the first comic strips and the storytelling

adopted by its embroiders is echoed in animations and films to this day. In contrast to the tapestry’s storytelling technique, Constable’s Hay Wain (1821) tells a whole story in just one image due to the wonderful use of paint and colours. There is real movement in the water trees and sky. You can almost imagine the conversation between the two figures in the painting. This last piece is considered to be one of Britain’s most loved paintings but differs greatly to the Bayeaux Tapestry, Hirst’s shark, and the cave paintings, which are all celebrated as art in their own right, each made from very different mediums and exhibiting very different skills in their creation. This suggests that art is in the eye of the beholder.

Given that the subject ‘what is art’ is based so much upon individual opinion, the scholars’ presentation evening gave me a wonderful opportunity to ask questions, as well as answer them. I was extremely interested in the perspective of others, so created an informal opinion poll selecting six artworks I thought

might provoke a response. The choice of pieces also attempted to show the evolution of artistic style of ‘what art is’, in much the same way as I journeyed across London and through the evolution of artistic styles when conducting my research. The pieces included Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer (1665), Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888), Girl with Balloon by Banksy (2018), Number 31 by Jackson Pollock (1950), Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan (2019) and the Lascaux Cave paintings, circa 17,000 years old. The results were interesting, with Van Gogh’s Sunflowers coming in first place, followed by Girl with a Pearl Earring, so it seems that the more traditional pieces still evoke the greatest feeling that art is being observed. When discussing this I was told some of the reasons why visitors chose each piece. Viewers explained what art meant to them and I was able to see there were quite a few different points of view. Some chose the more traditional artworks because they seemed most familiar due to their fame or to them represented more of an expression of artistic talent and skill. Others chose pieces because they recalled drawing them in primary school. Equally interesting was that some based their view purely on the emotional response they got from each piece of art. Interestingly, although perhaps unsurprisingly the piece considered to be the least worthy of the title ‘art’ was Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan, which shows a banana taped to a wall. The poll was an intriguing insight into people’s opinion of what art actually is,

but a common theme seemed to be that people like to appreciate the skill an artist has shown in creating their work, and work that was deemed to have less artistic skill shown in its creation was less popular.

What I have learnt from this project is that art has different meanings for different people. Art is not defined by material, nor how it was made, necessarily. Art is defined by the onlooker. If the piece gives meaning or makes the viewer feel positive or negative about the subject or the piece, if it encourages an emotional response or draws the onlooker in, if the onlooker is connected to it, then that is art to them, and it has achieved its purpose. Art encourages us to voice our opinion in a way words cannot. Art will continue to evolve, new artistic styles will be developed, and, with that, new opinions will arise about what constitutes art. We will continue to learn from it, and art can be a powerful means of learning about our society and each other. The definition of art will not remain static, it will evolve just as art itself will continue to evolve. That is the power of art. It seems reasonable to say though that whilst art may change, the four constants of how art it made, the intention of the artist, the response of the viewer and the longevity of the piece form a sound and enduring basis on which works can be tested for artistic value. For me though, most importantly it is the response that a viewer has to a piece. The response of the audience truly defines something as art. As Leo Tolstoy said, ‘Art is about communication, a communication of feeling, just as speech is a communication of thought’ (Persson, 2009, p.2).

References:

Afzal, I. (2023) What is Art? Why is Art Important? [Online]. Available at: https://www. theartist.me/art/what-is-art/ (Accessed 1 October 2023).

Artist Editorial (2022) Why We Make Art? [Online]. Available at: https://www.theartist. me/art/why-we-make-art/ (Accessed 1 October 2023).

Bayeaux Museum (No date) A Never-Ending Source of Inspiration [Online]. Available at: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/over-the-centuries/ endless-source-of-inspiration/. (Accessed 31 January 2024).

Berger, J. (1990) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

Burgon, R. (2012) A Line Made by Walking [Online]. Available at: https://www.tate.org. uk/art/artworks/long-a-line-made-by-walking-ar00142 (Accessed 5 October 2023).

Cook, W. (2018) I walk the line: How Richard Long turns epic journeys into art [Online]. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1lwlwQLyGK4FR0lTPTklBh9/ i-walk-the-line-how-richard-long-turns-epic-journeys-into-art (Accessed 5 October 2023).

Douglas, K. (2023) The first artists. New Scientist. Issue No. 3465, 18 November 2023, p32-35.

Everypicture.org (No date) Every Picture Tells a Story – Different Ways of Seeing: 'The Hay Wain' by John Constable, 1821 [Online]. Available at: https://www.everypicture. org/the-hay-wain-by-constable#:~:text=The%20Hay%20Wain%2C%20by%20 John,painter%20(after%20his%20death). (Accessed 31 January 2024).

Fondation Beyeler (2012) What is Art? - 27 Questions 27 Answers. Berlin: Hatje Cantz. Fondation Beyeler (No date) What is Art? [Online]. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=yMiK7dj33S8 (Accessed 7 October 2023).

GCFLearnFree (2018) What is Art? [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=QZQyV9BB50E&t=16s (Accessed 1 October 2023).

Grovier, K. (2017) The urinal that changed how we think [Online]. Available at: https:// www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170410-the-urinal-that-changed-how-we-think (Accessed 5 October 2023).

Gur, T (No date) Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it- Bertolt Brecht. What's the meaning of this quote? [Online]. Available at: https:// elevatesociety.com/art-is-not-a-mirror/ (Accessed 1 October 2023).

Marder, L. (2019) Ways of Defining Art [Online]. Available at: https://www.thoughtco. com/what-is-the-definition-of-art-182707 (Accessed 1 October 2023).

Meyer, I. (2021) Why is Art important? – The value of Creative Expression [Online]. Available at: https://artincontext.org/why-is-art-important/ (Accessed 5 October 2023).

Oxford English Dictionary (No date) Art [Online]. Available at: https://www.oed.com/ search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=art (Accessed 7 October 2023).

Penguin Books UK (2014) Grayson Perry: ‘What is Art?’ [Online]. Available at: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=xClNKXM1pao (Accessed 7 October 2024).

Perry, G. (2016) Playing to the Gallery, 2nd edn. London: Penguin Random House UK. Persson, U. (2009) What is Art?: L. Tolstoy [Online]. Available at: http://www.math. chalmers.se/~ulfp/Review/whatart.pdf#:~:text=To%20Tolstoy%20Art%20is%20 simply%20the%20transmission%20of,just%20as%20speech%20is%20a%20 communication%20of%20thought (Accessed 7 October 2023)

Peterson, C. (2023) David Shrigley: Artist pulps 6,000 copies of 'The Da Vinci Code' and turns them into '1984' [Online]. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ entertainment-arts-67218454 (Accessed 26 October 2023).

Stonard, J. P. (2018) Opinion: When does Art become Art? [Online]. Available at: https:// www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-44-autumn-2018/opinion-john-paul-stonard-artmakes-artists (Accessed 1 October 2023).

Wei-Haas, M. (2021) This 45,500-year-old pig painting is the world’s oldest art animal [Online]. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/45500year-old-pig-painting-worlds-oldest-animal-art (Accessed 1 October 2023).

White, L. (2013) The Art of the Sublime - Damien Hirst’s Shark: Nature, Capitalism and the Sublime. Tate Research Publication [Online]. Available at: https://www.tate.org. uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/luke-white-damien-hirsts-shark-naturecapitalism-and-the-sublime-r1136828 (Accessed 31 January 2024).

Images:

Anon (No date) The Great Black Cow. Lascaux Cave: Ministère de la Culture. Azam, U (2019) Photo of Cattelan's The Comedian. Unsplash.com.

Kotov, M (2020) Photo of person viewing Banksy's Girl with Balloon. Unsplash.com. Van Gough. V (1889) Sunflowers. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

Arts and Philosophy

Should We Invest in the African Fashion Industry?

Nancy Christensen, Lower Sixth, Swift House. Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

Clothing is a necessity, not a want. But it can also be a form of art, self-expression and culture. The textile industry can bring together communities and allow individuals to display their creativity and ideas. My research project looks at why companies are hesitant to invest in the African Fashion Industry and why considering these investments may be beneficial, not only for Africa’s economy but also for their community. However, the challenge lies within the issue of whether we are willing to pay the extra cost for the people and the planet to be sure that what we consume is produced ethically.

When we consider major global fashion industries, instantly thoughts of Paris, New York and London all come to mind; Africa is less obvious. It is therefore evident that their reputation is something that is holding investors back. African countries need to create more exposure to their ideas and designs, for example, running fashion shows. An easier solution for designers would be to use social media to create a positive image for their brand and to advertise their designs which would allow them to quickly reach more people. In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story The Danger of a Single Story, she explores how perceptions of Africa largely stem from issues they have seen on the news and how a misunderstanding can cause us to create our own ideas of what a place or person is like. This becomes our 'single story'. African countries could combat misjudgement by narrating their own stories far from the perspectives that outsiders may have.

Global fashion retailers commonly host fashion weeks which not only promote their brands and inspire creativity but also bring buyers and educators into the country from all over the world. By improving the image of Africa through buzzing international events, this will hugely impact tourism, ultimately increasing the number of visitors spending in the area. This will be beneficial for other areas of their economy too; employment is focused around industries such as agriculture in Africa – yet there are so many opportunities for employment in the fashion industry. One job created in the textile process leads to the creation of five other jobs, at least, in packaging, advertising and transportation. If there is an increase in tourism, it is likely we will see an increase in employment as the demand of goods will be higher.

Another obstacle that must be identified is the lack of infrastructure. The lack of productive capacity is currently hindering companies from scaling up their brand and rate of production. With limited transport links and factories, the investments are essential for the industry growth. Without the correct working environment, it is difficult to produce high quality goods. Investors are commonly put off investing because of the poor standard of garments produced as a result of insufficient education. The unemployment rate in African countries is growing; in 2022, South Africa had the largest unemployment rate of 32.6%. If the quality of training, wages and working lifestyle can improve then this could have an impact on reducing the high unemployment rate in Africa. It’s also likely that improving the quality of their working environment and training will improve productivity and standards of goods. As the quality and quantity of produce starts to increase, Africa will gradually become more worthy of consideration by other countries when trading and manufacturing. Is it worth considering how South Africa may suffer in the future if investment and efforts aren’t made now? They risk the rates of unemployment increasing in young people entering the fashion industry.

The final reason that should be discussed as to why these companies are unsure of investing is because of the lack of local demand. Locals are favouring internationally imported goods over their local produce because goods produced within the area are charged at a higher price than their disposable income allows. Why would international companies bother investing if even the African community are going to opt for purchasing imports from western countries instead of their own garments? Many African countries take pride in their culture and community so it is important for them to be able to afford to purchase their local designs.

It is clear that Africa is not optimising their local resources because, according to the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS), nearly 60% of textile imports sold in South Africa come from China. For possible investors, this will make them realise that there are no benefits to investing in Africa when competitors such as China are such an obvious choice, providing cheap garments at a fast rate and on a large scale. Africa however, could offer something unique to global retailers and the key is focusing on promoting ethical sustainability. There has a been a huge shift in purchasing from brands and high street shops to shopping second hand, with increased awareness on the environmental impacts of fast fashion (mass production of clothes) and disposal into landfill. This is particularly notable in the younger generation. This shift in consumer behaviour is something that will hugely weaken the big brands; they will find it difficult to change so quickly as fast response to trends is their USP. Because of the scale of Africa’s textile industry, they are much more able to adapt to these changes in consumer demand and they should use this to their advantage. For example, if South Africa make using sustainable resources their USP then Western investors will start to consider how this may positively impact their brand loyalty. For consumers, especially younger members of the population, the importance of protecting the environment is becoming increasingly relevant. For international textile retailers, they will want to avoid having a reputation of suppliers that are known for their low labour rates or unsustainable materials.

It is difficult to measure how much a person is willing to pay in order to be sure that what they are consuming is positive for the people and the planet. This is an obstacle that faces all kinds of industries. A simple example of this would be, when entering a supermarket, consumers make claims that what they purchase will be locally produced or 'Red Tractor' goods. However, when faced with the decision it is likely they will opt for the cheapest option of a particular item, even when knowing that perhaps it has been imported from overseas. This is due to the

'Rational Choice Theory'; created by Adam Smith which suggests that an individual always makes a choice that is most beneficial to them and matches their preferences. No matter how much an individual is educated on the negative impacts of making a particular choice, it is likely they will still choose the easiest option. A higher quality good that is produced ethically can only be supplied at a higher price than alternatives. The way we can target this issue is by considering how other people’s opinions can cause us to change our own view. Recently, philosophers from Science online journal have made adaptions to Malcolm Gladwell’s concept The Tipping Point by suggesting that once 25% of the population follow a certain trend or view, then this causes a tipping point in society and other members of the public will follow. If the younger generation can be educated on the importance of understanding where and how your clothes are supplied, then it is more likely that society could reach the tipping point and the habits of consumption will change almost permanently.

The USP is an essential part in building the foundation of a business and separating yourself from competition within the industry. For Africa, the opportunity to promote ethical production will set them apart. Working with investors will help African countries to improve their brand image and fashion reputation. Improvements in infrastructure and education are necessary if Africa want to expand their production and quality of goods. Africa could bring a new element to the industry with their focus on embracing culture and community, an opportunity that investors shouldn’t miss as the population and demand grows.

References:

Africa Strictly Business (2013) Africa’s Fashion Industry: Challenges, Opportunities [Online]. Available at: https://www.africastrictlybusiness.com/africas-fashion-industry-challengesopportunities/ Date accessed: 20/10/2023

BBC News (2018) Reality Check: What are the tariffs on trade with Africa? [Online] Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45342607 Date accessed: 20/10/2023

Compass Online Library (2021) Africa Fashion Futures: Creative economies, global networks and local development [Online]. Available at: https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ full/10.1111/gec3.12589 Date accessed: 12/11/2023

BBC News (2018) The story behind Africa's free trade dream [Online]. Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43458294 Date accessed: 7/11/2023

BBC News (2020) Global fashion industry facing a 'nightmare' [Online]. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51500682 Date accessed: 19/09/23

Fashion United (2016) Fashion statistics China. Available at: https://fashionunited.com/ statistics/china Date accessed: 17/09/2023

Annan, R. (2022) The Future of Fashion in Africa [Online]. Available at: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=JQRT-8Xjd4w Date accessed: 17/09/2023

Britannica (2024) Resources and Power [Online]. Available at: https://www.britannica. com/place/South-Africa/Transportation-and-telecommunications Date accessed: 21/11/2023

Science (2018) Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention [Online]. Available at: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aas8827 Date accessed: 22/01/2024

Image:

Boafo, D. (2021) Runway models. Unsplash.com

Arts and Philosophy

AHow Does the 2017 Lowery Film A Ghost Story Give Answers to the Ontological Question of Legacy?

Sam Farr, Lower Sixth, Swift House. Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones

Ghost Story (2017), the third film by director David Lowery, is about a married couple –known only as C and M – who live out a banal existence in rural suburbian America. Lowery began as an indie sensation with his film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013), and after helming the Disney reimagining of Pete’s Dragon (2016), used his subsequent ‘blank cheque’ to fund the production of A Ghost Story.

Arguably, there were few identifiable thematic patterns to be seen in his body of work until the production of A Ghost Story. This was a passion project of his. It attempted to explore Lowery’s philosophical perspective about legacy, an interest that was explored in greater depth through his later film adaption of the great medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

In A Ghost Story, Lowery considers questions surrounding what makes a valuable legacy, the meaning of life, and the irrevocable ephemerality of existence. To help with understanding when I reference the film, I have provided a brief plot summary below.

A Ghost Story: a plot summary

When C dies from a car accident, instead of passing on to the next life, he remains. Covered in a sheet with two eyeholes, C returns to the house he shared with his wife as a ghost and haunts it for years that pass by in moments, picking at a crack in a wall that holds a note his wife left behind. Millenia pass, and for C, time becomes something relative. He retrieves the note, and upon reading it he disappears, passing on to whatever comes next.

Happiness, quiet, joy and esoteric dialogue

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) said ‘A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life’ (The Conquest of Happiness, 1930) and Lowery explores the importance of the couple’s quiet life through emphasis on the intimacy they share, as if to reflect the rest of Russell’s famous quotation: ‘for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.’ The use of a 1:33 aspect ratio in A Ghost Story makes the shot squared, with vignetted edges that present an inherent closeness to the couple. To be shown such a personal view of such an ordinary life feels improper, as this life of two people is one that appears so unremarkable you would never hear of it, let alone literally see it unfold. In the brief snatches of conversation we see between the couple, they are full of inside jokes and spontaneity. This is done to make

it difficult for the spectator to understand what is going on, as they know little of the context or couple’s meaning. This natural, intimate dialogue reflects the ordinary existence of the couple; there is no conventional use of exposition written into the script’s ‘narrative’ to make processing their conversations any easier. The seemingly idiosyncratic dialogue therefore creates more a sense of their regular, daily intimacy, as opposed to serving narrative purpose to serve the viewer.

Deliberate lighting

Despite there being so little dialogue, its absence is deeply felt after C’s death. This natural atmosphere is imitated by the minimal use of artificial light. The films’ cinematographer, Andrew Droz Palermo, said ‘[his] lighting package and [his] camera package were extremely small’ (Filmmaker Magazine, 2017). The film relies mainly on natural lighting conditions to maintain this intimacy, as nothing has been altered or changed for the viewer. The sparse lighting – outside of the hazy dawns and smoky urban wastelands – sustains the minimalist, possibly vapid nature to the life of C and M. Yet it is this apparent normality that C later realises is most important for his legacy.

Editing: long takes

Since its first showing at the Sundance Film Festival, A Ghost Story has gained some notoriety for its ‘pie-eating’ scene. In it, the bereaved M devours a chocolate pie in a single five-minute-long take, as C, now in his ghostly form, lingers in the corner of the frame. Lowery, a man who can barely stand to watch the films he creates, says it’s ‘the best thing [he’s] ever done.’ Rooney Mara, the actress playing C, was not so fond of it. ‘Oh, God.’ She said ‘It was some disgusting sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan chocolate pie. It was really gross’ (Indiewire, 2017). Despite – or maybe because - of the difficulty filming it for the actress, the scene is a pitiful breakdown captured in its entirety. Here we can see Lowery exploring the painful process of grief. The breakdown of M is reminiscent of lines Shakespeare gave to in Act Four to the eponymous character in Macbeth: ‘Give sorrow words; the grief

that does not speak knits up the o’er wrought heart and bids it break.’ Here we see M – someone who has withheld her grief and remained unemotional thus far – break and ‘give sorrow words,’ so that she can begin the process of acceptance, something C cannot do.

Distorting time

Furthermore, the static take that refuses to cut denies the person watching respite from the intensity of such a moment, and it denies M the privacy someone deserves in such a moment. Here, Lowery is trying to communicate that in the maelstrom of loss, acceptance, legacy, and grief, the extensive shots provide a comfort for the viewer. In the slow, empty spaces little happens, but that does not make them unimportant. From a technical perspective, the decision to shoot the world of the ghost in thirtythree frames per second with the world of the living at twenty-four frames per second confirms the spatial disconnect between the grieving couple. Backed by a minimal score and fuelled by the ambient soundscape of birds and wind, they are vital in capturing the beauty in the banal. It is in these shots that the subtlety of Lowery’s approach reveals the delicacy of legacy as something not always tangible but qualitative, as the director says:

‘And sure enough, we do what we can to endure. We build our legacy piece by piece, and maybe the whole world will remember you, or maybe just a couple of people, but you do what you can to make sure you’re still around after you’re gone.’

The prognosticator appears

During the latter half of the film, in a house party full of adults, there appears a man, known only as ‘The Prognosticator.’ A prognosticator is a person who foretells or prophesises a future event. This character sits around a dining table littered with plastic cups and monologues for five-minutes to the people around him. His monologue is depressingly nihilistic, predicting a future for humanity that, no matter the resilience, will fundamentally end with everything being forgotten. Deliberately with this reference in mind or not, it aligns with comments made by the twentieth century Romanian philosopher, Emil Cioran says: ‘There is no other world. Nor even this one. What, then, is there?’ (The Trouble with Being Born, 1973). It is this inherent meaningless The Prognosticator tries to communicate; that, when nothing matters, there is ‘the inner smile provoked by the patent nonexistence of both.’ And this is what the ghost learns: the apparent lack of substantial existence and meaning forces a person to find meaning and amusement through internal experience, to find inner peace in the recognition of the illusory nature of reality:

'You can write a play and hope that folks will remember it… keep performing it. You can build your dream house… but ultimately none of that matters any more than digging your fingers into the ground to bury a fence post.'

These words from The Prognosticator should not be taken as an objective truth, more as Lowery representing the fears that develop from the ephemerality of life and legacy. He is pretentious, and I would say that his title – ‘prognosticator’ – is a mocking term, because whilst he cannot see the ghost watching him throughout the monologue, there is a deep irony in complaining about the permanence of death and the futility in forming worthwhile connections and a legacy when in the presence of a ghost. I would argue the value of the prognosticator’s presence is only in communicating what Lowery is trying not to do, as C’s entire journey is about disputing this type of unproductive nihilism:

‘Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting.’

So begins the Virginia Woolf short story A Haunted House, as does A Ghost Story

The intertextual references

Hovering over a black screen, these words seem confusing until you read the story they reference.

Lowery, in an Indiewire interview spoke of how crucial Woolf is to the text, as her writing ‘corresponds perfectly to my difficult-to-grasp perspectives on ghosts and spectres and their relationship to life and time.’ (Indiewire, 2017) Set in a house where the narrator, assumed to be female, believes there are ghosts haunting the house, is how A Haunted House begins. This ghostly couple reminisce about the house – one they used to live in:

‘Here we left it,’ she said. And he added, ‘Oh, but here too!’

‘It’s upstairs,’ she murmured. ‘And in the garden,’ he whispered.

They are recollecting something, a ‘treasure’ they are attached to; something non-existent in the realm the ghostly couple reside in. Their presence holds no physical impression on the existing couple, as seen through the emptiness where they supposedly reside:

'Not that one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass.'

Despite this physical disconnect, there appears to be a spiritual connection between the woman and the ghostly couple found in her semi-conscious state:

'Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause.'

It is this connection that permits the women to realise the ‘treasure’ the ghostly couple are talking about. And so, the women, waking from her sleep, discovers the ‘it’ they are referring to:

‘Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.’

In other words, the love existing between the living couple, the ‘burning’ warmth within them. The ghostly couple were only ever looking to remind themselves of the love they shared. After spending years wondering about his legacy, C, like the woman, realises the ‘treasure’ he seeks is not something concrete. The lack of legacy he has spent millennia trying to make sense of was not something physical. It was the love he shared with M. It did not have to be something he could touch for it to have been valuable, he realises. It only had to have value. Where physical

aspects of legacy may transcend a couple generation (think back to The Prognosticator’s monologue about the ephemerality of even the most impactful pieces of physical legacy), his love with M will always be attached to the house. Whether it be rubble or a patch of grass, their love will always transcend the physical, and can be found in every loving couple that will come to be:

M: What is it you like about this house so much?

C: Seriously?... History.

M: What does that mean?

C: We’ve got history.

M: Not as much as you think.

Lowery explores how C realises the value of legacy and accepts his position as a ghost through creating a narrative that shifts frequently. This experimentation with narrative structure becomes disorienting for the viewer, as they are tossed between a distant dystopia, a 19th century frontier, and even C haunting his living self. This idea presented in a Sight and Sound review of the film, which describes this shift in time as ‘a kind of infinite reverb that shows reality to be no longer sustainable’ (Sight & Sound, 2017). It is as if the state of limbo C occupies is attempting to flush his presence out. He is put into a position in which he is able to access what he has been searching for: the note left by M. He is locating the treasure in the same way the woman was in Woolf’s short story. By watching the moments he and M made their legacy, he comes to realise what the legacy of the ghostly couple is: the unquantifiable love they had together, and not their quantifiable contributions to the world; so much so that when he watches himself die and become a ghost again, he goes to the crack in the wall, and retrieves the note he has spent all this time searching for:

M: When I was little, we used to move all the time, I’d write these notes, and I would fold them up really small… and I would hide them in different place, so that if I ever wanted to go back, there’d be a piece of me there waiting.

C: Did you ever go back?

M: No.

C: See? That’s what I’m saying. M: ‘Cause I did not need to.

This shared moment between C and M at the beginning of the film is one that he obsesses over in death, spending most of his time as a ghost scratching at a crack where M had left her note, thinking it may give him what he needs in accepting his death and passing on to whatever is next. It was Mark Twain that wrote that ‘the fear of death follows the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.’ (Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010) This idea of C feeling chagrin about his death is frequently alluded

to by Lowery, and he conveys this concept through C’s seemingly unending quest for meaning in the afterlife, even if the answer to the question resided with the living. Part of the acceptance for C is, to echo Mark Twain once more, realising he did live fully, even if he was unsure of it. When he retrieves the note, C disappears, realising what he has been searching for all this time resides in a presence he is no longer fully attached to. He can no longer touch or regain what he is after. He has found his ‘treasure’ and can now pass on because of this realisation. Whether it be rubble or a patch of grass, the love between him and M will always transcend the physical and can be found in every loving couple that will come to be.

A lesson in letting go

A Ghost Story is a lesson in letting go; an admission to the ephemerality of existence, and that whilst the physical legacy we leave behind will eventually be forgotten, pure human connection will not. Through the understanding of Woolf’s short story, alongside the various stylistic techniques chosen, C comes to terms with this fact. Lowery explores the concept of quantifiable legacy as something that should not be a requirement for a fulfilled life, rather that sometimes devoting yourself to another creates a legacy that will linger longer than any symphony or novel.

References:

Cioran, E. (1973) The Trouble with Being Born. London: Penguin Books Limited. Filmmaker Magazine (2017) DP Andrew Droz Palermo on 'A Ghost Story', Shooting 1.33 and That Pie Shot [Online]. Available at: https://filmmakermagazine.com/103086-dpandrew-droz-palermo-on-a-ghost-story-shooting-1-33-and-that-pie-shot/ Indiewire (2017) 'A Ghost Story': David Lowery Interview — Making Of, Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck [Online]. Available at: https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/aghost-story-david-lowery-interview-making-of-rooney-mara-casey-afflecksundance-2017-1201774735/

Russell, B. (1930) The Conquest of Happiness. London: Routledge Press. Sight & Sound | BFI (2017) 'A Ghost Story' review: David Lowery explores the delirium of grief [Online]. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-soundmagazine/reviews-recommendations/ghost-story-david-lowery-grief-delirium-review Twain, M. (2010) The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1. California: University of California Press.

Woolf, V. (n.d.) A Haunted House [Online]. Available at: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ english/documents/innervate/12-13/06-sophia-achillea-hughes,-q33354-virgina-woolfpp-46-49.pdf

Woolf, V. (n.d.) 'A Haunted House' by Virginia Woolf: What It Means to Feel and to Flow [Online]. Available at: https://medium.com/the-afterglow/ahaunted-house-by-virginia-woolf-what-it-means-to-feel-and-to-flow-e8 d495a8b136%23:~:text=A%2520Haunted%2520House%2520both%2520 is,seem%2520to%2520clearly%2520see%2520them.

Woolf, V. (1921) A Haunted House. London: Hogarth Press.

Images:

Escate, K. (2020) Ghost Photoshoot. Unsplash.com.

Naništa, J. (2016) Psychiatrická nemocnice Bohnice. Prague: Unsplash.com.

How Have Cats Become Domesticated Throughout History?

Alex Hancox, Fourth Form, Harcourt House. Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

Picture this: you are in your home on a cold winter’s day sitting reading a book; you are engrossed. And then your cat jumps up onto your lap and starts settles down to sleep. In the peace of the moment, you find yourself wondering 'Why do cats like us? Why do we like them? And why did they come to live with us from the wild anyway?' In short, where do our cats come from?

Arts

Cats: the origins of domestication

It is true that a wild cat is a coldblooded killer. Their claws are like daggers ready to rip into its prey; their teeth as sharp as their claws. In fact, it is estimated that in the USA alone 'free-ranging domesticated cats kill between 1.3-4.0 billion birds and 6.3-22.3 billions mammals annually' (Loss, Will & Marra, 2013). This demonstrates that they truly are the silent killers that stalk the night. These statistics would suggest that cats would not make good pets but research, and our lived experience, suggests otherwise.

It is true that the first animals to be domesticated were wolves that eventually became dogs. According to current experts the early stages of our relationship between the two species 'were ones of increasing co-existence, observation and learning' and 'this may have persisted for 20,000 years or longer'. Gradually 'in other parts of the world, for example, southern Asia, humans began to shape wolves into clearly domestic forms: animals phenotypically distinct from wolves, especially in body size' (Pierotti & Fogg, 2017). However, one of the next animals to be domesticated were the wild cats. The earliest example of the start of the domestication was when wild cats lived alongside people of Mesopotamia over 100,000 years ago, leading to cats probably becoming domesticated for farming purposes (Mark, 2012). It is true that the people of Mesopotamia created and lived their lives around bodies of water due to its scarcity in that dry region. This crop growth in such an climate area led to the rise of many pests, especially rodents. This led to the farmers needing something to protect their crops. The answer was simple, willing and right in front of them. Cats. The relationship equation was simple: the cats caught the rodent pests; we gave shelter and tolerated the presence of the cats. Thus started the period of domestication.

Formalising the relationship between ritual and worship

The evidence for this synergetic relationship is numerous, and for a long time the accepted wisdom that the process began in Egypt around 2,000 BCE. Yet recent research has challenged this position. A human burial site in Cyprus, dating from 7,500-7,000 BCE in the neolithic period, illustrates the first steps in the domestication process:

'The cat buried with the human was approximately eight months old and had almost reached its adult size. The morphology of the skeleton suggests that it was a big cat, similar to wild cats found in the Near East today. The morphological modifications of the skeleton associated with domestication are not yet visible, justifying the use of the term 'tamed', rather than 'domesticated'.'

The human grave contained 'a variety of polished stones, tools, jewellery and other items believed to be offerings. A small pit with 24 complete seashells lay nearby. The offerings were relatively rich for time and region, however, implying that he or she enjoyed some degree of social status'. Given the deliberate nature if this burial, it seems this is now the oldest burial of a domesticated animal with its owner (The Archaeologist, 2021).

With the Ancient Egyptians, from about 2,000 BCE, we find the first firm evidence of the mutual co-existence of cat and human, but by this time the relationship was moving from ‘tamed’ towards ‘guest’ and even ‘god’. In Ancient Egypt, the cat was seen as a vessel for gods, given their mannerisms and characteristics. The first evidence of actual cat worshipped comes from the Middle Kingdom, in the reign of Mentuhotep III. In fact, the Egyptians cared for their cats so much that they started mummifying the cats due to a superstition of the vessel being destroyed after death. The Ancient Egyptians even had law forbidding any person from taking a cat out of the country with the punishment for this crime being

death. It is believed though that the goddess that the cats were a vessel for was called Bastet.

Superstitions and Misconceptions

After the Ancient Egyptians, cats seem to have become embedded and accepted in a very wide range of ways, depending on the society involved. Some societies accepted cats to be used strictly for work, keeping rodents away from food stores; in others, they were worshipped. However, there were also societies where cats were regarded with suspicion, especially if they became linked with those on the extremities of those societies. One type of cat stood out: the black cat. Nowadays, the black cat is something of a cliché, used as a trope in horror fiction and films, associated with bad luck, and all things evil. But where did this cultural meme come from? And why do we as humans now best associate the black cat with Halloween? The earliest example of mistrust towards black cats was during the Middle Ages when black cats became intertwined with black magic. Black cats were thought to be witches' familiars. They were described as animal-shaped demons that had been sent by the witches to spy on humans. And this could have been where the relationship between black cats and Halloween came from. Later in history in the black cat would crop up again in 16th-century Italy where it was believed that death was imminent if a black cat lay on someone's sickbed. (Syufy 2023)

The persecution of cats

Cats have also been persecuted. The first time on a significant scale was directly related to Christianity and the Pope, specifically Pope Gregory IX. The event was termed The War on Cats. During his reign, the Pope held antagonistic views about cats but his strongest belief was that cats were Satan in a fur coat. Reinforced by the backing of his loyal advisors, during the years 1233 to 1234, loyal Christians around Europe exterminated mass numbers of cats and drove the remaining cats out their cities and towns. Some historians believe that this event started the traction for later human witch trials. Yet historians believe it was society that suffered as a result, for when the Black Death hit Europe more than one hundred years later there was a significantly smaller number of cats to manage the rat population that cats traditionally kept at bay. Consequently, the Black Death spread faster due to the vermin having a lessened number of predators. (Janssen 2022)

Famous People and their cats

Yet despite this unfavourable record, cats have impacted people in a positive way in the domestic sphere. One figure that stands out is Abraham Lincoln. Whilst many know Lincoln to be the first president to be assassinated in office or his vital role in the American Civil War, few know about his

passion for animals. Before becoming President, Lincoln owned a dog, but due to complications was forced to leave his dog in Springfield. Once in office, his Secretary of State gifted Lincoln two cats which he named Tabby and Dixie. There are many sources that give us insight into how Lincoln operated with his cats. One of the sources claims that during a formal dinner party Lincoln started to feed Dixie much to the dismay of many onlookers one of which was his wife. (Presidential Pet Museum 2014). Another time out of pure frustration it is stated that Lincoln burst out claiming that 'Dixie is smarter than my whole cabinet. And furthermore, she does not talk back.' This showed that the cats helped the most influential people and gave them joy.

Conclusion

To conclude, like every animal, the cat adapted to survive, and by allowing itself to become domesticated, it cemented its fate with humans, sometimes for ill, but largely for good, and now the fully domesticated cat seems able to be resting upon the 9,000 years of effort its predecessors made for it. Now imagine this: you are in your home on a cold winter’s day sitting reading a book; you are engrossed. And then your cat jumps up onto your lap and starts settles down to sleep. And, more importantly, you know the history of cats.

References:

Admin (2020) 12 Amazing facts about cats in ancient Egypt [Online]. Available at: historicaleve.com/facts-about-cats-in-ancient-egypt/

Anon (2021) Neolithic Cat Burial in Cyprus; The oldest known evidence of taming of cats. The Archaeologist [Online]. Available at: www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/neolithic-cat-burial-in-cyprus-the-oldest-knownevidence-of-cat-taming

Clare, F. (2022) The Legend of Unsinkable Sam: Did This Death-Defying Cat Really Exist? [Online]. Available at: www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/unsinkable-sam.html Feeney-Hart A. (2013) The little-told story of the massive WWII pet cull [Online]. Available at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24478532

Janssen M. (2022) When Pope Greggory IX Declared a War on Cats [Online]. Available at: historycolored.com/articles/7385/when-pope-gregory-ix-declared-a-war-on-cats/ Loss, S. Will, T. and Marra, P. (2013) The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States. Nature Communications [Online] Issue 4, article 1396. Available at: doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380

Mark, J. (2012) Cats in the Ancient World [Online]. Available at: www.worldhistory.org/article/466/cats-in-the-ancient-world/

McKie, R. (2023) First cat in space: how a Parisian stray called Félicette was blasted far from Earth. The Guardian [Online]. Available at: www.theguardian.com/science/2023/sep/09/first-cat-space-felicette-orbit-humansearth-atmosphere

Guilaine, J. and Haye, L. (2004) Oldest Known Evidence Of Cat Taming Found In Cyprus. Science Daily [Online]. Available at: www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/2004/04/040409092827.htm

Pierotti, R. and Fogg, B. R. (2017) 'The Beginnings', The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Coevolved. New Haven, CT, [Online]. Yale Scholarship Online, 2018. Available at:doi. org/10.12987/yale/9780300226164.003.0001

Presidential Pet Museum (2014) Abraham Lincoln's Cats [Online]. Available at: www. presidentialpetmuseum.com/pets/abraham-lincoln-cats/

Smith, C. (2017) Cats Domesticated Themselves, Ancient DNA shows. National Geographic [Online]. Available at: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/ domesticated-cats-dna-genetics-pets-science

Syufy (2023) Myths and Superstition about black cats [Online]. Available at: www.thesprucepets.com/black-cat-superstitions-554444

Image:

Cedric Photography (2019) Looking at the sun. Unsplash.com.

Arts

Beyond the Pastoral: How Did the Greeks and Romans do Literary Criticism?

Finn Van Landeghem, Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh House. Supervised by Mr Waldron.

The way in which the Romans and Greeks viewed poetry and literature changed over time, however some aesthetic principles seem to permeate through most parts of Roman literature. These poetic practices were perfected by the Augustan and neoteric poets of ancient Rome but find their roots in the Greeks of Alexandria and Athens almost 300 years earlier. This essay is an exploration of said ideals and images and their origins in the works of the Augustans and their provenance in earlier Greek works.

The Augustan period was one of great change for the Romans, with the founding of one of the world’s greatest empires and the consecration of their culture. This golden age was defined and remembered by their ingenuity of adapting and creating their own culture, which was done through the aesthetic changes discussed below. These changes had such a large impact on the way in which poetry is perceived and written, that their values still permeate through the greatest poets of the modern age. One of the best Augustan poets is undoubtedly Virgil, best known for his epic The Aeneid, which transported the Greek epic tradition into the Roman culture. He also wrote epyllion. Epyllion is a new literary form, which was popularised by the Augustans. It is a smaller form of epic with the subject matter being much less heroic and much more imperfect and contrived. Within Eclogue 6 Virgil uses many metaphors to do literary criticism:

Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem vellit, et admonuit: 'Pastorem, Tityre, pinguis pascere oportet ovis, deductum dicere carmen.'

When I sang of kings and battles the Cynthian grasped my ear and warned me: ‘Tityrus, a shepherd should graze fat sheep, but sing a slender song.’ (Kline 2001)

The notion of ‘kings and battles’ is a reference to epic, with its heroic themes, and the image of the ‘Cynthian’, alluding to Apollo, god of the muses, grasping Virgil by the ear and telling him to ‘graze fat sheep but sing a slender song’, is a recurring image in the new sensibilities of poetry. The slenderness, both referring to the length of a poem and the subject matter of a poem, meaning a poet’s words should be light yet very detailed, rather than heavy and abstract. Furthermore, Virgil sets out to write:

agrestem tenui meditabor arundine Musam.

I’ll study the rustic Muse on a graceful flute. (Kline 2001)

It shows the self-aware nature of the new poet as he must choose carefully what to write. ‘The rustic muse’ implies that Virgil will take on pastoral themes in his poem yet sing it ‘with a graceful flute’, again reasserting his desire for a refined approach. Lastly, the Eclogue is a nested narrative, which adds to the complexity of the poem, which was another essential part of the poetics.

One form of the epyllion is done by neoteric poet Catullus, in which he explores the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, mother and father of famed hero Achilles. In Catullus 64 we see many of the same features reappear as in the Eclogue, but Catullus places a particular emphasis on the Alexandrian qualities within his writings, mainly extensive pastoral description and learned references. The reason for this is that epic started as an oral tradition, performed for the masses with familiar stories of heroes and legends. But these new aesthetic practices called for a less accessible poetry, steeped in obscure references, to make the reader think and force a sort of elitism onto poetry. Catullus in his opening lines sets the scene through peculiar geography alluding to the story of Jason and the Argonauts:

Peliaco quondam prognatae vertice pinus dicuntur liquidas Neptuni nasse per undas Phasidos ad fluctus et fines Aeeteos, cum lecti iuvenes, Argivae robora pubis, auratam optantes Colchis avertere pellem ausi sunt vada salsa cita decurrere puppi, caerula verrentes abiegnis aequora palmis.

The noble pine trees bred on Pelion's top Once swam, they say, through Neptune's sliding element

As far as the river Phasis and the realm Of King Aeetes; that was when the pick And pride of the young Argive chivalry Burning to loot the Golden Fleece from Colchis,

Dared the salt depths in their impetuous ship, Churning the blue to white with firwood blades. (Burton 1894)

The first two lines referring to the Argo, Jason’s ship, fashioned from the trees on Pelion by the gods, introducing the narrative of Jason and the Argonauts as they sail across Greece in search of the Golden fleece. Notice the fifth foot spondee, which is rare in most verse but for Catullus it is a neoteric signature, which places an emphasis on emotion and drama. However, the subject matter then completely shifts to Peleus, one of the Argonauts, who falls in love with Thetis a sea-nymph, and their wedding. Then the subject matter shifts again with an ecphrasis to an embroidery of Ariadne left, by Theseus, on the island of Naxos. Ariadne retells the story of what occurred on Crete and Theseus’ apparent betrayal. The poem proceeds to switch back to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis and the destiny of their son, Achilles is foretold (Higgins 2007).

Many Augustan ideals are propagated through imagery and metaphor, especially by writers such as Horace, Ovid, and Propertius. Horace uses the metaphor of a bee and a river to describe the differences in poetic disciplines of him and his Greek predecessor Pindar (Odes 4.2):

Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres quem super notas aluere ripas fervet immensusque ruit profundo Pindarus ore.

The river burst its bank and rushes down a mountain with uncontrollable momentum rain-saturated, churning, chanting thunder there you have Pindar’s style.

(Hart-Davis 1964)

The metaphor of the river perfectly describes the aesthetic values of previous poets, weighty words, long and too powerful texts, yet dirty and common. While the metaphor of the bee describes Horace’s style:

… ego apis Matinae more modoque

grata carpentis thyma per laborem plurimum circa nemus uvidique Tiburis ripas operose parvus carmina fingo

I who resemble more the small laborious bee from mount Matinus gathering from Tibur’s rivery environs The thyme it loves, find it as hard to build up poems as honeycomb. (Hart-Davis 1964)

The bee’s fragility and sensitivity represent the poet’s precision, as do the learned references, while its size reflect the poet’s lyrical form, and the honeycomb represents the poem's inherent complexity. These same values are seen in Propertius 3.3:

Visus eram molli recubans Heliconis in umbra, Bellerophontei qua fluit umor equi, reges, Alba, tuos et regum facta tuorum, tantum operis, nervis hiscere posse meis; parvaque iam magnis admoram fontibus ora …

cum me Castalia speculans ex arbore Phoebus sic ait aurata nixus ad antra lyra: 'quid tibi cum tali, demens, est flumine? quis te carminis heroi tangere iussit opus? non hinc ulla tibi sperandast fama, Properti: mollia sunt parvis prata terenda rotis; ut tuus in scamno iactetur saepe libellus, quem legat exspectans sola puella virum. cur tua praescriptos evectast pagina gyros? non est ingenii cumba gravanda tui.

I dreamt I lay in Helicon’s soft shade, where the fountain of Pegasus flows, and owned the power, Alba, to speak of your kings, and the deeds of your kings, a mighty task. I’d already put my lips to those lofty streams.

Then Phoebus, spotting me, from his Castalian grove, leant on his golden lyre, by a cave-door, saying: ‘What’s your business with that stream, you madman?

Who asked you to meddle with epic song? There’s not a hope of fame for you from it, Propertius: soft are the meadows where your little wheels should roll, your little book often thrown on the bench, read by a girl waiting alone for a lover. Why is your verse wrenched from its destined track?

Your mind’s little boat’s not to be freighted. (Kline 2002)

The metaphor of the popular fountain echoes Horace’s wish to move away from the over-done epic about heroes and battle, and rather to write more quotidian and sometimes pastoral poetry. Furthermore, the emphasis on scale, the ostentatious epic as opposed to Propertius' neat elegies and the heroic subject matter, like the storm, versus Propertius’ small boat, destined to write lyrical poems. Finally, Ovid, who again revolutionised the epic form with the compartmentalisation of an epic into many different poems bound together by a theme:

metamorphosis, but in the introduction to his Amores he writes:

Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam edere, materia conveniente modis. par erat inferior versus: risisse Cupido dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem.

For mighty wars I thought to tune my lute, And make my measures to my subject suit. Six feet for every verse the muse designed, But Cupid laughing, when he saw my mind, From every second verse a foot purloined.

(Hopkinson 2020)

The pun being that epic is written in dactylic hexameter comprising six feet and Cupid stole one turning the verse into the less prestigious elegiac couplets. These intertextual references to the new aesthetic pillars are what define these poets and the poetry of many years to come and allowed Latin poetry to become its own discipline rather than a weak imitation of Greek literature.

However, that does not mean that these poetics were completely new. In fact Alexandrian poet, Callimachus revolutionised the lyrical poem almost 200 years prior. Callimachus in his great works The Iambi, The Aetia and The Reply sets out his new aesthetic principles of brevity, refinement, erudition, and rarity, using imagery, much like the Augustan poets. He writes (Hopkinson):

I hate the cyclic poem, I do not like the path that carries many to and fro, I hate too the roaming lover,

I do not drink at the public fountain, I loathe all common things. Lysanias, yes fair you are, how fair – the words are scarcely out, says an echo ‘he’s another affair.

(Hopkinson 2020)

The images of the public road and the promiscuous lover represent the same ideals of the Augustan poets, with the image of the public fountain seeming to manifest itself almost exactly in Propertius. Furthermore, the image of the bees returns:

Envy spoke secretly in Apollo’s ear (I do not admire the poet who does not even sing as much as the sea.)

Apollo gave envy a kick with his foot and spoke as follows:

‘Great is the stream of the Assyrian River, but for much of its course it drags on its waters filth from the land and much refuse.

For Demeter, the bees do not bring water from any source, but from a trickle, which pure and unsullied comes up from a holy fountain. (Hopkinson 2020)

The contrast here between the images of the Euphrates: length, unity, magnitude, accessibility, and the individual droplets from the purest spring: polish, refinement, exclusivity, and self-consciousness, is almost exactly emulated by Ovid. Lastly, Callimachus’ bon mot ‘a big book is a big evil’ (Hopkinson):

is entirely reminiscent of the Propertius whose little boat is not made for the storm.

Clearly, the Augustan poets were profoundly affected by Callimacheanism, with Propertius even directly evoking him in his poems (Elegies 3.1), but not all of Callimachus’ writings survive. However, his more pastoral contemporaries were evidently influenced by him such as Theocritus:

shepherds then shifts from the cup to the story of Daphnis, a shepherd who sings to the muses about his unrequited love to Nais, a nymph:

And I will give you a deep, two-handled cup, newmade

Washed in fresh wax, still fragrant from the knife.

Beneath is a woman’s figure, delicately worked. (Wells 1988)

The hyper-fixation on the details on the cup, which becomes the narrative of Theocritus’ oeuvre, is very Callimachean, as well as the extensive use of imagery and crafted language. The story of the two

Muses, sing for a shepherd, sing me your song.

Jackals and wolves howled their lament for Daphnis

The lion wept in the forest-bound retreat.

Many the cattle that watched about him dying,

The bulls and cows and calves couched at his feet.

(Wells 1988)

The pastoral images are evident in this passage, which aren’t particularly Callimachean but do reoccur especially in the Eclogues. The invocation of the muses is a very familiar theme, as is the overall structure of the idylls.

In conclusion, these new aesthetic values changed the perception of good poetry and literature for many years for the Romans, and perhaps even to this day. And although the Augustan and neoteric poets are the first Romans to use these new practices, the Callimachean poets sketched out these new poetics, mainly that of brevity, learned references, exoticness, to some extent elitism, and self-deprecation, much earlier.

References:

Burton, R. F. (1894) Catullus – 69. Perseus [Online]. Available at: http://www.perseus. tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0006%3Apoem%3D64 Cheesman, M. (2015) Callimachian Poetics. London: King’s College.

Coleman, R. (1977) Eclogues – Virgil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hart-Davis, R. (1964) Horace – Odes. London: Penguin Books.

Higgins, C. (2007). In Love’s Labyrinth. The Guardian [Online] 6 October 2007. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/06/featuresreviews. guardianreview34

Hopkinson, N. (2020) A Hellenistic Anthology of Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge: Cambridge University press.

Kline. A S (2001) Eclogues – Virgil. Perseus [Online].

Available at:

https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/ VirgilEclogues.php

Kline, A. S. (2002) Propertius. Elegies. Poetry in translation [Online]. Available at: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/ PITBR/Latin/PropertiusBkThree.php

Wells, R. (1988) Theocritus – Hylas. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited.

Image:

Hammer, V. (2019) Guardians of the Tibery. Rome: Unsplash.com.

Yeti, A. (2017) The Erechtheum. Athens: Unsplash.com.

What is a Genius?

Evie Walker, Fourth Form, Swift House. Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

The world without genius would be stuck. Stuck in a line in which no new ideas would ever be formed.

When people picture a genius, they typically see Albert Einstein studying at his desk, or they see Isaac Newton dropping an apple. They do not open their minds to the world of possibility that is genius. The myriad of thought, the new ideas and wonderful creations, the journey of one single idea, changing the course of society forever. That’s what a genius can do. That’s the power that genius holds. Genius is subjective (Tracy V Wilson, 2006). There is no specific test for genius, there is really no exact definition for what the word entails. Everyone has a bit of genius in them, some much more than others. The word is a scale, and everyone is on that scale. Genius is thinking outside of the box. It’s an innate ability to ask questions few others have ever asked before, and in some cases, to answer them (Hannah Beresford, 2021).

One genius can shape society. It’s almost scary, that one single being has the power to literally change the way the world works, simply with their minds. It’s incredibly important, however, that this happens. Because if there were no geniuses, we’d be stuck in a world that had no new ideas, no creativity, no originality. A genius is a breath of fresh air. We would

be stuck in a stuffy room, with nothing new to live off, without these brilliant minds.

Intelligence and genius are often mixed up. The stereotype of being a genius is often linked with academic ability, but we know this isn’t always true. Intelligence is often about representing a high level of cognitive ability, about being curious to answer a question but perhaps never quite answering it (Michael Michalko, 2012). An intelligent person might be highly logical and think clearly. Genius represents a high level of creativity and innovation. They may also be highly logical and think clearly, but they simply go above and beyond; they use their intelligence; they use their talents and combine them to create something entirely new and different. It’s almost beautiful. An intelligent person follows the rules; a genius breaks them.

The dictionary defines ‘insane’ as a state of mind which prevents normal perception. Creative work involves out of the ordinary thinking and willingness to stand alone and take risks. So genius and madness are incredibly similar, perhaps even interlinked. Those

who are perhaps called ‘mad’ often see the world differently, perceive things in ways we could never even imagine. Whilst these ways of thinking are weird and wonderful, they are often not ways that society agree with (Arne Dietrich, 2023). The difference between these geniuses and these insane people is the way that society views them; the way in which we choose to value their opinions. The difference between insanity and genius could also be success. If Albert Einstein had not contributed to the physics world what he had, perhaps he would be regarded as some loopy old man who sat at his desk all day. This once again proves that genius is subjective, and the topic often revolves around the thoughts and views of what a genius is, rather than what the word actually means. There might be so many geniuses who could have added so much to this world, but haven’t, simply due to the judgement of society, due to the prejudice of people.

Neurodivergence is also something that is also interlinked with genius. The dictionary defines neurodivergence as ‘differing in mental function from what is normal or typical.’ Once again, these characteristics are incredibly similar to that of a genius. Both neurodivergence and genius are entirely about changing perspectives, seeing the world an entirely different way, putting a different lens on the camera. This isn’t to say that a genius is neurodivergent, nor that someone who is neurodivergent is a genius, but simply to point out the

‘Talent hits a target no one else can hit, genius hits a target no one else can see.’

Arthur Schopenhaeur German Philosopher

Our understanding of genius has evolved and changed over time. In the 18th century, the concept of genius was thought to be someone who had special and amazing talents, for example, to see into the

many similarities between the two.

the modern era, we recognise that genius is not solely limited to intellectual brilliance, but also originality and exceptional insight into something that surpasses expectations and sets new standards. We also know that genius can only be achieved when nurtured and developed through hard work.

In the 18th, 19th, and sometimes even the 20th century, there were so many women who simply did not get the credit they deserved. Some of the most intelligent women in the world, most likely geniuses, were only really appreciated after their time. For example, Ada Lovelace, whose work was never truly appreciated until well after her death. The gender stereotypes that had an effect on genius continue to follow us around to this day. If I asked you to name three women geniuses – could you? In the same way it’s much harder to name three who are of colour (Yates, 2016). This is another piece of evidence proving the subjectivity of genius, that the word only has true meaning from people’s definitions. The stereotype follows us around. In the same way, these people may not have had the same opportunities as white men would’ve had, they wouldn’t have been challenged and pushed to their limits by what they may have been learning or doing. Nowadays, we recognise that genius is only achieved through dedication and hard work, so it would have been incredibly hard for people who did not have access to a good education to be able to stretch, push and challenge themselves to be the best they could be.

Another stereotype is that often geniuses are thought to only be about academic brilliance, physics, maths, chemistry. When actually genius is about so much

more. There are so many artistic geniuses, musical geniuses, philosophical geniuses. It is blatantly untrue if someone thinks that a genius can only be book smart. Pablo Picasso, for example, changed the artistic world forever. Socrates asked questions that had never been asked before. Mozart composed music never before even thought of. These people have changed the world for the better, yet the stereotype still remains.

Genius is both innate and acquired. Whilst genetics can explain up to 75% of variation in things such as IQ level, we know that intelligence massively depends on the environment as well (Barbara Kerr, 2007). Genius is only acquired through hard work. Before you can start asking questions, you have to have a very good grasp of the subject you are actually studying. Mozart couldn’t have become a genius if he had not learned the piano in the first place, which would have taken years of dedication. Also, many people, as previously mentioned, simply do not have the facilities to embrace their full potential. Things such as home environment, parenting, healthcare and access to education all play large parts in becoming a genius (Dean Keith Simonton, 2017). It’s incredibly hard to be one without good access to any of these tresources.

Both Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso have obvious differences, having made massive contributions to the world, but in very different respective fields. Pablo Picasso having co-founded the cubist movement and helped to kickstart abstract art – inspiring future artists. Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity, bringing groundbreaking research to the world of physics, completely changing the way we

look at the world and space. Whilst they both have obvious differences; their similarities are even more evident. They both saw the world through a different lens. They were both able to take the information they already had, and moulded it into something new, something that was able to help and change the world.

In conclusion, genius is the highest form of creativity. The work a genius produces, the way a genius thinks and the way a genius combines their knowledge to create something new, is beautiful. The world without genius, wouldn’t be the world, but we also know that the idea of genius isn’t completely fixed, the definition doesn’t fit into a box. Society's thoughts and feelings surrounding the topic are constantly flowing and changing, a never-ending line, rather than an objective feeling.

References:

Beresford, H. (2021) What are the characteristics of genius? [Online]. Available at: https:// oxbridgehomelearning.uk/blog/characteristics-of-a-genius/

Dietrich, A. (2023) Madness and genius [Online]. Available at: https://iai.tv/articles/ madness-and-genius-auid-2368

Kerr, B. (2007) Genius: Psychology. Britannica [Online]. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/science/genius-psychology

Michalko M. (2012) How geniuses think [Online]. Available at: https://www. creativitypost.com/article/how_geniuses_think

Simonton, D. K. (2017) The science of genius. Scientific American [Online]. Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-of-genius

Wilson, T. V. (2006) How geniuses work [Online]. Available at: https://people.howstuffworks.com/genius.htm

Yates D. (2016) Black and brilliant? [Online]. Available at: https://news.illinois.edu/ view/6367/334739

Images:

Calabrese, J. (2018) Glasses. Unsplash.com.

De La Cruz, A. (2020) Rubix Megaminx. Unsplash.com.

Q Yin, S. (2018) Stadsbiblioteket. Stockholm: Unsplash.com.

Ramirez, J. (2016) Albert Einstein. Pixabay.com.

SK (2018) Chess Board. Unsplash.com.

To What Extent Was the Political State of Argentina the Reason They Set Out to Take the Falkland Islands in 1982?

Sam Weldon, Fourth Form, Harcourt House. Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

The conflict was short but brutal: many lost their lives; many aircraft and ships were destroyed. In 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British sovereign overseas territory. There has long been debate as to the overall purpose of the invasion. The argument set out here is that the main reason for the invasion was Argentina’s poor political and economic state. In 1982, Argentina exploited historical claims and a fading interest for the islands from the British, although the real reason they carried out this invasion was to win the hearts back of the Argentinian people and boost the failing economy.

On 2 April 1982 Argentina began their invasion. The sparse British forces on the islands surrendered as they were overwhelmed by the surprise attack. On 5 April, word reached the British government. Led by Margaret Thatcher, the government assembled a taskforce to retake them. On 12 April, Britain declared a 200-mile exclusion zone: an area of water around the islands which Argentinian ships or aircraft were forbidden to enter. On 22 April, British forces arrived. On 28 April Britain fully retook South Georgia and declared the exclusion zones was live for all nations. On 2 May, ARA General Belgrano, a large Argentinian battle cruiser, was sunk controversially. On 11-13 June, British assaults became successful and came more frequently. Argentinian defences were struggling. On 14 June, after 74 days of fighting, Argentina surrendered, and Britian retook the Falkland Islands. These events are described in many books such as by Woodward (1992).

In the mid-1970s a right-wing government called the Military Junta took over in Argentina. At this time, the economy was failing and in 1976 The Dirty War began. The government was given support from the US to stop communism spreading in South America. However, the Military Junta took this to the extreme and removed or severely punished 30,000 citizens. Drugged and thrown into the sea, murdered, and disappeared – the people clearly did not matter to the government of Argentina. They were ruthless. This caused massive unrest in the country which was exactly what the government did not need. The economy collapsed, and many struggled to afford food. The annual inflation percentage in 1976 was at 600% (Reuters 2014). Hope was non-existent. It seemed every Argentinian was against them. Something had to change quickly.

The Military Junta had made Argentina into a dictatorship and results were not good. In fact, they were catastrophic. They were not well liked. The government had virtually no money, and the Dirty War

was haunting them. They needed a miracle, a national sensation, and a decisive success for the Military Junta. Hastings and Jenkins (1983), in their definitive account of the battle and the circumstances around it, suggest this was the primary cause of the invasion in April 1982. In 1965, the United Nations asked Argentina and the UK to come up with a peaceful agreement over the Islands and since then no progress had been made. The Argentinian government were determined to not let the British have the islands and they knew the Argentinian citizens agreed. They realised Britian was struggling economically and they used this to their advantage. They could invade before word had even reached Britain, they just had to be brave enough to do it. However, the country was desperate, and they were willing to take the risk (Imperial War Museum, March 2022).

On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that Argentina’s historic claim to the islands is the main reason why they invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. This is accounted for primarily by Argentinian historians such as Leonardo Zarza, an Army Aviator (2010). This is because they believe the islands should

Falkland Islands

be part of their land. This argument started in 1690 when Great Britain first arrived on the islands, but no one settled there. France and Spain both occupied the islands at various points, but no country stated ownership of them until 1770 when a plaque appeared stating Britain had ownership of the islands. However, very few British people actually lived there. At the time, Spain was in control of much of South America, so they took care of the islands until their colonies collapsed and they left without any explanation of what to do with the land they had ruled. The islands were without an owner and for the first time, Argentina declared the islands now belonged to them as they were the closest country. This situation worked without question until 1833 when Britain came back and reaffirmed the islands with military forces. This remained the situation until the invasion in 1982. After the horrors of the Second World War, many countries were left greatly diminished and were ready for a new world. A lot of powerful countries like Great Britain started decolonizing, leaving the territories they once governed around the world. The Argentinians thought that the Falkland Islands would be theirs again; from former coloniser to former colony. They did not expect Great Britain to contest their claim, and they expected other nations to support them. This was not the case because since 1833 Falkland Islanders were increasingly considering themselves as British. In 1965, the United Nations stepped in and told the UK and Argentina to come up with a solution for these islands. Negotiations were slow, but on-going. However, in 1982 Argentina took matters into their own hands and decided that the Islands belonged to them and invaded. They underestimated the resolve of the British Government to keep the islands eventually losing the war.

Argentina believed that the islands were theirs because they were the closest country to them, and it would be fair for them to have them. They also thought that Britain did not have any right to own some tiny islands over 8,000 miles away from them. These points seem legitimate, however, the Argentinians missed out one very important key point, the islanders themselves. Unlike hundreds of years, a handful of people did live on the islands now and saw themselves as British and did not want to be part of Argentina because of the poor political and economic state. This evidence is deemed to be the reason why they lost the war. If the islanders wanted to be Argentinian, then it is impossible to see why Britain would then have a reason to retake them. As a result of this, there may well have been no war as the British government would have known the islanders’ views and, not wanting to cause any more problems, would have allowed for sovereignty to be transferred over to Argentina in peace.

In conclusion, the evidence suggests that the poor political and economic state of Argentina was the reason for their invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982. The historical claim to the islands was merely the backdrop to the invasion but it was not the primary factor. This claim had been around for hundreds of years, and remains to this day, but was not the primary catalyst for invasion that particular April. The unpopular Military Junta needed some means to gain popularity quickly in order to improve their political standing within country and rescue the economy. Their aim was for a quick and successful military campaign to achieve this. But in underestimating the will of the islanders themselves, and the determination of the British to defend their overseas territory, political success for the Junta at home evaporated as quickly as they lost the war offshore.

References:

BBC Newsround (2022) The Falklands War: 40th Anniversary of The South Atlantic Conflict. Date Accessed: 12 November 2023.

Britannica (2023) Falkland Islands War | Summary, Casualties, Facts, & Map. Britannica [Online]. Date Accessed: 4 November 2023.

Erskine Veterans Charity (1982) Falklands War Timeline (PDF). Date Accessed: 11 November 2023.

Hart Dyke, D. (2007) Four weeks in May. First ed. London: Atlantic Books London. Hastings, M. and Jenkins, S. (1983) The Battle for The Falklands. 2022 ed. London: Pan Books.

Imperial War Museum (March 2022) Why the Falklands conflict happened. Youtube [Online]. Date Accessed: 3 November 2023

Imperial War Museum (2022) A Short History of The Falklands Conflict [Online]. Available at: iwm.org.uk. Date Accessed: 11 November 2023.

National Geographic (2022) Falklands War, facts, and information Falklands War, facts and information. National Geographic [Online] Available at: nationalgeographic.com. Date Accessed: 12 November 2023.

Reuters (2014) Chronology: Argentina's turbulent history of economic crises [Online]. Date Accessed: 6 November 2023.

Wikipedia (2023) Falklands War [Online]. Date Accessed: 2 November 2023.

Woodward, S. (1992) One hundred days: The memoirs of the Falklands battle group commander. 2003 ed. London: Harper Collins.

Zarza, L. (2010) Malvinas: The Argentine perspective of the Falklands conflict.Fort Belvoir: Defence Technical Information Centre.

Image:

Gaba, E. (2007) Falkland Islands topographic map. Wikimedia Commons user: Sting.

Social Sciences

At What Point Does a Cult Become a Religion?

Emmeline Black, Fourth Form, Feilden House. Clarke Scholar - Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

For centuries, defining the difference between a cult and a religion has been debated amongst scholars, theologians and the wider population alike; drawing a clear distinction between the two can be both an intricate and challenging task.

The notion of what makes a religion appears to be a widely accepted one. The term ‘cult’, however, is broad and ill-defined. It is often used in the media as a pejorative term to cover everything on a scale from Taylor Swift fans as 'Swifties' (mocking criticism) to Scientology (with a sense of suspicion), to the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult (and so with criminal connotations), who carried out the subway suicide gas attack of 1995.

And yet, many of the world’s major religions were themselves once viewed as cults. So, if cults can evolve into religions, at what point do they stop being seen as unorthodox, extremist movements, and start being accepted as the bigger, mainstream organisations we all instinctively recognise as religions?

What is a cult?

Perhaps the first task is to define what we mean by the word ‘cult’. This is a complex, as the term can take many different meanings depending on the application of the word. Originally it came from the Latin 'cultus', meaning 'care, cultivation, worship', later entering English as 'a form of worship' (Etymonline, no date). Throughout the twentieth century, scholars started to apply the term to current religious groups that did not fit society’s concept of typical religion. For example, in 1969 the academic Geoffrey Nelson

attempted to develop and define the word cult so it could be used in more academic discussions to describe entities that did not conform to the religious norms of church, sect or denomination. In his paper, Nelson emphasised the idea of individualism, and the concept that a cult breaks with tradition (Nelson, 1969). In 1974, fellow academic Wallis agreed with the 'break from tradition' idea, suggesting, to help the definition, a focus on 'changes in organisational form, modes of social control, and relations with the surrounding society' (Wallis, 1974).

Importantly, and in more recent years, the term cult has been adopted by mainstream media 'as a catch-all to refer to any new and unusual groups' (Richardson, 1993). It has become a term to establish a difference between 'us' and 'them' and make a group of people seem ‘other’ in order to protect the 'strength, status and even survival of their own group' (Gallagher, 2007). In short, ‘cults’ have become largely categorised by the judgement of others, rather than by meaningful distinctions. That is not to say there are no valid definitions of cults, but just that, when talking about them, we must be cautious to consider the definer’s ontological biases. For the purpose of this essay, perhaps the most useful definition is Dewey Wallace’s from 1985. He identified cults as 'small religious groups that are generally perceived as being outside the mainstreams of religious life of a community and that hold views which the larger society finds unusual'

(Wallace, 1985). This acknowledges that a large part of a cult’s identity comes from its separation and difference from society, and that it is not inherently bad for it.

Common characteristics of religious cults

Having said that there are myriad definitions of the word ‘cult’, there is a general consensus around the core characteristics that cults commonly hold. The most oft-cited ones are:

1. Having a single charismatic leader (Ellwood, 1986) (Richardson, 1978) (Robbins and Anthony, 1982) (Burton, 2017)

2. Requiring financial, material and emotional commitment from their members (Burton, 2017) (Ellwood, 1986)

3. Controlling members, often through mental manipulation (Robbins and Anthony, 1982) (Gallagher, 2007)

4. Members feeling special or superior to outsiders (Montell, 2021)

5. Members being seen as unconventional, unorthodox and even dangerous by mainstream society (Gallagher, 2007).

In this essay, we will examine how these characteristics might differ to those of today’s established religions, and whether any might be helpful in determining the point at which a cult may be considered a religion.

How do cults differ from religions?

The charismatic leader?

To begin, cults are usually founded by a single charismatic leader. Example might be L. Ron Hubbard from Scientology, or Joseph Smith from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. Oxford Languages defines charismatic as 'exercising a compelling charm which inspires devotion in others' (Oxford Languages | the home of language data, 2022) and when we compare this to the origin of today’s World Religions, we can see strong similarities. In Christianity, for example, Jesus continually inspired devotion amongst his disciples; Muhammed inspired loyalty amongst the devotees that followed him out of Mecca. So, although true of cults, having a charismatic leader is not necessarily a difference between cults and religions.

The financial, material and emotional commitment?

Cults are often known for demanding financial, material and emotional commitment from their members (Burton, 2017). This is often the case, as many cults demand their members to live together, relinquish money and possessions, to make them dependant on the cult – yet we can find examples of similar commitment required and given in most religions.

At a base level, one must commit to one religion in the sense that you cannot identify with more than one religion at once. Additionally, many Christians believe that in order to be a legitimate Christian, you must be baptised, proving your total commitment to the religion. Christianity has also historically encouraged members to pay tithe: one-tenth of their earnings given as tax for the support of the Church. This is defined in the Old Testament as 'every tenth of the land’s produce, grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is Holy to the Lord' (Leviticus 27:30). Although still observed by some Christians today, a tithe was a legal demand and tax imposed on the population in England until 1836 (Stephens, 1890) (The editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2023), regardless of their beliefs. Again, this characteristic can apply to both cults and religions so it may not be helpful in finding a valid difference between cults and religions.

Mental manipulation?

Another characteristic cited above is the control of members through mental manipulation, also referred to as 'mind control' (Robbins and Anthony, 1982), or 'brain washing' (Heller, 2021). And whilst it is true that many would consider this inapplicable to established religions, history is littered with examples of religious doctrine and positions of authority within religious groups being used to manipulate, exploit and control followers. Beckford, 2001, cited the following as such examples of religious exploitation:

• Systematic sexual abuse of children in the care of Catholic priests

• Brutality in residential institutions for young people run by the Catholic church in various countries

• Catholic church policies for transporting young children from Britain and Ireland to Australia under the bogus pretext that they were orphans

• Massive financial irregularities in the catholic Archdiocese of Chicago

• Clergy malfeasance of various kinds in many American churches (Shupe, 1995)

• Sexual improprieties among Methodist clergy in the UK

• Financial irregularities in certain Pentecostal churches in the UK

• Racism in the Church of England

• The exploitation of women in many Christian churches

• Collusion between church officials and some of the world's most brutal regimes.

Many might argue that these relatively recent examples are isolated or scattered issues associated with particular individuals. However, if we explore even further back in history, we can find numerous examples of religion being used to control much larger portions of the general population, and indeed entire

countries, regardless of individuals’ faiths or beliefs. The Spanish Inquisition might be considered one such example: a brutal, controlling judicial institution that lasted between 1478 and 1834. The Encyclopaedia Britannica states that although its ostensible purpose was to combat heresy in Spain, in practice it resulted in the consolidation of power in the monarchy of the newly unified Spanish Kingdom. So, it can seemingly be argued that control and manipulation of members is not confined to cults, but can happen in established religions too.

Superior to outsiders?

Montell (2021) finds that cult members often feel superior to outsiders, and Holloway (2016) argues that successful cults actively instil these feelings of superiority into their members, manipulating them to believe that they know the truth and people not in the cult do not and cannot be saved. We see this most often in 'doomsday cults'. However, many followers of established religions also share the belief that those who do not think similarly will not be saved: in the Gospel According to John, for example, Jesus is quoted as saying 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me', which has been interpreted literally by some as meaning that those who do not believe in Jesus and God cannot 'cometh unto the Father' and therefore be saved (John 14:6). Mark (16:16) goes even further, stating that 'Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not will be condemned' (Mark 16:16). So again, many would say that members feeling special or superior to outsiders is not restricted to just cults.

Mainstream repudiation?

That leaves us with just one characteristic: mainstream repudiation. By definition, cults have

to be rejected by society. As we established earlier, they are 'generally perceived as being outside the mainstreams of religious life of a community and that hold views which the larger society finds unusual'. In other words, cults are unorthodox and therefore often seen as threatening. Religions, on the other hand, are viewed as being largely positive, beneficial to society, and in many instances have informed our morals, beliefs, behaviours and even laws. Far from being rejected by society, religions have in fact helped to build today’s societies.

When do cults become accepted by mainstream society?

If the key difference between cults and religions is that religions are accepted by society, it stands to reason that the point at which a cult becomes a religion is the point at which it reaches that acceptance. History shows us that for this to happen, a religious group must be endorsed by the state or embraced by the general populace.

As an example of state endorsement, Christianity was seen as a cult by most until the Emperor Constantine decreed and enforced it as the official religion of the Roman Empire, replacing centuries of belief in Roman Gods (Holloway, 2016). As a more recent example, Scientology was officially recognised as a religion in 1993 by the state in the USA (Finkleman, 2006), but has only recently started to be more widely accepted by the general population, due in no small part to the influential Hollywood stars who have openly embraced Scientology, most famously Tom Cruise (BBC News, no date).

Islam, on the other hand, grew by being embraced by the general populace after being rejected by the State:

the Prophet Muhammed was originally driven out of Mecca by state officials, but quickly gained acceptance amongst the citizens of the city he fled to, Medina, and continued to attract followers. Within a few years Mecca had also largely embraced Islam, and when the Prophet Muhammed returned with his followers, the city was cleansed of its Pagan symbols and idols, and Islam was established as the region’s predominant religion (Yalman, 2001).

Conclusion

As we have demonstrated, the term ‘cult’ is too loaded and negative to be helpful to anybody trying to make an objective observation, which is why scholars are starting to turn to more neutral terms such as ‘New Religious Movements’ or emergent religions. These emergent religions share many of the same characteristics as established religions, and the lines between the two are blurred. However, there is a clear transition from mainstream repudiation to mainstream acceptance that all cults or emergent religions have to go through in order to be considered established.

This progression is undoubtedly helped by the passage of time; today’s major religions have been around for a lot longer than today’s cults. In fact, as renowned theologian Reza Aslan commented on Cults, Explained (2019), 'the biggest joke in religious studies is that cult plus time equals religion'. However, this deliberately simplification ignores the plethora of cults that have not and will not ever become religions. Many cults have ended over the years either

in catastrophic tragedy or by simply dying out, but some will continue to exist and be relatively successful tucked away from society. And that perhaps leads us to the crux of the argument: a cult can for a while be successful in isolation from the world; a religion can only be successful in the longer term by being accepted by and forming part of the fabric of the world. Therefore, it is only by openly embracing the wider world, and seeking acceptance (either by the State or the wider community) that religious cults can hope to become considered religions.

References:

BBC News (no date) Cruise lobbies over Scientology [Online]. Available at: http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/showbiz/1791617.stm

Beckford, J. (2001) The Continuum Between ‘Cults’ and ‘Normal’ Religion. Chercheurs de Dieux Dans l’espace Public – Frontier Religions in Public Space. Ottowa: University of Ottawa Press, pp. 11-20.

Burton, T. (2017) What is a cult? Aeon [Online], 7 June 2017. Available at: https://aeon.co/ essays/theres-no-sharp-distinction-between-cult-and-regular-religion Accessed: 14 November 2023.

Cults Explained (2019) Series 2, Episode 10, Netflix, 26 September 2019.

Ellwood, R. (1986) The several meanings of cult. Thought, June, pp. 212-224.

Etymonline (no date) Etymology of cult. Etymonline [Online]. Available at: https://www. etymonline.com/word/cult

Finkelman, P. (2006) Encyclopaedia of American Civil Liberties. Boca Raton: CRC Press. p. 287.

Gallagher, E.V. (2007) 'Cults' and 'New Religious Movements', History of Religions, 47(2/3), pp. 205-220.

Heller, Z. (2021) What makes a cult a cult?. The New Yorker [Online] 5 July 2021. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/12/what-makes-a-cult-acult. Accessed: 28 October 2023.

Holloway, R. (2016) A Little History of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press

The Bible, John 14:16, King James Version

The Bible, Leviticus 27:30, English Standard Version

The Bible, Mark 16:16, King James Version

Nelson, G. (1969) The spiritualist movement and the need for a redefinition of cult. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 8(1), p. 152.

Oxford Languages (2022) https://languages.oup.com. Accessed 2023-4.

Richardson, J.T. (1978) An Oppositional and General Conceptualization of Cult. The Annual Review of the Social Sciences of Religion, pp. 29-52.

Richardson, J.T. (1993) Definition of cult: From Sociological-Technical to PopularNegative. Review of Religious Research, 34(4), p. 348.

Robbins, T. and Anthony , D. (1982) Deprogramming, brainwashing and the medicalization of deviant religious groups. Social Problems, 29(3), pp. 283-297

Rosen, M. and Montell, A. (2021) Word of Mouth | Cultish Language [Online] 3 August 2021. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000ycwk. Accessed:8 January 2024.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (no date) Spanish Inquisition | Key facts. Britannica [Online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/summary/SpanishInquisition-Key-Facts. Accessed: 28 January 2024.

The editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2023) Tithes. Britannica [Online] 23 November 2023. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/tithe. Accessed: 9 January 2024.

Stephens, S. (1890) Mr. Serjeant Stephen's New Commentaries on the Laws of England Eleventh Edition. 1890. Volume 2. Page 741.

Wallace, D. (1985) Sects, Cults and Mainstream Religion: A Cultural Interpretation of New Religious Movements in America. American Studies, 26(2), pp. 5-16.

Wallis, R. (1974) Ideology, Authority, and the Development of Cultic Movements. Social Research, 41(2), pp. 299-327.

Yalman, S. (2001) The Birth of Islam. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [Online] October 2001. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/isla/hd_isla.htm Accessed: 8 January 2024.

Images:

Clix, R. (2018) Person Praying in Front of Lind Candles. Pexels.com.

Olichon, A. (2019) Inside of Church. Pexels.com.

Taktarov, A. (2021) The Church of Scientology. Los Angeles: Unsplash.com.

How Did Harold Shipman Murder an Estimated 250 People Before

He Was Caught?

Will Chandler, First Form, Gascoigne House. Clarke Scholar - Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

HaroldShipman has been hailed as the most prolific serial killer in the world. It is believed that he killed more than 250 people over a span of nearly three decades. How does someone get away with murder on this scale? Was Shipman simply a master of death and deceit or does blame lie on the failures by the authorities?

One way in which Harold Shipman got away with murder was by posing as a family man and a respected doctor. In 1974 Shipman started his career as a GP in the town of Todmorden. He was well liked in the community and was described by local resident, Shirley Horsfall, as 'a good friend and a good neighbour' (Shirley Horsfall interview in BBC documentary Harold Shipman: Dr Death, 2002). The web of deception had begun.

However, this initial respectability did not last long and Shipman lost his job in 1975, after drug and fraud offenses. George McKeating, of the West Yorkshire Police, was the officer who arrested Shipman and interviewed him. McKeating said that Shipman admitted to using drugs but said he had 'no future intention to return to general practice' (BBC, Harold Shipman: Dr Death). Shipman was convicted of fraud and drug charges and McKeating said that he had absolutely no doubt that Shipman would be struck off the medical register. However, at the subsequent hearing of the General Medical Council, the Chairperson thought differently and never even called McKeating as a witness; she said in her conclusions that she did not feel Shipman was a danger to the public. He was not struck off. Instead he was fined £600 and sent to a drug rehabilitation centre. During his interview for the documentary, McKeating warned, 'we are going to hear about this guy again'. How true this became.

It is astonishing that a doctor, a person in a position of trust and power, could get a criminal record for fraud and drug offences but then not be struck off from the medical register. This is evidence of the first of massive failures on the part of the authorities.

Just over one year later, Shipman was out of rehabilitation and moved 30 miles away to the town of Hyde to begin a new life. He worked hard in Hyde to gain a reputation of respectability as a GP once again. He had four children over time and became a 'much loved and widely respected doctor' (BBC, The Man Who Played God, 2000).

Harold Shipman chose his victims carefully and targeted the elderly, the most vulnerable section of the community. He went out of his way to look after them and make home visits and made himself liked. In fact, his popularity was so great, that even when he was first arrested in Hyde, he received hundreds of letters of support from disbelieving families. His respectability was so great, that he even appeared on an ITV World in Action documentary, talking as an expert on mental illness. Here was a 'Serial killer hiding in plain sight' (BBC, Harold Shipman: Dr Death).

Harold Shipman’s deceptions as a trusted family man and doctor were key in his web of deceit; however, it is the failure of the medical committee to strike him off, that allowed him to continue his killing spree.

Another factor that helped Harold Shipman get away with murder, was the fact that he signed the death certificates of his victims. By signing the death certificates, Shipman was able to corroborate the cause of deaths he had reported as the GP of his patients, squashing any suspicions as to foul play.

Frank Massey and Sons, local undertakers in Hyde, noticed a worrying pattern – that Shipman’s patients were nearly always fully clothed and sat in a chair and there was never any evidence around the house that the patient had been ill. Rather than going to the police, they raised this with Shipman directly. Shipman replied in a confident and friendly manner and showed them his death certificate book (which corroborated the causes of death). They took this no further.

Again, Shipman’s clever deceptions played a large role in his success as a serial killer. However, it was the total inadequacy of procedures surrounding the confirmation of death and a total lack of independence, that allowed him to continue.

To ensure that his killing spree was undiscovered, Shipman urged the victims’ families to get their bodies cremated. By getting the bodies of his victims cremated, the evidence was destroyed. Because Shipman was a well-liked and respected family GP, in a large number of cases, the families listened to

his advice. Furthermore, there was a requirement for an independent surgery to sign cremation requests and Shipman used The Brook Surgery in Hyde, which was opposite his own practice. Over a number of years, GP’s at The Brook Surgery noticed a steep rise in Shipman’s requests for signing of cremation forms and finally contacted the local police. The police started an investigation and checked Shipman’s records, however, these were records that Shipman had falsified. They never looked any further and concluded there were no grounds for suspicion. Later, the Shipman Inquiry raised questions as to the adequacy of this investigation. The police had run no criminal record check on Shipman (if they had, they would have discovered his previous convictions) and they never spoke to the relatives of those cremated, saying that they did not want to upset them. Inexperienced detectives missed vital evidence and due to their incompetence; Shipman continued unchecked. The headline from the Guardian on Tuesday 15 July 2003 sums up this investigation: 'Blunders that allowed killings to continueIncompetence lies at heart of investigation'. Indeed, Dame Janet Smith, the chair of the Shipman Inquiry tasked with making recommendations on the steps needed to protect patients in the future, concluded, 'I have considered whether, if the investigation had been more thorough, Shipman would have been detected…I have concluded that he probably would have been and that the lives of his last three victims would have been saved'.

To further evade detection, Harold Shipman forged medical notes to give his victims a history of illness. Shipman invented previous illnesses that his patients were suffering from to corroborate the cause of death he had put on their death certificates and went back and amended computer records and forged medical notes. This was clever of Shipman and allowed him to commit his crimes over such a long period of time. But what Shipman did not realise is that the computer records were time stamped, so when full investigations were launched, after the death of Kathleen Grundy, the police were able to go back and see which records had been altered (thought to be over 200!).

Shipman used large quantities of morphine to kill his victims. He cleverly hoarded the morphine so it was never noticed that he was using large quantities for illegal means. He prescribed it for patients who did not need it and he over-prescribed it to patients who did need it. It was all done in small quantities, so it was not noticed.

The scale of Shipman’s crimes and ploys only came to light when Shipman was arrested for Kathleen Grundy’s murder in 1998. Ex-mayoress of Hyde,

81 year old Kathleen Grundy was fit and healthy. Kathleen’s daughter, Angela Woodruff, (a solicitor) raised concerns that Shipman had visited her mother only hours before her death Kathleen had been in very good health Kathleen had just changed her will to benefit Shipman to the sum of £400,000 and Shipman had urged there was no need for an autopsy. These suspicious circumstances, and Angela’s determination, raised enough concerns for police to investigate further this time. It was found that the forged will was written on Shipman’s own typewriter. Kathleen’s body was exhumed and the presence of a fatal dose of diamorphine was discovered. It became clear that she had been murdered by Shipman.

The Manchester Evening News ran a front page story, 'Doctor in 20 Deaths Probe'. The story was picked up and became national news. It was only then that other families started to come forward, reporting suspicions that Shipman had done the same thing to their loved ones. Similar patterns emerged. A favourite ploy of Shipman’s was to pretend that the patient had called him and that he had arrived on the scene and called an ambulance, only for the patient to die and the ambulance to be cancelled. It was only then that phone records were checked and it was evident that it was all lies. It was at this point that the full investigations began. Bodies were exhumed, records checked and evidence gathered. During the Shipman Inquiry, Dame Janet Smith described her disbelief at the situation when she said 'The way in which Shipman could kill, face the relatives, and walk away unsuspected would have been dismissed as fanciful, if it had been described in a work of fiction'.

Whilst it is clear that Shipman was a skilled liar, a master of deceit and a serial killer of monstrous proportions, I think it is also evident that he was able to continue his almost three decade long killing spree because of the incompetence of the authorities and also because of the inadequacy of procedures confirming death and the powers and responsibilities of the medical community in general.

The conclusions of the Shipman Inquiry recognised these failures and called for tighter controls and procedures following a death, independence, corroboration and a new coroners' service with legal and medical expertise to ensure that a homicidal doctor such as Shipman would not be able to exploit the system again.

References:

Please see the Appendix on page 78.

Images: Jinghan, Y. (2018) Prison Bars. Unsplash.com.

Social Sciences

To What Extent Can We Trust Our Episodic Memory?

Eva Graves, Third Form, Gascoigne House. Allen Scholar - Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

Haveyou ever heard a friend tell an account of event you also experienced, but barely recognise the version they are telling? Most people will have noticed that their memory of an event sometimes differs from others’ memories, even if they were together. Memory is both extremely scientific and yet completely unscientific – a complex mix of reactions taking place inside our brains, and interactions with the world outside us, and our response to them. This adds up to make the phenomenon that we call memory.

To explore if we can trust our episodic memories, I shall review what is happening in the brain when a memory is formed, before exploring the types of memory and how they work, and then dive into the many influences and parts that make up the mysterious world of memory – and they are indeed numerous.

What is happening in the brain when a memory is formed?

The brain is a complicated organ, but there are three main parts that construct our episodic memory: the amygdala, the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.

Memory: three types

The first of these is the amygdala, located deep in the temporal lobes, near the base of the brain (Vascović, 2023). It is the part of the brain that processes emotions and controls emotional reactions. Emotions are a key part in memory, especially episodic. The amygdala also helps to encode memories with emotional meaning – or episodic memories (GuyEvans, 2023). The second is the hippocampus. It helps to form new memories, specifically episodic and semantic ones, but how it does this is subject to debate among scientists as there several suggested processes. The hippocampus also aids spatial navigation and environmental recognition, and environment is a particularly principal factor that affects memory (Yassa, 2023). The third and final part of the brain that is important for memory is the prefrontal cortex, specifically the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, or the DLPFT. This is where working memory (processing new information into memories),

cognitive functions and planning takes place (Practical Psychology, 2023).

Semantic memory: separate yet overlapping

Another type of memory – amongst the many beyond the scope of this article – that plays a key and overlapping role in episodic memory is the semantic memory. Semantic memories are facts, both knowledge about the world and academic knowledge. Often, episodic memories can help you remember semantic ones, or the other way round. Sometimes they may work together to figure something out, both subconsciously and consciously. For example, you may have noticed that when revising it is recommended that you find a way to make a story out of the words, processes, or facts you must know for an exam, or find a way to link them to your firsthand experiences. This is an example of using episodic memory to improve your semantic one. If you were trying to remember upon which day an experience happened, to help you remember you may wish to think about who was with you or what the weather was like. This is an example of using your semantic memory to help your episodic one (Brainyhacks, 2022).

How are episodic memories formed?

In order to determine whether or not memories (specifically episodic ones) are reliable, we need to understand how they are formed. Since the 1940s, scientists have known that memories are held in groups of neurons called assemblies. These cells are connected to each other by synapses, and, when activated by a stimulus, fire as a group (Queensland Brain Institute, n.d.). This can be caused by any sense, whether it is your sibling’s face, or the smell of chicken roasting, or how bubble wrap feels. The more these neurons fire together, the more the cells’ interconnections are strengthened, hence why repetition is crucial for improving a memory. This means that when they fire in reaction to a future stimulus, the entire assembly is more likely to fire rather than just a couple nerve cells. It is known that the nerves activity transcribes what we experience

into a memory, but scientists are still unsure exactly how this works.

Four factors that make memory more (or less) reliable

It is important to understand the key factors in how we remember an event and what leads to one’s memory being more or less reliable. Something one must keep in mind is that none of these factors change the actual event; instead, they alter how we remember them in the moment, as well as shaping and changing the memories over time.

1. Focus

The most obvious factor that impacts memories is focus, which can heavily influence a memory. What you focus on during an event inevitably affects what you remember. For example, if someone asked you what battery percentage your phone was on, and you checked, would you be able to tell them the time? You will most likely have seen it, but because you were not focused on it, and it was insignificant information, your brain will have ignored it. Another way focus can affect memory would be how focused you are on an event. For example, if you are actively watching a movie, you are more likely to remember what happens in the story than if the movie was playing in the background. Lastly, focussing on one thing rather than trying to focus on multiple things at once will significantly improve your memory. It is a lot easier to remember the plot of a book if you are not also trying to listen to a podcast.

2. Perspectives

Another factor that can affect our memories is our perspectives, which are formed by our values, beliefs, morals, biases, and perceptions, as well as previously encountered situations and how they were handled (Barbash, 2017). Everyone takes away their own reasoning from an event. When events are interpreted differently at the time of them happening, often this leads to a high likelihood of memories from different people all being slightly different.

3. Environment

The third factor that heavily affects our memories is the environment and/or context in which an event or experience takes place. If successive events happen in the same environment or context, they become more deeply imprinted in the brain due to repetition. By contrast, when something happens in an unfamiliar environment or context, earlier memories are pushed into the background and the newest memories become easier to remember accurately. In an experiment conducted by Vanessa van Ast where core elements of experiences were isolated in order to manipulate the way experiences were remembered, she found that:

'When two experiences took place in the same context, both memories, as well as the associations between them, were imprinted much more deeply. But when they occurred in different contexts, the second memory was remembered at the expense of the original experience. And the associations between them were also poorly remembered.'

Environment and context are also considered the strongest triggers for recollection of memory. This is why it is advised to revise in a similar environment to how the exam will be, or train in a sports facility similar to the one you will be competing in. This is also why revisiting places you enjoyed as a child can bring back many nostalgic memories (Neuroscience News, 2022).

4. Mood and Emotion

The final, most involved, and possibly most important way memories can be affected is mood and emotion. This is because of something called emotional arousal which is caused by feelings that ‘wake you up’, or make you more reactive, such as fear, anger, or excitement. In an aroused state, your brain streamlines information to the most important stimuli around you. This is to preserve energy because your body goes into fight or flight mode, which automatically shuts down thoughts and feelings that are not completely necessary.

Details do get remembered, and remembered very well, in a few circumstances. The first of these is if they are easy to perceive (Swaim, 2022): for example, a loud crash versus muffled whisper; or large, neon letters better than small, faded text. The second situation where details get priority is if they involve heavy emotions. For example, in a car crash, you are more likely to remember what a family member said or did, than what the strangers in the other car said or did, as you are less likely to feel strongly towards this. I have personal experience that perfectly illustrates this example, where, after a serious car crash, I remember exactly what my mother said to the police, to me, and on the phone to my father. However, I also have vivid 'memories' of a middle-aged man shouting to his family to 'Duck down!' in the other car, when in fact what happened was a police officer shouting at the boy driving (who was 15) to 'Get on the ground!'

Better memory in an aroused state also happens when it relates to your goals. For example, you would be more likely to remember your fiancé choking on dinner than the slightly burnt lasagne you were eating. These details that get priority are what you remember best, and other details are either not remembered, or fade away. This is one thing that can lead to distorted memories, as when details are not remembered, you automatically try to fill in the blank spaces, which

often leads to incorrect memories. Memories of emotional and uncommon experiences are not only remembered better, but also more accurately than neutral and common experiences. For example, you are more likely to remember your first kiss than to remember brushing your teeth in the morning, even on the same day.

Lastly, emotions affect memory through stress, which has been proven to both positively and negatively affect one’s memory. Stressful events are remembered better than stress-free experiences. Stress also affects memory storage and recall – short term stress can be surprisingly helpful in memory recall. For example, stressing for twenty minutes before an exam will help you to recall the information you learned when revising. Contrastingly, stressing for the entire day will tire your brain and lead to remembering less of the information you know (Swaim, 2022).

Chronic stress may cause the biggest emotional damage to one’s memory. Firstly, it impairs the brain’s ability to process new information, as well as retrieve existing memories. Secondly, it reduces the brain’s volume, which impacts function. Stress also increases the levels of cortisol in the brain, a stress hormone that, in moderate amounts, is vital for survival. However, when produced too often, it also causes shrinkage in the brain, which means that it decreases the number of brain cells that can mature into neurons and therefore the number of memories that can be formed. Stress also causes mood swings, anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues, which can interfere with cognitive performance, and thus memory.

Story and Memory – A pico experiment

The story and experiment method I conducted an experiment to go alongside my research, and to corroborate some of the information I found out. I read my family (ages 6, 12, 43 and 48) a short Chinese fable (The Empty Pot on the site Stories to Grow By) about an Emperor in search of an heir who cleverly sets a task that could only be successfully completed by someone willing to be completely honest. Then I individually asked them the simple question 'What happened in the story?' and recorded their response. I did this in a separate room so they could not hear each other’s responses. I asked them five times: immediately, and then after two hours, four days, eight days, and seventeen days. I was curious to see how the ages and personalities of my family members would affect how much information they would remember. The prediction versus the results I had predicted that the most accurate recount

would be the immediate one, however it turned out to be the one after two hours for everybody. I now realise this is likely because memories take time to fully form. I also noticed that the adults had slightly more consistent, but overall less accurate memories. The children on the other hand, had more accurate memories at the beginning, but much less accurate memories by the time of the last recount.

Age as a factor in memory

Age turned out to be a remarkably interesting topic in memory, a rabbit hole I went down as I looked at the results of my family’s storytelling. Although the stereotype is that memory deteriorates with age, with an active lifestyle and healthy diet (which both my parents have), memory, especially short term, tends to not decrease as much as we expect, especially if one can avoid dementia and other illnesses which affect the memory. With age, memories can improve, as the older one gets the more experiences and therefore the number of neuron assemblies increases, meaning that more stimuli can trigger memories, and it is easier for memories to be linked together through similarities. Attention spans also tend to increase with age, as attention span is key to learning new information and remembering it over an extended period of time, meaning that the adults’ memories would be expected to be slightly better in the long term.

Correlations

Another thing I noticed was that the more creative members of my family (those who are more artistic and intuitive) remembered the emotions felt by the characters in the story whereas they did not remember names as well and tended to jump about when telling the information – they did not recount the story in fully chronological order. However, the more logical members of my family (those who are more interested in facts and figures) remembered the names, numbers and other facts and statistics much better than the certain emotions and retold the story in fully chronological order every time.

Statement versus inference in interpretation

What my experiment confirmed about my research is that everyone’s memories are affected most by their initial interpretations of the story. In the story, the honest main character met the Emperor who was looking for an heir at the end, and the Emperor smiled at the boy. The eldest three in my family assumed that this meant the boy became the next Emperor, even though that was never said in the story. The youngest however did not make this assumption, and simply stated that the Emperor was happy with the boy. This is most likely because children are generally more literal, as they do not have the experiences to interpret stories in different ways. However, as you

get older, you tend to learn what certain things mean, like how sirens mean an emergency, or when it starts getting dark earlier it is autumn or winter. This makes us subconsciously interpret information and assume what will happen next. One also tends to learn more about language and word choice as you get older, which could be another reason for assumptions. This experiment was remarkably interesting to conduct and helped to solidify some of the other research I had done.

Oversights and omissions

One thing that I did not consider when planning my experiment was the context and environment. We were on holiday when I told the story, and when they recounted it the first two times. As my research showed, this could have influenced how much my family members remembered as environment is a key trigger for memory recall. The fact that we were on a break from school and work for the entirety of the experiment also likely impacted their memories as stress levels would have probably been lower than normal. I intentionally asked them a single, simple question to allow them to recount the story as they wanted to. This did lead to my insights on creativity versus logical thinking, for instance. However, in the future I may create a more concrete way of getting information such as getting subjects to order key events in the story as this would lead to more detailed statistics and findings.

How to improve your episodic memory

Just like semantic memory, there are many ways to improve your episodic memory, however they are not discussed as often. Improving your episodic memory can lead to many psychological improvements. One way to improve your memory is to improve your general mental health and abilities. Exercising regularly, limiting stress, eating a healthy diet, and getting plenty of sleep all have positive impacts. These will not only improve your episodic memory, but also your general memory and, hopefully, happiness. One less obvious way to improve how accurately you remember things is to learn a new foreign language. This improves concentration, makes it easier to ignore distractions and can help with both your short and long-term memories. Playing brain games and doing puzzles are both mentioned often, but they truly can improve your thinking skills and short-term memories, which in turn will increase your ability to remember events accurately (von Essen, 2024). Finally, it is important to try to minimise the negative factors previously discussed. This can be difficult, but will help you more than you realise, especially if you can focus and pay attention to the specific details you want to remember, attempt to provide context for what is happening, don’t make assumptions, and try

not to let your perspectives affect how you interpret the event.

So, Can Episodic Memories be Trusted?

Over all, the research suggests that unfortunately, episodic memories are too malleable and can rarely be trusted. Although there are people with more accurate memories, because everyone’s brains are wired differently, it is best not to assume that you, or others, have remembered an event or experience perfectly. This does not mean you should not try to improve your memory however, as this will make you a much more reliable and generally more intelligent person, and you will thank yourself for keeping your brain young and working later in life. However, my research does bring into question the validity of eyewitness testimonies and accounts in court. Hard as it is to fathom, 75% of false convictions are caused by inaccurate eyewitness statements. This is even more troubling to think of when eyewitness accounts are the main form of evidence in more than 20% of court cases.

My research has also given me new respect for the film Inside Out, which is possibly less childish and silly than I realised. It actually contains lots of factual information about how we process memories whilst highlighting the crazy blend of science and everything else that memory is. And maybe, the next time someone comes to you and says, 'You’ll never believe what happened to me', and launches into some crazy story, you can smile, knowing that statement is more true than they realise.

References: Please see the Appendix on page 78.

Images:

Kemper, J. (2020) Mind Games. Unsplash.com. Weermeijer, R. (2019) Brain model. Unsplash.com.

Social Sciences

What Motivates Serial Murderers?

Luella Hickey, Third Form, Swift House. Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

Some readers may find themes in this article upsetting.

There are four types of serial killers Visionary, Mission-oriented, Hedonistic, and Power/ Control. Each type of serial killer has different motivations and reasons for killing. The most significant reasons can usually be traced back to childhood events and traumas. A visionary is a killer who believes that someone is commanding them to kill. The mission-oriented kills to get ‘rid’ of a certain group in society. The hedonistic killer commits acts for their own pleasure. Finally, the power/control kill because they fantasise about having power and seek to dominate and control.

Explained in an FBI report, a serial murderer selects their victims based on availability, vulnerability and desirability. Availability is determined by the lifestyle of the victim or circumstances in which he/she is involved. For example, a single female who regularly spends her evenings alone at home is available for a break-in attack. Vulnerability is defined as the safeness of the victim to attack by the offender. For example, a single female walking down the street at night is less vulnerable to attack if she is accompanied by a large dog. Finally, desirability is described as the attractiveness of the victim to the offender. Victim desirability involves numerous factors related to the motivation of the offender and may include characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, body type or other specific criteria established by the serial killer.

Famous murderers displayed these type of serial killing include Harold Shipman, Ed Gein, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffery Dahmer, and Ted Bundy.

Harold Shipman was a GP and described as a patronising individual. In 1998 he was arrested and charged with the murder of Kathleen Grundy, but as police investigated, they uncovered evidence he may have killed up to 250 patients. Although his motives were unclear, Shipman may have been seeking to avenge the death of his mother, it is most likely he was a mission-oriented killer removing from the population older people who might have become a burden to the health care system. His victims were old women making them both available and vulnerable, making them 'easy targets', which fits the narrative of reducing elderly older woman as his mission.

Ed Gein was a serial murderer who was obsessed with the human body. In 1957, local store owner Bernice Worden disappeared, and the local police entered Gein's home in search of her. Ed Gein readily admitted he was a hedonistic killer by collecting

remains from three local graveyards, looking for bodies that he thought resembled his mother. He told authorities that he had wanted to create a 'woman suit' so that he could 'become' his mother, and crawl into her skin. When he was arrested authorities found chairs upholstered in human skin, leggings made of human skin, and many more human body makings. His victims were also available and vulnerable because they were usually corpses from graves. He certainly fits the hedonistic killer type, as he seemingly gained pleasure from the results of his killings.

John Wayne Gacy was a serial murderer and rapist. Known as the 'Killer Clown' for his habit of dressing in a clown costume, Gacy was arrested in 1979 and executed in 1994. Gacy was a power/control murderer whose acts were primarily sexually motivated. He attended many children’s parties and events, trying to find his new victim. His clown costume, and the children’s parties made his victims both available and vulnerable. The principal action was the thrill he received from the fear he instilled and the power and control he held over his victims.

Jeffrey Dahmer was described as an energetic and happy child until the age of four. He became increasingly withdrawn following the birth of his younger brother and the family’s frequent moves. He laid traps and caught animals, practising taxidermy with his father. This practice led to a fascination with preserving bones, which resulted in his later behaviour as a serial killer. Dahmer’s prayed on young, vulnerable boys. He captured them, drugged them, and disposed of their bodies, keeping some trophy parts of each victim. He was a power/control murderer whose acts were sexually motivated, but also motivated from his early years from killing and capturing animals with his dad.

Ted Bundy was a serial murderer, rapist, and necrophiliac. Around the age of three, he became

fascinated by knives. Bundy did well in school but not with his peers. Bundy was known to pick apart mice in the woods and try to drown people while swimming and showed no sense of 'remorse or guilt'. Bundy fell in love with a young woman named Diane Edwards at University. Many of Bundy’s later victims resembled her. On January 24, 1989, Bundy was executed.

Before he was executed, he requested his ashes be scattered in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state, where he murdered at least four of his victims. Bundy was a hedonistic killer committing acts for his personal pleasure. He chose his victims with all the categories; his specific type of victim was someone who resembled his old girlfriend.

All these killers chose their victims due to availability and vulnerability. All the victims had different appeals, but all stemmed from the same idea: an easy target. They all had a significant moment in their life that changed their point of view, even at different ages. For each of the example serial killers, the motivation and desire to kill can be traced back to a period of their adolescent life where they developed the need to satisfy themselves and further practice their deviancy. This behaviour characteristic is not developed by everyone but may be developed by people who were struggling with something mentally and felt obliged to kill to relieve themselves from a 'bad omen'.

Salvador Ramos shot his grandmother in the head and left for the school earlier that morning. At 11.33am Ramos entered the school through a rear door. Alerted of a shooter in the building, teachers moved to protect their students. When one teacher tried to lock the classroom door, the gunman shot out a door window. The teacher retreated and the gunman followed her. He said 'Goodnight', then shot her. Miah Cerrillo, 11, feared he would come back for her and a few surviving friends. She covered her hands with the blood of a classmate slain next to. She played dead to hide herself from the shooter. At one point Miah and a classmate managed to use the phone of their dead teacher to call 911. 'Please come', she told the dispatcher 'We’re in trouble'.

It was said that there was no meaningful reason for the attack, but Ramos had been suffering with mental health issues prior to the attack. People who had claimed to know the individual said he liked to hurt animals and was deeply disturbing. Maybe Ramos had a significant event in his life that led to the start of his issues and just spiralled out of control at the end.

Who kill more, men or women? About 90% of all homicide cases recorded worldwide are committed by men. 93% of killers convicted of murder between

March 2018 and March 2020 were men, while two thirds of all suspects identified themselves as white. In the year March 2020, the number of male victims rose by 20%, from 422 to 506, while the number of female victims fell by 16%, from 225 to 188. Female victims were more commonly killed by a partner, ex-partner or a family member, while for males the suspected killer was more commonly a friend, stranger or another known person. Almost 80% of female victims were killed in or around a home, and only 11% took place in public. Women were also less likely to be killed by strangers. Knives are the most common weapon in all murders, but almost one in six female victims were killed by strangulation.

A familicide is a type of murder in which an individual kills multiple close family members in quick succession, most often children, spouses, siblings, or parents. In half the cases, the killer kills themselves last in a murder-suicide. As an example the documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door portrays a family of four where the father takes an interest in a younger woman. He ends up killing his wife and his two young daughters. If only the parents are killed, the case may also be referred to as a parricide. Where all members of a family are killed, the crime may be referred to as family annihilation. Familicides were used as an enhanced punishment in ancient China, the 'nine familial exterminations' was the killing of an entire extended family or clan, usually for treason. It was used in Nazi Germany to punish and sometimes execute the relatives of defectors, and anyone involved in the 20 July Plot. This type of killing is mostly associated with power/control killing, as the killing is linked to the power and ability to control a family.

In conclusion many serial killers lack meaning. There is great variety in the motivation of serial killers that lead them to take the lives of others. Serial killers achieve great satisfaction from the act of killing. Whether the killer is visionary, mission-oriented, hedonistic or power/control, their reasons for killing might be different, but the pleasure they gain from the act of killing drives them to complete the act repeatedly. The gratification they receive from the act of murder differentiates from one-time murderers who kill incidentally, or to help commit or conceal another crime. This motivation drives all serial killers to the same outcome. The most significant reasons can usually be traced back to childhood events and traumas.

References: Please see the Appendix on page 78. Images: Hopman, M. (2020) Gun Crime. Unsplash.com.

Reality Versus Rhetoric in Sport: Are

Women Being Presented as Being Something They Are Not?

Ella Hogeboom, Fourth Form, Swift House. Allen Scholar - Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

Whyaren’t there many inspirational female sports women? This is a question I have asked myself a lot over my life and now getting a chance to investigate in more depth. As a girl interested in sport, I would love to be more aware of female sporting role models. However, I do not have a female equivalent of Kylian Mbappé or Cristiano Ronaldo, at least not one that is made as much of a publicised idol as they are. I admit that there is a drive to create more equal opportunities for both genders across all sectors in sport; however, there is still room for improvement to allow men and women to be presented as equals in the world of sport.

Social Sciences

What is a stereotype?

A common dictionary definition of a stereotype is ‘a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.’ Stereotypes in sport have always been challenges that female athletes have had to fight against, and the stereotypes have tended to default to gender presentation extremes. Some very extreme examples that have been haunting sports history include the 'fact' that ‘women are weak minded’ or ‘they need a male representing them to be able to hold their ground.’ On one end of the spectrum, we get the well-built, fit, aggressive, popular, young male footballer who is always mixed up in some drama or another and on the other end we get the shy, talented, inexperienced, female gymnast.

Publicity: impacts of the media

Stereotypes set by the media obviously have an impact on sport-players’ performances as well as their mental health. The media subconsciously shapes our view of the world around us, and has much influence over us the media consumer these days. Athletes' professional and personal lives are publicly dissected by the media. Media pundits, gossip columnists and tabloid journalists seem to spent more time critiquing female athletes than their male counterparts, and both negative and positive reviews can be damaging. Take the case of 2004 Japanese Junior World Champion figure skater, Miki Ando. She was invited to compete in the women’s national figure skating team in the 2006 Torino Olympics. However, after her athletic performance suffered in 2005, the media started to complain that she did not deserve this opportunity.

At the same 2004 Olympic Games, Chinese athletes - who had been confidently predicted to make the stand but then did not – were supported by their nation as officials blamed their failure on the media. An editorial in the China Daily claimed 'the hype caused the athletes to become overconfident and resulted in athletic incompetence' (China Daily, in Ott, 2008). Studies show that distractions such as these cause higher levels of anxiety and stress, and result in higher energy consumption for the athlete (Ott, 2008). In addition, the media, which is always drawn to the aesthetic to draw in consumers, tends to give prominence to images of female athletes who meet the traditional criteria of beauty (sometimes called the ‘Barbie model’ image), which creates false expectations in athletes and the public alike. In order to become those models, many sports people turn to drugs and other harmful solutions. This can have negative impacts on their mental health as well as their athletic performance. Corey Cogdell-Unrein (Olympic Bronze medal Women’s Trap Shooter) was only appreciated for her achievement and skill through her husband, Mitch Unrein, and not as herself. For example, the Chicago Tribute (posted on Twitter, now X) originally published a headline reading ‘Wife of a Bear’s line-man wins a bronze medal today in Rio Olympics.’ There were many angry responses to the post, criticising the newspaper for not using her name and so not presenting her achievement as

hers, and going on to point out that her marital status was surely irrelevant to her athletic achievement (Nashrulla, 2016).

Stereotypical issues: Culture and funding

Athletes, and especially female athletes, are so busy trying to either deny, challenge or live up to the stereotypes that it is damaging for their mental health. Serena Williams has experienced body shaming in the media against her ‘masculine build’, as it seems not to fit with the modern western stereotypical image of a female body, despite the self-evident fact that a high-performing athlete will have a physique that falls as outside the ‘traditional beauty norm’ as do the hyper-stereotyped presentations of women the media seems to so cherish and measure others against. In an interview about her experience she said: 'This is me, and this is my weapon and machine, … I can show Olympia [her nine-month-old daughter] that I struggled, but now I'm happy with who I am and what I am and what I look like' (Teen Vogue, 2018).

In addition, and as if to add insult to injury, research has shown that only 0.4% of sports sponsorships are going to women’s leagues (Gitnux, 2023). The stark disparity of the gender pay gap in sport is that it is still a shocking gap: statistics have shown that Lionel Messi is paid at least one hundred times more that his female counterpart, Ada Hindenburg (Drake, 2021).

Male dominance and sexism

In a 2020 BBC interview the Chelsea women’s football manager, Emma Hayes made the point that 'Male privilege has been something that has always been in the centre of football in this country. Women were banned from playing football up until the 70’s'. In the BBC Elite British Sportswomen’s survey, it stated that 65% of participants had endured sexism, and as few as 10% reported it. These numbers are steadily getting worse, with only 7% now reporting it (BBC, 2020). This could be due to the fact that female athletes are scared of jeopardising their positions if they speak up about their experiences: ‘You only have to see scores of women across the internet or in the business as either a presenter, a coach, or a player that we are routinely used to dealing with systemic misogyny and bullying and behaviour that has been pretty normal for the large part of the football public’ (Emma Hayes, 2024). A clear, if troubling, example of this was very recently seen by millions on television when Jenni Hermoso, of the Spanish Captain of Women’s football team, was taken advantage of and sexually assaulted in the 2023 Women’s FA World Cup Finals: the male football UEFA executive Luis Rubiales forcefully grabbed Hermoso’s head and kissed her for an extended period on the lips without consent. Hermoso said afterwards that ‘I felt vulnerable and a victim of aggression, an impulsive act, sexist, out of place and without any type of consent from my

part. In short, I wasn’t respected.’ After this outbreak Hermoso filed a legal complaint. Hermoso later claimed that she and her family were pressured by officials to show their support for Rubiales in the aftermath of the scandal (The Guardian, 2023). He subsequently resigned from his position in the wake of the scandal.

So even for the wrong reasons, men still seem to dominate sports coverage in the mainstream media. Several presenters at the OTT Summit USA 2022 stated that improved coverage and higher visibility enabled increased marketing, professionalism, and engagement: ‘Our vision is a world where women’s and men’s sports are perceived and viewed equally and equitably’ according to Andrea Ekblad, Rights Director of Women’s Sport, DAZN (SportsPro, 2022).

Seeking the up-and-coming stars

I would hate to think that some aspiring athletes are being deterred from sport today because of all the horror stories about how the media treat people (male and female), the strain on mental health, and stereotype prejudices. It is being portrayed to younger generations as a world where you need to constantly have your guard up especially if you’re female. The participation of girls aged 14-17 in sports is decreasing steadily by around 7% each year with only 49% of UK secondary schools offering the same opportunities

for boys as for girls. Many professional athletes are recognising the importance of role models and their influence on the younger generations. Ellie Simmonds, Swimming Double Gold Medallist at London 2012 said: ‘I always try to find time to work with young people whenever I can and hope that my success can inspire some of them to take up sport.’ This statement shows how passionate Simmonds is about her career that she wants to share her experience with the world around her. Additionally, Natasha Baker, Para-Equestrian Double Gold Medallist at London 2012, said: 'It’s very important for me to share my journey, I think that a lot of people relate to me because of my age and when I’ve shown them my medals, it has been a massive inspiration to them – I know it was for me at that age and I think it’s really important to show everyone what it’s all about and to inspire the next generation.’ (UK Sport, 2013) This also demonstrates how Baker sees the importance of a role model that people can relate to and has gone through similar circumstances to get where they are. This is beneficial as it encourages the younger generation to dream for something that they feel that they can achieve and that striving to become an athlete is within their possibilities.

Conclusion

The reality is that, in 2024, women’s sport is still being marginalised: investments in women’s leagues are

small compared to their male counterparts, and the participation of girls in sports is slowly decreasing. Across all other sectors of society, gender equality seems to be being actively fought for, and seemingly increasingly gained: yet sport seems to be the last place in society where male privilege exists so prevalently. On the other hand, despite the decline in female engagements in schools sports at 14-17, later interest in women’s sport is rising, which is consequently bringing more funding into the industry and more opportunities along with it. This benefits both aspiring sports people and professional ones, so hopefully nurturing a safer, more equal an enjoyable

References:

BBC Sport (2023) Emma Hayes: Chelsea manager says women are used to 'systemic misogyny' [Online]. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/67661814. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Castillo, L. (2023) Gender Inequality in Sports Statistics [Fresh Research] [Online]. Available at: https://gitnux.org/gender-inequality-in-sports-statistics. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Drake, M. (2021) Sexism in sport and why it still needs to change [Online]. Available at: https://buzz.bournemouth.ac.uk/2021/01/sexism-in-sport-and-why-it-stillneeds-to-change. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Evitts, J. and Grey, J. (2024) Fran Kirby: Young players 'not shocked' by star's body image comments [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-67933327. Accessed 10.01.24.

Goodwin, H. (no date) How does social media negatively affect athletes? [Online]. Available at: https://sportsmanist.com/how-social-media-negatively-affectsathletes#toc-heading-3. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Gregoriou, S. (2023) Female athletes: Stereotypes and public opinion and how it affects self-image [Online] Available at: https://moneysmartathlete.com/women-athletes/ female-athletes-stereotypes-and-public-opinion-and-how-it-affects-self-image. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Grey, B. (2020) Sportswomen share experiences of sexism and the reasons they do not report it [Online]. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/53593465. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Ibaceta, A. (2023) 'I felt the victim of aggression, a sexist act' - Jenni Hermoso's statement in full. The Guardian [Online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/ football/2023/aug/25/i-felt-the-victim-of-aggression-a-sexist-act-jenni-hermososstatement-in-full. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Liu, Z. (2023) Sport–gender stereotypes and their impact on impression evaluation [Online]. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02132-9

McCaskill, S. (2022). 'We’ve got to keep pushing forward': Why greater media coverage of women’s sport will provide the platform for equality [Online]. Available at: https:// www.sportspromedia.com/insights/features/womens-sport-media-tv-equality-daznata-football-togethxr/?zephr_sso_ott=OCzkdq. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Nashrulla, T. (2016) People were pissed at this 'sexist' tweet about an Olympic winner [Online]. Available at: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/shehas-a-name. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Ott, K. (2008) Does the media impact athletic performance? The Sport Journal [Online]. Available at: https://thesportjournal.org/article/does-the-media-impactathletic-performance. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Park, A. (2018) Serena Williams addresses the body shaming she's experienced for having muscles. Teen Vogue [Online]. Available at: https://www.teenvogue.com/ story/serena-williams-addresses-the-body-shaming-shes-experienced-for-havingmuscles. Accessed: 10.01.24.

UK Sport (2013) Inspiring a generation: The athlete's perspective [Online]. Available at: https://www.uksport.gov.uk/news/2013/07/23/inspiring-a-generation-the-athletesperspective. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Waldia, T. (2020) Gender biases and stereotypes towards women in sports [Online]. Available at: https://playandshine.wordpress.com/2020/08/20/gender-biasesstereotypes-towards-women-in-sports. Accessed: 10.01.24.

Images:

Brownless, N. (2024) Footballer Claire Rafferty coaching Cokethorpe girls

Brownless, N. (2024) Women's FA Cup.

Chng, J. (2018) Women running on track. Unsplash.com.

Kirklai (2019) Woman skating. Unsplash.com.

Social Sciences

From Farm to Fork: Do We Really Know What Goes Into Producing our Food?

George Keates, Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh House. Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

Every single minute the world consumes almost five million kilos of food. This number clearly shows the remarkable amount of food we humans eat. This food, however, has a story. Behind every carrot, strawberry and piece of steak there is a process; a story that grants us access to these. From the very beginning, we have the hardworking and committed farmers who plant, grow, and harvest these everyday essential items and at the end is us, the general public. Every day we go to a shop, pick up the groceries we need for the week and place them in a basket and pay. But every day we overlook the process of how these foods got to our shopping baskets and the work that goes into getting them there. In England, 78% of the population don’t know where their food comes from. This worrying statistic proves that people are ill-educated when it comes to the things they eat. With this massive percentage of the population not being informed about what is being put on their plate, more needs to be done to raise awareness about the hard work carried out by countless people.

Most people when they go to a shop walk around looking at prices, searching for the cheapest price they can get. This causes two things. Poor choice in terms of quality and poor choice in terms of from where their food is sourced. Often, lower priced foods come from places that are of less regulated and, for the most part, have worse conditions than here in the United Kingdom. The primary nation the United Kingdom imports from is China. China's network of food production, in particular meat production, paves a way for cheap meat due to the mass production. However, the conditions the livestock are brought up in are poor and significantly under regulated. We hear stories of pigs being born at the top of a 25-storey

building, they are slaughtered, packaged and placed in a lorry. These animals have never touched fresh grass, seen full daylight and experienced the real world. This captivity is inhumane. Of course, there is the argument that the world is growing, and more food is needed to feed the growing population. However, the way this is done is simply wrong. According to the Office for National Statistics (GOV.UK, 2022), just under two billion pounds of meat trade was made with China in 2022.

With a population of 68 million, the United Kingdom is a global powerhouse for agriculture and food production. The agri-food sector contributed £128.3bn

to national Gross Value Added in 2021 and exported British made produce estimated around £20.2bn. These statistics demonstrate the apparent scale of the British food and agriculture sector (GOV.UK, 2022). However, behind all these statistics there are an estimated 103,900 farmers working in the United Kingdom all working to produce these foods. The effort of these farmers goes unnoticed every time someone purchases something. This unnoticed effort is the driving force behind our everyday lives and needs for attention.

Another issue British farmers and growers face is prices. It is essential in any form of business to get the best price possible, and farming is no different. Often when going to a supermarket people look for the cheapest option to save money and not harm their pocket. This of course makes sense; however, it can cause significant issues. By choosing this cheaper option you are not backing the best option; well looked after, cared for food. Instead, you are choosing the mass-produced option which is often unethical and poor quality. In the UK the average price for a 12-ounce steak is £4.10. This factors in both sides of the scale. But to better support the hardworking farmers and to give yourself the better culinary experience, it is essential to the choose the more expensive, locally sourced option. This is where Farm to Fork comes in.

Farm to Fork

Farm to Fork refers to the process of food production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food with the aim of transparency and sustainability. This process begins right at the very beginning, with the preparation of feed for the animals, right to the very end where it goes into your mouth. The process aims to promote better choice, both in terms of what to eat and where it has come from. Often this involves the so called 'local choice' in which the food which ends up on your plate has only travelled in a 50-mile radius. This in turn helps to reduce the environmental impact of the food you eat, as well as helping the farmer local to you. Also, it ensures that the supply chain is shortened and ensures consumers have clear information regarding the origin and production of their food. This is essential to building a better understanding of where our food comes from and how it is produced. Furthermore, through Farm to Fork the farmer benefits. Despite the cost of the produce being greater to the consumer and it costing the farmer more to produce, the farmer comes away with a bigger profit margin than they would from the likes of a supermarket or a wholesaler. This helps to boost the farmers income, granting them further stability.

Farm to Fork also helps to boost the consumers knowledge of where their food comes from. People

need to know where their food comes from. Food, to most people, is just something that is put in front of them: they eat it and think little, if anything, of what is in it.

Your beef burger's journey

Take a beef burger. A bun, patty, lettuce, tomato, ketchup... the lot. All of these things have to be produced and many do not know how these are produced. The bun is produced from a wide mix of ingredients, such as flour, which is planted, harvested, and then milled. All of this is done by hardworking farmers who take pride and care in production. These smaller things are the things people do not think about and are the main cause of concern. It appears, in everyday life, to be such a distant phenomenon for most.

This is where Farm to Fork is essential and needs to become a significantly more prominent factor when choosing food and raising awareness in the consumer base. With Farm to Fork, transparency is critical: it provides a clear view of where the food is produced and how, often down to a precise and specific thing,

such as the fertiliser used on the field or the ration of food given to the cow. This precision grants the consumer a chance to see the full journey of their food. It is down to technology and the willing of farmers that this can be achieved. Through this, the farmers also benefit, through granting better ways of managing their stock or allowing them to sell for higher prices due to this added transparency. This also helps later down the line when the food is on the shelf. If Farm to Fork is followed, people will want to know where their food comes from and how it is produced and by allowing a clear line of transparency, retailers can align themselves and also promote this local, sustainably sourced approach.

Farm to Fork: for a healthier lifestyle

Farm to Fork also promotes the need for a healthier lifestyle and promoting a healthier choice. This is critical, especially in the current day where significant proportions of the population choose a less healthy option. This may be through choosing a ready-made meal compared to making the same meal at home or having an abundant amount of fast food and takeaways. Farm to Fork seeks to raise awareness about the poor decisions and instead focus on a better option which is as easily accessible and better for health. According to a Statista report for 2020, the fast-food market in the United Kingdom is worth roughly £18 billion. Between 2020 and 2025, the market is anticipated to expand by around 4% per year. This expansion is fuelled by many factors, including an expanding population and an expanding

economy. This expansion does, however, increase the issues caused by fast food and other unhealthy sources of food. This is a cause for concern and must be recognised by everyone and not just a select few. It is also apparent that the Government need to do more in order to raise awareness about this harmful and growing issue which impacts everyone.

Farm to Fork... to fast food

On a separate note, it is clear that accessibility is another issue which is brought up surrounding Farm to Fork and fast food. Both face positive and negatives in terms of accessibility. Fast food is designed to be fast and easily accessible, however, Farm to Fork has faced scrutiny for its accessibility, as it involves a more local approach, the infrastructure and supply network is underdeveloped. This means produce rarely makes it to a local supermarket as it has to follow a strict and lengthy process in order to be put in an easily accessible place. This causes significant issues in terms of both the consumer and the producer being able to fulfil the Farm to Fork goal. This limits its effectiveness and is something that needs to be solved in order for the process to work effectively. A way to solve this is through having better communication and commitment from large food retailers. If they work with farmers on a local level they will be easily able to achieve the sourcing of better quality and better produced food. This will

obviously come at a cost, however, will ultimately help to reduce the negative impact certain foods have and boost the UK’s food production, both on a local level but also a national and international level.

Conclusion

More needs to be done to ensure people are aware of where their food comes from and how it is produced. At the moment significant amounts of poorly sourced food is consumed which is causing issues. Along with the poor treatment of British farmers and producers and the use of foreign sources, more needs to be done to promote the better option for both consumer and producer. This is something that farm to form clearly seeks to achieve; however, more needs to be done to ensure its integrity and further its ability to protect all parties in the process. It can also be said there needs to be more intervention and control from the government over this as it affects everyone and is a growing and concerning issue. It is also not just relevant to the UK, it is a global issue which countries and people from across the world need to unite on to ensure the issue does not spread and worsen.

References:

BBC (n.d.) Jeremy Vine in the afternoon [Radio Broadcast].

GOV.UK (2022) Food statistics in your pocket [Online]. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/ government/statistics/food-statistics-pocketbook/food-statistics-in-your-pocket.

ONS (n.d.) BoP: Current Account: Goods & Services: Imports: China Office for National Statistics [Online]. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/ balanceofpayments/timeseries/lgle/ukea.

Statista (2022). Topic: Fast food restaurants in the United Kingdom (UK). Statista [Online]. Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/8974/fast-food-restaurants-inthe-united-kingdom-uk/#topicOverview.

Images:

Goodwill, S. (2017) Combine harvester. Unsplash.com.

Mclean, E. (2020) Cutlery. Unsplash.com. Quaritsch Photography (2019) Cows. Unsplash.com. Starstev, A. (2021) Burger. Unsplash.com.

Social Sciences

Truth, Deception, and the Human Mind: Is The Perfect Lie Truly Possible?

Oscar Luckett,

Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh House. Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

Lying: the act of conveying a false impression or practicing deception, it’s something we all do, and to which we are all exposed. Whether the lies be of the 'white' variety (a lie told with good intentions), or the more malicious kind, an average person living in the West will be lied to at least ten times a day, although that number has been known to reach as many as two hundred (Meyer, n.d.).

Humans have been lying for millennia and as a result, we like to think that we have become quite good at it. Indeed, we are often proud of ourselves when we manage to deceive someone, especially if it provides personal gain. Often our lies will go undetected, leading us to consider ourselves talented falsifiers. We attribute our ability to deceive to our own skill at hiding the truth, but in this sense, we are lying to ourselves. The real reason we get away with lying is because the victim of our deception doesn’t know how to recognise a liar. The truth is that our bodies betray our lies every time, and it is not within our control. In this way, we are a species of very bad liars, so is it possible to tell a perfect lie?

The science of how our body betrays us

How exactly does our body betray our deceptions?

And why is it nearly impossible to control? Put simply, it is all in the mind. Lying is a very conscious act, and while we deceive, we must pay close attention to our story to keep it consistent and believable. Acting on impulse is not an option. Unfortunately for us, we have a system in our brains, known as the Limbic

System or the Lizard Brain, which reacts to everything with pure instinct, and it is the action stimulated by this system which betrays us (Navarro and Karlins, 2009).

The importance of the Limbic system

The Limbic System was one of the earliest systems to develop, and therefore is also one of the most primitive. Its purpose was to ensure our survival, and it brought about systems such as the Freeze, Flight, or Fight response, which was triggered whenever humans faced danger, whether it be from predators or otherwise. These days, the same limbic responses are still being exhibited because the lizard brain was so good at its function that it barely changed with evolution. The only thing that seems to have drastically altered is that modern day limbic responses are triggered by dramatically different stimuli (Navarro and Karlins, 2009). Rather than the Freeze, Flight, or Fight response being enacted due to an encounter with a predator, or a warring tribe, we now exhibit the symptoms when faced with a business deal we don’t like, a colleague who unnerves us, or while watching

a frightening film. In addition to facilitating human survival, the limbic system is also in control of the expression of human emotions, and it is its control over emotion which allows it to betray us (Cuddy, n.d.).

By learning to read non-verbal, emotional 'leakage' (Meyer, n.d.), facilitated by the Limbic System, we can learn to detect when another is deceiving us; the best place to start searching, while in conversation, is the face. Although it is the least honest part of the body, it is less intrusive to search for deception in the face than it is to search the most honest part of the body, the legs, which have garnered such a reputation due to their close link to the Limbic System, a connection established and strengthened due to their instrumental role in the Freeze, Flight or Fight response. (Navarro and Karlins, 2009).

Micro-Expressions

The most dramatic example of non-verbal leakage in the face is the 'micro-expression' discovered, and the term coined, by an American psychologist named Dr Paul Ekman.

A micro-expression is a facial expression, visible for one-fifth of a second, which displays a person’s true feelings before a mask of the emotion the person wishes to display comes up to disguise it (Ekman, 2023). Ekman discovered the micro-expression while working as a psychiatrist in 1967. He would record the interviews held with his patients and watch them back to further his ongoing research into human emotion.

Whilst working with a patient known to have lied during the session, Ekman slowed the footage and noticed, for a brief moment, an expression revealing true emotion moments before they regained deceptive composure.

Additionally, Ekman, with his friend and fellow psychiatrist Walter Friesen, travelled to Papua New Guinea to study the emotional expression of a society almost untouched by Western influence. The experiment was designed to prove a theory originally stated by Charles Darwin in his work 'The Expression of The Emotions in Man and Animals' (1872), in which he suggested that human emotion was a product of evolution and natural selection, and would, therefore, be expressed identically in every human on the planet.

Darwin’s theory had been opposed by a contemporary of Ekman named Margaret Mead, who was adamant that there was plenty of evidence to suggest the exact opposite. She asserted that emotion was displayed uniquely depending on the culture of the individual, (Beaty, 2014) that it was a product of nurture rather than nature.

However, Ekman and Friesen discovered that Darwin was correct, and found that, from the very moment they arrived in the tribe’s village, the emotions displayed by the tribesmen were identical to that which they had witnessed back in the USA.

Seven Universal Emotions

After noticing this phenomenon on the faces of many other of his patients, and from those in the Papua New Guinea study, he concluded that there were seven universal emotions expressed identically in every human on the planet: happiness, sadness, contempt, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust. Furthermore, he revealed his theory on microexpressions to the world (Paul Ekman Group, 2023). Using his new-found knowledge, he developed a program called the Facial Action Coding System, or FACS, which analyses recordings of people’s faces, in order to numerically outline which muscles are functioning, and to read micro-expressions that others may miss.

Learning to recognise and interpret micro-expressions is an incredibly valuable skill to possess, since it is a sure-fire way to discern the true emotions a person is harbouring. It is a brilliant example of the limbic system in action. The micro-expression is the limbic, reactionary response to the emotional stimulus. The 0.2 second delay between the micro-expression surfacing and the mask being installed, is a depiction of the time-lag which takes place when one person is attempting to deceive another.

This is only one of the myriad examples of this form of leakage which deception experts use to catch liars. In fact, people who can read and interpret this kind of signal are so often accurate that law-enforcement agencies such as the FBI employ them and their techniques to hunt criminals. Joe Navarro is one such person; an ex-FBI agent who literally wrote the book on reading non-verbal leakage.

Catching Liars: Spies, the FBI and playing poker

Joe Navarro was an FBI agent for twenty-five years and worked in the spy-catching department of the agency. He developed a skill for reading nonverbal communication at a very young age, when he arrived in the United States from Cuba. Initially unable to speak any English, when joining school, he learned, instead, to read his classmates’ body language (Navarro and Karlins, 2009). As an adult, he was recruited to the FBI to help catch spies (Navarro, 2020).

In his book; What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People, written with Marvin Karlins, Navarro provides examples of a multitude of different non-verbals. To outline the

utility and truth of his methods, he litters the book with anecdotes from his own work in which he uses his ability to read others to discover the truth.

As a spy-catcher, he dealt with people highly trained in the art of lying. In one story he gives an account of how he and his colleagues apprehended three rogue agents by reading micro-expressions. Navarro describes how at one point in his career he was interrogating an American spy, who had confessed to being involved in espionage against the USA, but who would not name his co-conspirators. Navarro appealed to his morality and his conscience but made no headway, and so resorted to speed-reading.

He and his colleague provided the spy with flashcards, with names of suspects written on them. The spy was asked to describe his relationship with the person whose name appeared on the card. While his words were of no interest, his reactions to the names on the cards provided sufficient evidence. On two separate occasions, when registering the name before him, the spy leaked a micro-expression of surprise, his eyes widened momentarily, and his brow raised, before his pupils contracted and his eyes narrowed. The initial expression showed shock and worry that the name was in contention, and the second suggested he felt the names were putting him in danger. Navarro and his fellow agent took note and questioned the two agents to whom the spy had reacted. Sure enough, they confessed to their crimes, and to working with the first agent arrested (Navarro and Karlins, 2009).

However, the art of speed-reading is not only applicable to the world of law-enforcement. For Christmas in 2023, I received a poker set from a friend and immediately set about learning the rules and playing it with members of my family. While playing I was, of course, trying to analyse my fellow players to discern what their 'tells' might be. A 'tell' is an unconscious action that is thought to betray an attempted deception. In other words, a less formal and scientific term for an instance of non-verbal, limbic communication.

In a head-to-head with my brother – who is not a brilliant liar at the best of times – I had been unable to deduce whether he was bluffing. He had been displaying a shoulder twitch which I knew from my research, to be a sign of deception (Navarro and Karlins, 2009). I had not realised that this was, in fact, caused by a genuinely cricked neck rather than a lie. Going into the final round, I lacked confidence in my own hand whilst my brother was continually upping the stakes.

Like my father in the previous round, I was heading for a clear-out, but when it came to playing 'the river' (the final community card played in Texas Hold-em, the version of poker we had been learning), my brother’s lip twitched into a very subtle smile as he pushed all his betting chips into the pot. Had I not been researching this article at the time, I would most likely have lost that game, but as luck would have it, earlier that day I had been looking into micro-expressions and was more highly aware of them.

As my brother looked from his hand to the community cards, he had seemingly leaked an expression of happiness, but I noticed something different. Before he twitched me a smile, I had noticed the corners of his mouth turn down very slightly, and very briefly, and his eyebrows had come together. A micro-expression of sadness.

I went 'all in' calling my brother’s bluff, and with fortune favouring me, the micro-expression speedreader, my brother turned over a completely powerless hand. He had been relying on the appearance of a specific suit but had not been so lucky. His limbic system had registered his disappointment before he could cover it up and had leaked a micro-expression which I interpreted correctly, allowing me to win the game.

Can we tell a perfect lie?

What both examples prove is that for everyone, whether you be a fourteen-year-old schoolboy, or a mature agent trained in the art of deception, these non-verbal leakages are still present, nearly impossible to quash, and in reading them we can tell, with almost complete certainty, when a person is lying.

So, is it possible for a person to tell a perfect, undetectable lie?

The short answer is no. A typical human being cannot lie without their limbic system giving them away. However, there are ways in which a person can relax their body, by taking a muscle-relaxant for example, which can hinder the responses of the limbic system making them more subtle or stop them surfacing entirely (Navarro and Karlins, 2009).

This is not fool proof since the effects of taking such a drug differ slightly from person to person and is, of course, extremely dangerous. I would suggest that telling the truth will be less damaging in the long run than muscle relaxants. Setting that aside for the moment, we cannot rely on there being musclerelaxants at hand in situations where deception is deemed to be necessary. Thus, the perfect lie is still not achievable.

Is

it necessary to tell the perfect lie?

Perhaps a more pertinent question would consider whether it is necessary to tell the perfect lie. Learning to read non-verbals accurately and consistently in all their variety takes years to perfect. Navarro admits that even he does not know everything there is to know about the science (Navarro and Karlins, 2009).

If someone manages to detect and interpret a nonverbal correctly, there is a good chance that this is

more by luck than by judgement. I know that I have been lied to many times without detection.

Being able to lie verbally, in most scenarios, is sufficient. We are not often faced with a Navarro or Ekman who can spot our deceptions a mile away. The perfect lie doesn’t need to be possible.

Why lie at all?

Therefore, the final question I would like to propose is this: why lie at all? With the possible exceptions of 'white lies', why do we ever need to deceive anyone? Even on a purely practical level, a lie may provide instant protection or relief, but remembering to stick to that same story, and maintaining the illusion, becomes nearly impossible as time progresses, and eventually our deceptions come back to bite us. Surely, if the world was honest as a matter of course, all our lives, and the lives of everything around us, would be improved dramatically. Surely a world in which we do not need people like Navarro and Ekman, is a better world in which to live.

Conclusion

I am sure that this too is a pipedream, a fantasy, and that the world will continue to lie to itself for the rest of recorded time. In that case, at least we can take solace in the fact that the perfect lie is practically impossible to commit, and if we know what to look for, we can, theoretically, detect them every time.

References:

Beatty, A. (2014) Anthropology and emotion. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute [Online]. 20(3), pp.545–563. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/ stable/43907704. Accessed: 12 November 2023.

Cuddy, A. (2012) Your body language may shape who you are. [Online]. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_ may_shape_who_you_are?language=en. Accessed: 15 October 2023

Ekman, P. (2017) Micro Expressions | Facial Expressions | Paul Ekman Group [Online]. Available at: https://www.paulekman.com/resources/micro-expressions.

Meyer, P. (n.d.) How to spot a liar [Online]. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/ pamela_meyer_how_to_spot_a_liar?referrer=playlist-5_talks_on_the_truth_about_lyi. Accessed: 1 December 2023.

Navarro, J. and Karlins, M. (2009) What every body is saying: an Ex-FBI agent’s guide to speed-reading people. New York: William Morrow, An Imprint Of Harpercollins Publishers.

Paul Ekman Group (2013) About Paul Ekman | Emotion Psychologist [Online]. Available at: https://www.paulekman.com/about/paul-ekman.

Paul Ekman Group. (n.d.) Dr. Ekman Explains Facial Action Coding System (FACS) [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMlN2sJAThA. Accessed: 15 October 2023.

Navarro, J. (2020) The Power of Nonverbal Communication | Joe Navarro | TEDxManchester. YouTube [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=fLaslONQAKM. Accessed: 10 October 2023.

Images:

Lopez, M. (2019) Woman sitting on chair. Pexels.com. Pixabay (2016) Playing cards. Pexels.com.

Social Sciences

Post Darwinism, are Science and Religion Able to Coexist?

Ellie Lunn, Fourth Form, Swift House. Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

Whenyou picture science and religion working side by side you do not see a land of harmony, where two opposites perfectly coexist hand in hand. You picture a vengeful, aggravated disagreement between faith and evidence, constantly hammering heads like two bulls in a bull ring. Yet, whilst delving down into the depths of both topics, I have wondered if this is always the case. Instead, science and religion can be proven to be integral to one another, sharing perspectives of the world and developing ideas from each other.

A common factor amongst both science and religion is the desire to explore different realms of human experiences. They seek to find knowledge of the world around us, providing answers to existential questions. Science seeks to understand the world through observations, experimenting and evidence-based research; finding factual figures and data to support a hypothesis. Whereas religion often deals with questions of meaning; purpose, values and faith. All the while, religion and science both give explanations for the meaning of life and how the universe exists. Some may say that religion and science are dependent upon one another. 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind' (Coyne, 2013). Yet, another aspect is the two being completely contradictory or unable to find an equal middle ground: 'Science and religion are like oil and water. They might coexist, but they can never mix to produce a homogeneous medium' (Victor, 2017). This is an ongoing debate that has been ongoing since the dawn of Darwinism and continues to divide opinions in the modern day. The dictionary definition for ‘coexisting’ is 'to exist at the same time or in the same place'. Whether incompatible or harmonious, dependant or coexisting, science and religion are proven to be a necessity.

In 1859, scientist Charles Darwin hypothesised the Theory of Evolution. By completely altering what humans know as factual belief brought discomfort within society. This idea of man being descendants of animals such as apes sent fury and questions to Darwin: How could this man take away the divinity of mankind? How could he deny that humanity is created in God’s image? Humans believed they had a sense of superiority and hierarchy within the animal kingdom, which quickly became diminished by his indigestible theory. Darwin’s discovery was fiercely debated then, as it is now. The imposed question of whether the existence of natural selection was to be true or not relied entirely on the views of society.

As described by The Strange Death of Europe; there had been ‘two seismic blows’; the questioning of

religion followed by the theory of evolution from which religion has never truly fully recovered. Starting at German universities, in 1825 Edward Pusey was sent from the University of Oxford to Germany to investigate critics of the Bible. Word spread to England and the impact continues to be felt two centuries later. The arguments sent a tidal wave of Biblical criticism which washed over the European continent. For the first time, the Bible was up for critical analysis, like any other text, devaluing its meaning and going against its teachings. Some people pretended that the changes had already been answered or were simply just not relevant. Members of the church and religious people soon realised that a major shift had happened and that they should shift as well. Though the origin of life continued to remain a mystery, civilisation soon began to doubt that this entire mystery was completely solved by faith (Murray, 2017). Soon, religion seemed less and less plausible in the eyes of the continent.

Prior to Darwinism, prior to religion, during a time of the enhancement of mankind, a primitive method of forming groups started to develop. As described in Sapiens the ability to come together in groupings originated through a method of gossip. This is a direct correlation with our chimpanzee cousins, who often live in small troops of several dozen individuals forming close bonds. Like chimps, humans were able to form groups and hierarchies through social instincts. Yet there was a limitation for these groups of individuals. 'Sociological researchers have shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals.' Larger groupings can neither have relationships above this number, nor gossip effectively (Harari, 2011).

So how does this tie in with religion? Our modern societies have grown from something other than gossip; something you cannot see or touch; a common belief system. We were able to transgress the barrier of 150 people through this commonality. Religion enables strangers, who have nothing else in common, to cooperate. Whether it be two Christians from different parts of the world organising a church

being built in a foreign country or thousands of Christians being called to arms across the European continent during the Crusades, it is done through the commonality of religion. Religion is the foundational rock from which our villages, towns, cities, countries and even Empires are born. We can live together, knowing nothing personal about our neighbours, but being bound nonetheless by the common belief system and the morals that stem from it. With society being built on religion and forming such an institutional bedrock, it is clear to see how damaging – not only the theological questions being posed at the time – Darwin’s Theory of Evolution has been. The question that needs to be asked is this: if religion is the foundation of our societies, how long can it stand after the foundations have been destroyed with theological critical thoughts and scientific theories? Another way to express this idea is: if society is the tree, and religion is the roots that feed the tree, how long will the tree survive after the roots have withered? In the words of Roger Scruton: 'Without Christianity, our society could become even more unmoored or be hauled onto a very different shore' (Murray, 2017).

Darwin laid the foundations for a new era in scientific enquiries. He arguably created one of the ‘greatest breakouts in the history of science’. As science progressed, God became obsolete; there was less need for a God to explain the universe. While the world slowly progressed into becoming science-dominated, the religious faith began to decline. The best argument for God’s existence comes from science itself, which withholds the greatest answers that contradict religion.

Religion serves various purposes and has evolved over time. Originally, it aimed to achieve the goals of salvation for oneself and others. To render due worship and obedience to God in the hope of fulfilling heavenly attainment. Nowadays, religion does not fit neatly inside a box and instead is more fluid and personal. It can be going to church, living by commandments, or finding solace in the answers to the unknown. Religion is multifaceted, encompassing beliefs, practices, and cultural traditions. From a scientific perspective, it's studied as a sociocultural phenomenon, examining its impact on individuals and society. Psychologically, it helps us understand human behaviour and well-being. Non-practicing, offers meaning, purpose, and guidance, providing comfort, hope, and a sense of community. Religion provides answers to existential questions and moral principles. In times of

difficulty, religion provides structure and support.

Globally pondered questions linger between science and religion. Some remain unanswerable in the scientific realm which provides a counteraction in the scientific belief. Society craves answers; we crave answers. Something only tangibly done by the human species; the desire for the fulfilment of knowledge. Science typically brushes off these huge inquiries and leaves them as ‘undiscovered’. Whereas religion has an answer for almost everything theological, causing atheists to believe that there is very rarely historical evidence, instead looking inwards into faith.

There is a counteraction between the belief of science and religion able to complement each other whilst offering different reasons for the world and our human existence. Questions of why and how are withheld by science and religion, which posit an illusory barrier between these questions and their answers—a threshold that must not be crossed. Science typically ponders questions of how: ‘how has the world been created?’ Whereas religion asks questions of why: ‘why did God create the world?’ Each remain separate from the other. Looking upon these perspectives, there could be a sense of compatibility.

This battle between science and religion is also reflected in literature. Authors such as Mary Shelley wrote a book around this period which depicted the ongoing debate through fictional stories. Books such as Frankenstein were inspired by Darwinism, sharing views of the interpretation of society in the nineteenth century. This continued to encourage civilisation to think through a different mindset. Frankenstein reveals the action of rejecting God as the creator of life and instead humans ‘playing God’. Mary Shelley even felt a sense of shame and blasphemy after writing her novel as in some people’s eyes she was contesting the position of God, similar to Darwin.

To conclude, science and religion can complement each other whilst offering different perspectives on the world and our human experiences. Charles Darwin played a pivotal role in the changes of perspective people experienced from the nineteenth century. Between the two, they both share a fundamental role in the making and development of society. Not only is it possible for science and religion to coexist, but one may argue that it is integral, considering the foundational importance of religion to our society.

References:

Please see the Appendix on page 78.

Images: Martins, B. (2017) Statue of Charles Darwin. Unsplash.com.

What is Consciousness?

Caellum Sharp, Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh House. Supervised by Mr Waldron.

Consciousness is an extremely tricky term to pin down. This essay will cover the scientific ideas on what consciousness is, and the philosophical aspects of the ‘hard problem of consciousness’. Furthermore, it will question whether the ‘hard problem’ is really the best way of searching for a way to understand consciousness, and eventually whether we are simply robots that are tricked by our brain into believing a completely false reality.

Social Sciences

One of the first aspects that comes to mind when uncovering consciousness is thinking. Thinking is an extremely advanced and complicated process, one which has been discovered to be unique to only a few of the millions of species on earth. Most of these species are considered to not be ‘thinking’ – amoebas, bacteria, plants – and this is mainly because they don’t have a brain. Therefore, it can be assumed that the brain is tied to a thought – and by extension consciousness. Furthermore, science provides a clear definition for a thought; a thought is an electrical signal inside the body which is relayed through a neural network by diffusing across synapses (Cunic 2003). A specific neural pathway is known as an ‘active neural network’ and the body will create 5-8 layers of neurones along a pathway that crosses though the prefrontal cortex, the hypothalamus and into the nervous system at the brainstem. This electrical signal is then interpreted and the proper course is set out – if the thought is one of fear, then a fight or flight reaction will occur. If the thought is one which incorporates emotion, then endorphins will be

released from glands and provide a specific emotional release. However, if a thought is just an electrical signal, the question that comes to mind is about certain images that everyone experiences - vivid memories which are pictured inside our heads but are clearly not visual images we see in the moment, and which are not responses to an endorphin. Take dreaming for an example: during dreaming, we see images of things which we have sometimes never seen before. During these ‘dreams’ the brain activity is increased compared to when someone is awake – specific brainwaves are released at specific times, which are based on a sleep schedule and these can be correlated to when someone enters a ‘dream’. Some of these could possibly be accounted for by the hypothalamus (a structure inside our brains responsible for memory storage/retrieval) but science cannot explain how we see images of things that we have never known. When scientists (Cunic 2003) began to search for a reason for this, they discovered that our brains are functioning almost exactly like computers do today. A computer has a specific

sequence of 1s and 0s that tell it to do a specific process – the brain does exactly the same thing. More parallels can be drawn in this analogy - the brain also has a ‘motherboard’ (the prefrontal cortex), a ‘graphics card’ (medulla) and a ‘disk’ (hypothalamus). Hence why the brain is sometimes called the ‘living computer’. However, the problem with this is much like with dreams, computers need to have some form of an input – no computer is simply able to run by itself … yet. And this causes us to turn to a much harder realm of research – philosophy.

Science has been unable to answer this question so far – mainly because our technology is not developed enough to fully understand the brain. Although we are able to scan the brain under a PET or a CAT scan, it is extremely hard to monitor this 24/7 as especially with magnetic resonating imagery, the magnetic fields can lead to cranial damage. Therefore, we turn to the school of thought and more specifically a philosophical problem known as ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. The hard problem of consciousness is a problem that has been around for centuries. A famous philosopher by the name of David Chalmers split this question into two separate problems –known as the ‘easy problem of consciousness’ and the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ (Chalmers 2017). The easy problem of consciousness is showing how the brain gives rise to cognitive function, perception, learning and behaviour. This can all be explained by scientific advancements. However, the hard problem is stated as ‘How does matter produce subjective organisms’ (Chalmers 2017). This problem can be depicted by this example: There is a strawberry. A normal, ordinary strawberry. To me, it tastes like a ‘strawberry’ – sweet, with a slight crunch when biting into it. However, a dog comes along and because this is a thought experiment, the dog is able to talk. It asks ‘How do you like my strawberries? Very sour, and dry are they not?’ So, to a dog the ‘strawberry’ is not something sweet, with a little crunch but something very sour and dry. Yet, both are talking about the same object – which is most definitely a strawberry. What philosophers are looking to show here is a sense of individuality – what is it like for a dog to taste a strawberry in a dog way, compared to a human tasting a strawberry in their way.

One answer to this problem is reductionism. Reductionism is the thought that all complex phenomena, such as consciousness and soul, can be explained by better understood, simpler working parts (Weisberg, no date). Reductionists state that this can happen in two ways. The first is widely known as ‘strong reductionism’, which is the more commonly held opinion. This states that consciousness, which although may appear intangible and ethereal at a first glance, can be explained as physical functions of the

human body, and that the soul really is just a simple biological process. The second type of reductionism is known as ‘weak reductionism’ and is stating that consciousness is simply the most basic form of life that exists. However, the problem with reductionism is that it only solves the ‘easy problem’ and when it comes to the ‘hard problem’ reductionism fails to account for the clear difference between human beings.

Another type of answer to this problem is called ‘panpsychism’ which states that instead of trying to find consciousness in the human body, we should be searching for it everywhere. Panpsychists believe that just like how the brain is made out of billions of sub-atomic particles, consciousness is made out of billions of sub-atomic consciousness particles which each send its own experience to make a giant consciousness (Frankish 2016). This theory is extremely hard to disprove, as there is not enough sufficient evidence to make a counterargument –the only reasonable counter case is that this is too different to how humans actually physically think. If panpsychism were to be the case, humans would show some form of hive mind mentality in their thought patterns, and this is most definitely not the case, as far as we can tell. However, when it comes to the ‘hard problem of consciousness’, panpsychism, much like reductionism, fails to actually account for the problem of what makes each of us different –instead simply stating what consciousness is, and where it can be found, which is known as the ‘easy problem’.

The last philosophical answer that I will look at is the one that is commonly held by scientists. As I have mentioned earlier, the brain is similar to computers, and one of the commonly held ideas about thinking in general is functionalism. Functionalists describe the brain working in states. For example, if I were to take an exam, I would be in the ‘taking the exam state’ which would be the exact same if, for some reason, I was to take the exam at the same time, on the same day, in the same place, no matter which universe I was in. This is not to say that these states are limited, or that they are the same for each person. Functionalists believe that every human being works in a specific state at all points of their life – including memory. However, this philosophical idea is once again answering the problem of what consciousness could be, and not answering the ‘hard’ question.

But what if there was an alternative to the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ in the first place? What if there was a way to discard both the ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ problems into what Anil Seth calls the ‘real problem of consciousness’ (Seth 2016). Seth states that this problem is all about accounting for consciousness in

terms of biological mechanisms, without worrying about how it interacts with us and how it exists in the first place. At first, this problem may seem daunting and impossible but historically these seemingly ‘impossible’ problems have been researched and solutions uncovered. For example, the study of life – biologists and chemists used to believe that there was simply no way that the body was governed by chemical reactions (biological mechanisms) like homeostasis (the sum of all chemical reactions that takes place in the body), reproduction, metabolism and so forth. However, this was disproven, and we now have a much better understanding of the human body. We can take a lesson from this example – at first life seemed daunting as a whole concept, but whenever a new discovery was made it brought us closer to the truth; why were biologists trying to uncover such a massive concept such as life when the evidence showed that it could be split into the processes that we now know of today. In the same way if we take this reductionist approach to consciousness, we can split it down into separate ideas – that of conscious level, conscious self, and conscious content. Conscious level is to do with how conscious you are: whether you are in a dreamless sleep, or vividly awake. Conscious self is the whole idea about identity, and is probably the most important aspect of consciousness for humans. Finally, conscious content is what populates your

‘conscious moments’ – your memories which appear in dreams, the colours you see every day, and the sense which makes nightmares so freakishly terrifying.

An important distinction to make is between conscious level and ‘wakefulness’. Your conscious level can be just as high when you are having the worst nightmare of your life, as when you were having the best moment of your life. A better way of describing conscious level would be to consider the complexity of the patterns in which the different sections of the brain are speaking to one another at any one point. These patterns are simply electrical waves, which means that they can be captured and studied by a machine. This is done during sleep –when you are sleeping (and dreaming) your brain is just as active as when you are awake. This means that scientists can stimulate a brain to produce something and the way that the brain responds with electrical signals can be captured and recorded. These recordings can then be compressed – much like photographs can, and once compressed they can be ordered from most complex to most simple. This scale can then be used to measure at what points the conscious level is at its highest, or lowest. This scale is one of the most useful recent inventions in science (Seth 2016) – it has been able to more accurately distinguish whether a patient has had brain injuries sustained by comparing current conscious levels in

a specific condition with that of before. If there is a significant deviation, brain damage is a most likely explanation.

When we are conscious, we are conscious of something, or someone and these ‘things’ are what is recently (since the 1990s) known as ‘conscious content’. Conscious content is extremely hard to pinpoint, especially during sleep which is when this is most commonly attempted to be measured due to safety reasons, due to the fact that it is highly integrated inside the brain. This makes it difficult to distinguish between specific conscious content, and sometimes even if there is any at all – for instance during dreamless sleeping. The way that scientists are tackling this problem is by use of comparisons. Thanks to the conscious level, scientists can compare different brain activity during the lowest and highest points. Throughout the brain, there are specific regions which remained just as active no matter what level the brain was functioning at. These regions are essentially ‘content perceivers’ and are responsible for visible and audible content that happens during a conscious state. However, just pinpointing these sections is not enough to truly understand conscious content and answer the ‘real problem of consciousness’. Over the course of 20 years, science has shown that during dreams, the images that come from our memory are not actually real. The images which we see during our dreams, and that our brain records, are nothing but murky depictions of a base outline. Instead, the brain is a master at predicting what we wish to see. If someone was upset about a relationship, they might see one of their most happiest memories of this person in a very sad and melancholy view – due to the fact that the brain is predicting what we think we would remember. Granted, seeing one of these ‘inverted’ memories would be extremely rare due to the fact that almost everyone has both happy and sad memories about something. This is also why people sometimes believe that they have talked with a dead relative or friend – the brain has perceived their longing for a specific person and has recalled an outline of a conversation that was held years ago. It then uses the natural hallucinogens inside our body to project this conversation to help whatever mood we were in at the time.

The final part of ‘the real problem of consciousness’ is conscious self. Of many different things in the world, one which is undeniable is that there is nobody else out there that is like you. Following on from the discovery of ‘conscious content’, we can infer that conscious self is to do with the brain’s perception creating an ideal model of ourselves. And from this we discover that the brain thinks of us as at the most basic form, three types of self – the bodily self which

is to do with how much we know about our own bodies, and how accurate the predictions can be, the perspective self, which is to do with perceiving the world from a first person experience, and the volitional self, which is completely to do with our own personal motives. An easy experiment to do with the ‘bodily self’ is known as the ‘rubber hand illusion’. In this experiment, one hand would be kept out of sight, and then you focus your attention on creating a fake hand where the old hand used to be. Then, the real hand would be stroked with a paintbrush. In all of the experiments, if this was done for a long time, the subjects would begin to feel like their fake hand was real and began feeling sensations from it. This clearly shows that our idea of body is skewed to a controlled hallucination provided by the brain. The bodily self is intrinsically linked with the other two types – it was found that if someone were to hold onto something for long enough, something which was pulsing in time with their own heartbeat, for example a baby dog, they would begin to consider that as a ‘possession’ – not as in an object, but as an extension of their own ‘self’. This is because the brain would read the matching heartbeats and assume that there was simply an extension to the body, at which point it would assign that thing as part of ‘you’.

This leads to a very scary conclusion – if a person is simply governed by a brain, which is sometimes referred to as a biological computer, are we simply a sum of chemical reactions and drugs which stimulates specific images at specific times, governed by a simple electrical signal running through a predetermined pathway? – uncannily like the AI humanity fears will develop in the near future.

References:

Beck, H. (2016) What is a thought? How the brain creates new ideas [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJfFMoAgbv8&feature=youtu.be. Accessed: 10/10/23.

Chalmers, D. (2017) Hard problem of consciousness [Online]. Available at: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=C5DfnIjZPGw. Accessed: 20/10/23.

Cuncic, A. (2023) What happens to your body when your brain is thinking? [Online]. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-happens-when-you-think-4688619. Accessed: 10/10/23.

Frankish, K. (2016) Why panpsychicism fails to account for the mystery of consciousness [Online]. Available at: https://aeon.co/ideas/why-panpsychism-fails-to-solve-themystery-of-consciousness. Accessed: 13/01/24.

Levin, J. (2023) Functionalism [Online]. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ functionalism. Accessed: 13/01/24.

Seth, A. K. (2016) The ‘real’ problem of consciousness [Online]. Available at: https:// aeon.co/essays/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-is-a-distraction-from-the-realone. Accessed: 13/01/2024.

Weisberg J. (no date) The hard problem of consciousness [Online]. Available at: https:// iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness. Accessed: 20/12/23.

Images:

Eliason, K. (2021) The Thinker. Unsplash.com.

Grubnyak, A. (2019) The beautiful brain. Unsplash.com.

Social Sciences

How Well Do Our Prisons Meet Their Objectives?

Katy Stiger, Third Form, Swift House. Trevis Scholar - Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

Every year, we spend approximately £6 billion on our prisons and associated services. 86% of our prisons are underperforming significantly, failing to keep prisoners safe from themselves and others, resulting in a shocking number of deaths in custody. Assaults on prison staff are rising, likely representing a significant driving force leading to a loss '80,000 years of prison officer experience since 2010' (Govnet, 2024). UK prison facilities have been reported to be 'filthy, rotting and infected'. This has even gone so far as to result in Germany refusing to extradite a suspect to the UK because of these conditions (Pakes, 2023).

Prisons have a number of distinct functions: punish offenders; protect the public; rehabilitate prisoners; and prevent their return to prison. Punishment of offenders is often thought to be the primary goal of prisons by the public, for justice to be served. Whilst this is important, it is not the only factor. Clearly, prisons are successful in their efforts to protect the public as prisoners are unable to harm civilians. This is, however, only a temporary measure, and unless the prisoners can be rehabilitated, experience shows, once released, prisoners will return to a life of crime. This is why rehabilitation is such a critical component of the prison system. Without effective rehabilitation, prisons have little to no long term effectiveness.

Most headlines and public attention are focused on justice being served; punishing the guilty and protecting the victims. Whilst this may seem to be the most important element of the justice system, and the part that is most in the public eye, there is evidence across Europe and the rest of the world that this is not the solution; there are far more effective methods. Rehabilitation is by far the most effective way to protect the public in the long term.

Adults sentenced to under a year in jail have the highest reoffending rate at almost 54%. This rate has remained broadly flat since 2008. This shows that our prisons are unsuccessful in meeting their objective regarding recidivism. But the story is far more nuanced than the headline statistics as the reoffending statistics generally paint a very different picture. The adult reoffending rate is less than 25%, and the juvenile reoffending rate is just over 30% (Gov UK, 2021). This means that for longer custodial sentences, our prisons are successful at preventing future criminal activity. It would be tempting to look at these statistics and conclude that prisons would be more effective if they stuck to longer sentences as they lead to lower recidivism. However, this may not be the case. Prisons are hugely expensive: a single prisoner costs £47,000 per year, adding up to £3.8 billion across the whole prison service. A more cost-effective solution may be expanding the use of community orders as a punishment rather than sending those with short sentences to prison, a process that has reaped success in other European countries.

There are several added benefits to this approach. Reduced prisoner numbers could allow more individual focus, leading to more effective outcomes. Less overcrowding would make it easier to prevent violence between prisoners but also towards staff. A healthier, calmer environment would be far more conducive to rehabilitation efforts. Overall, this approach has the potential for improved outcomes.

A significant proportion of the prison population present with issues regarding mental health and substance abuse. 90% of prisoners suffer a combination of these problems. Between September 2016 to 2017, there was a record high in the number of self-harm incidents at over 42,000. This was a 12% increase from the previous year (Bird Podcast, 2018). The trend continued, reaching 53,000 incidents in 2022. This shows that prisons are not safe places for prisoners. From 2012 to 2018, there was a 97% increase in prison suicides (Bird Podcast, 2018). Clearly, something needs to be done. Currently, the NHS provides mental health care services in prisons. However, only seriously mentally unwell prisoners receive support. This is because mental health in prisons is significantly underfunded and understaffed, a problem that is exacerbated by a ballooning prison population.

Upon entry to prison, convicts are asked questions regarding their mental and physical health by a non-professional on the subject. Newly arrived prisoners will feel unsettled and unsafe; not an ideal environment in which to open up and discuss their most sensitive feelings. They are unlikely to be honest. Those asking the questions do not have access to any of the prisoner’s records, and so they are unlikely to be able to record their situation accurately. Several questions are also often left unanswered. If a prisoner is flagged as a potential risk to themselves, they are sent to a mental health professional and are carefully monitored. They are also kept under regular review to ensure that the precautions in place are effective. These precautions can sometimes help prevent further issues; however, this is not always the case.

Prisoners face myriad challenges: feelings of paranoia are commonplace; they miss their loved ones; combatting feelings of isolation is a constant battle; they feel out of control. However, identifying the issues isn’t enough; we need change. Prisoners need healthy outlets for their emotions. Some prisons have had success offering clubs and classes to their inmates. Activities such as carpentry, motor maintenance, and even embroidery give prisoners a chance to express creativity and improve their mental health. More of these sorts of programmes, supervised by suitably qualified mental health professionals, would make a good start to addressing the deep-seated issues.

Arguably, the most significant challenge facing the penal system is substance abuse. Whether it be recreational drugs, or alcohol, most prisoners face issues regarding them during their time behind bars. Between April 2020 and March 2021 there were 43,255 adults being treated for alcohol and drug dependence in the UK, which is around half of the prison population (Bird Podcast, 2018). Prisoners use drugs and alcohol as an escape. They see it like a day off from prison; it helps them to escape the isolation and loneliness. In an effort to combat this issue, prisons have implemented regular, mandatory drug testing. This system has been in place since 1995. While this seems like a good system, it has its flaws. Prisoners have found ways to defeat the tests. While weed stays in your system for approximately 28 days, heroin can be flushed out of your system within 24 hours, and spice is undetectable. Spice and heroin are known to have more serious side effects than other drugs such as marijuana. MDT, perversely, has encouraged inmates to turn to more serious drugs and exacerbated the problem.

‘Prisons are an overflowing, squalid, absurd waste of money. So why do the public want more of them?'

The Guardian (2022)

Significant progress has been made in addressing issues such as punishing prisoners and protecting the public. The UK has far more people incarcerated than any other European country. Victims are often unhappy with seeing perpetrators getting off with community orders or suspended sentences and prefer to see them go to prison. However, this approach has led to several issues within the prison system. Prisons are significantly overcrowded. Mental health facilities are overwhelmed and doing worse than ever. Overwork has led to record numbers of prison officers resigning, and to a lack of experience left in the remaining staff in the system. This then exacerbated the drug use issues as there are insufficient wardens to adequately supervise prisoners. Additionally, the prison crime rises, putting staff and prisoners at risk. All of this culminates in the mental health crisis we see among our prison population. All things considered; our prisons do not meet their objectives.

References: Please see the Appendix on page 78.

Images: Def, T. (2020) Black handgun. Unsplash.com.

Is the Harnessing of Nature's Wisdom Through Biomimicry a Valuable Pursuit?

Harry Adams, Lower Sixth, Harcourt House. Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

Biomimicry is the process of taking inspiration from nature and incorporating it into design. This design can range from buildings to materials, all of which are improved from learning about the world around us and learning from its lessons. To take advantage of nature’s ingenuity and use it for to our advantage is a very old concept has been around since the time of Da Vinci who is possibly the most famous inventor in history. He owes to his ability to patiently studying the inner workings of the natural world. For example, he is known to have studied bird flight with a view to making a man flying machine with wings. However, as with any process there are advantages and disadvantages to choosing it over conventional designs and it is important to take these factors into account before deploying it into practice.

Man mimics nature: our first faltering steps Leonardo da Vinci explored biomimicry and laid the foundation for modern advancements in robotics for the future, despite being limited by the technology of his time. He was a polymath who was both artist and engineer (Heydenreich, 2020). One area which he pioneered was the realm of biomimicry, where he took inspiration from using nature’s evolved ‘solutions’ to solve a human problem. Unfortunately for him he lived before the proper understanding of physics so a lot of his designs encountered crucial errors which he had no way of predicting. One good example of this is the fact that his flying machine, a prototype aeroplane, which, despite its elegance of design, lacked several key features that are needed for flight which we know now. The design takes inspiration from the birds that surrounded him, taking in their large tail feathers for directional control and wide wings to glide. However, Da Vinci was not aware that speed and thrust were necessary. Speed (with the correct design and pitch of wings) creates lift, and keeps the plane in the sky, so without any means to generate thrust, the machine could never have achieved independent flight. This means that plane was never built and never would have flown anyway. He was never able to achieve his dream of flight but only because he lacked the knowledge of today.

This doesn’t mean his biomimetic research was for nothing. Da Vinci’s designs inspired his successors to look deeper into the ‘technology’ of the natural world around us. Even to this day, modern robotics draw from his research about ligaments and muscles. Nature has a lot to teach us, and using Da Vinci’s work, we see that learning from it is a very valuable pursuit in the field of robotics and design.

Man measures nature: from steps to stumbles In more recent times (1852-1926), Gaudi studied the mathematical principles of the natural world. He

became a world-famous architect due to his intricate way of designing buildings to feel almost alive. By analysing the way that tree branches extend and spiderwebs hang, he discovered the way in which nature forms, and so was able to create this illusion of organic architecture which is also known as biomimicry.

His skill was unparalleled as he honed his craft by studying the most common shapes in nature, which include: the hyperbolic paraboloid, conoid, fractal and catenary arch (LinkedIn, 2018). The catenary arch is a very complex and hard to create shape but in basic terms it is the shape a material of uniform density takes when placed between two points. This puts the material into complete tension. By reversing the shape into an ‘n’ shape it creates a shape in complete compression. The best way to create this shape in a scale model is by hanging weights and chains from different heights. This is because the chains will fall into complete compression or tension by themselves. This shape is extremely strong and found everywhere in nature (e.g. spider-webs; eggshells). It was these skills which led to him being commissioned to create the Sagrada Familia, a large church in Barcelona, Spain in 1882 (STEEMIT, 2018). This was his most ambitious project, yet required every single piece of knowledge and skill he had acquired over his life. Using the biomimetic design, visitors experience the sensation of entering a large organism. Whether or not you are religious, it remains an extraordinary experience.

However, we can also take this as an example for how impractical biomimicry can be. The building’s construction began in 1882 and it remains unfinished to this day due to the complex nature of its structure. Only parts of the building are open to the public as a lot of it is incomplete. If you value aesthetic over practicality, then large scale biomimetic buildings would seem a rather attractive prospect to you;

however if you want your building to be complete in less than 100 years, it would be best to take a more conventional route. However, with the access to modern technology ever increasing such as power tools and more advanced scanning techniques, we can replicate nature faster and faster with incredibly high precision, so complex buildings like the Sagrada Familia may not be as much of a challenge as before.

Man harnesses nature: from stumbles to strides

The bullet train is a revolutionary high-speed train in Japan that can take citizens from across the country at high speed. It has the important job of connecting the five biggest metropolitan areas: Tokyo to Yokohama, Osaka to Kyoto and Nagoya (The Atlantic, 2014). However, when it was first used, the train encountered a problem that needed to be fixed. Whenever the train entered a tunnel, it would create a massive sonic boom when it exited out the other side. For a while the scientists who designed the train had no idea why.

Fishing for a solution

This fault was due to a lack of testing, making it an unforeseen consequence of not taking ‘advice’ from nature’s wisdom. It was Eiji Nakatsu who realised

it was the train’s flat front end that caused the air particles to build up in front of the train when it entered a tunnel as the air had nowhere else to escape. This means when the train exited the tunnel a sonic boom would occur. The solution to this was to create a pointed tipped train to allow the air particles to safely pass over its exterior and not get stuck in front of the train. This design took inspiration from the kingfisher, one of Japan’s local river birds. Eiji Nakatsu was an avid birdwatcher himself, the kingfisher's beak is perfectly shaped: it increases in width at the same rate as its length, making it perfect for breaching the surface of the waters it hunts in (Phys.org, 2019). The slender beak means that there is little felt by the bird upon impact with the water and instead can safely travel through its surface. Similarly, when the train reaches high speeds, air begins to act akin to water, becoming compressed at the front of the train, so in the exact same way, the air passes over the train with little to no resistance. The effect that this improvement had on the train was massive. It decreased travel times and increased the trains power efficiency by 20% (GTAC, 2016). This is a good example to show the advantages of incorporating biomimicry into conventional design as it can certainly improve the efficiency of design if nothing else.

From sponge to gerkin

The Gerkin is one of London’s most iconic buildings and shines in the city skyline, but is also a technological marvel thanks to the help of mother nature. When Fosters and Sons were designing the building, they took inspiration from the structure of the Venus Flower Basket Sea Sponge (STEEMIT, 2018). This is a deep-sea sponge which is full of holes, which is how it earned the ‘flower basket’ part of its name. The organism appears to consist of a series of fibres woven into a net like structure, which allows nutrients to flow through it and passively absorb them, as well as making it extremely resistant to deep sea currents which threaten to carry the basket away. However, the holes that cover its surface allow the water to pass safely through it instead of aggressively around it. The Gerkin follows a very similar design. The exterior of the building is covered in holes which let the wind flow through the building and power its natural ventilation system. The air makes its way through vents in the outside and then enters the layer between the building’s two facades to naturally spread between the two. The round structure of the building also allows the air pass around it. This makes the design incredibly aerodynamic. A study performed on the building's ventilation system found that it reduced the consumption of the building as a whole down to 50%, which is obviously a massive advantage when compared to conventional ventilation systems.

Both promise and warning

Or at least it used to be a massive power consumption advantage. In 2005 a window broke off of the outer façade and fell to the street below. Thankfully nobody was around when it happened so nobody was hurt, but the system has not gone back into operation since. It now runs off conventional ventilation putting its power consumption back up to normal levels. So, the Gerkin serves as both a promise and a warning for the future. Biomimicry can be used to improve efficiency and aesthetic of a design, but it cannot always be relied upon as sometimes nature's designs simply are not meant to be scaled up. But, with the advancements in modern technology our capabilities to study and replicate nature are becoming ever more sophisticated.

Man excels over nature: from striding to soaring?

Sharks’ skin is an amazing organ of the fish. It has evolved over millions of years to serve the shark as a strong, efficient skin to allow the fish great speed in water. This makes sense because sharks are some of the oldest extant predators on Earth, predating trees by nearly 100 million years. No surprise, then, that the qualities of its skin have been used to inspire improvements in the sports industry (The Royal Society, 2018).

The chief reason for this is that the skin performs so many actions. Firstly, it is completely sterile. It is made up of serrated scales are called dermal denticles, ‘dermal’ meaning skin and ‘denticle’ meaning finger or tooth like projection. This serrated structure cuts apart microorganism that land on it. Secondly, its relative smoothness reduces drag, which it again owes to its dermal denticles. This increases the

sharks' speed but also manoeuvrability at high speed. As a results, sharks take the marine ecosystem’s apex predator spot.

Shark skin to swim suits

So, what can we learn from this? By incorporating the serrated skin into the design of wetsuits, swimmers can reach new top speeds by a significant margin. In fact, the Sharkskin wetsuit, created by Speedo, enhances performance so much that in the 2000 Olympics, 80% of swimming gold medals were won by people wearing the Sharkskin wetsuit, and 13 out of the 15 records that year were broken by these same swimmers (Science History Institute, 2023). The Olympics quickly banned the use of the suits afterwards as they were deemed unfair.

Swim suits to aeroplanes

However, that is not all sharkskin is good for. Research done by the Fraunhofer institute on aircraft, and the effects that sharkskin paint applied to the hull had on drag, revealed some amazing results. The experiment showed that if a special paint that was shaped like dermal denticles was applied to all aircraft worldwide, it would save 4.48 million tons of fuel worldwide (Fraunhoffer Institute, 2010). This in turn would also decrease emissions the planes cause and help reduce climate change.

Aeroplanes to hospitals

One other application that sharkskin provides is its use in a medical setting. As mentioned before, sharkskin can cut up any microorganisms that land on it which makes the substance almost completely sterile. This can be used in hospitals to line the floors, walls and ceilings to slow or sometimes even stop the spread of bacteria and viruses through the building. However, it is still early days for the sharkskin technology, so it will be a while before we see it used to its fullest potential. This is proof that Sharkskin has a multitude of applications and so do other biomimetic inventions. It is clear that taking inspiration from some of nature’s oldest creatures will strengthen our designs, helping us to optimize energy efficiency, as if there is one thing mother nature doesn’t waste, it is fuel.

Man with Nature: the future of Biomimicry

We have seen how biomimicry can be used to improve all fields of design, but what conclusions can we draw from this? Biomimicry is undeniably beautiful when done right and can take a building from being an eyesore to a town's centre piece. We have examples like the Sagrada Familia which demonstrate the levels of beauty buildings can achieve, with people calling the very building itself a religious experience, but the very same building goes to show its impracticality. It

has taken well over 142 years to develop and is still not done, even with the help of modern tools. For some people this trade-off of aesthetic for function is worth it, but it is a very costly process. But examples like Sharkskin and the bullet train show us that it can very much be the opposite, increasing the speed of everyday life. So the decision we make is that whilst biomimicry cannot replace conventional design, it should become incorporated into the tool sets of designers across the world.

References:

Biomimicry Institute (2023) What is Biomimicry? [Online]. Available at: https:// biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/. Accessed: 5 February 2024.

Doctors Channel (2017) Using Sharkskin to Keep Medical Equipment Sterile. The Doctors Channel [Online]. Available at: https://www.thedoctorschannel.com/view/ using-sharkskin-to-keep-medical-equipment-sterile. Accessed: 5 February 2024.

Economic Times (2019) 5 buildings inspired by flora & fauna: The Tulip Tower, London. Economic Times [Online]. Available at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ industry/miscellaneous/5-buildings-inspired-by-flora-fauna/the-tulip-tower-london/ slideshow/68761313.cms. Accessed: 5 February 2024.

Fraunhofer (2010) Innovative Paint System for Sharkskin Effect on Airplanes. Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft [Online]. Available at: https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/ research-news/2010/05/innovative-paint-system.html. Accessed: 5 February 2024.

Heydenreich, L. H. (2020) Leonardo da Vinci | Biography, Art and Facts. Encyclopædia Britannica [Online]. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonardo-daVinci. Accessed: 5 February 2024.

LinkedIn (2018) Gaudí, Nature, and the Catenary Arch [Online]. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gaudí-nature-catenary-arch-brian-stephensonpe#:~:text=Catenary%20is%20the%20curve%20which,threads%20of%20a%20 spider%27s%20web.

Phys.org (2019) Kingfisher hydrodynamic effect inspires efficient, long-range UAV design [Online]. Available at: https://phys.org/news/2019-05-kingfisher-hydrodynamic.html.

Royal Society (2018) Leonardo da Vinci: a guide to the man, genius and his legacy. Royal Society [Online]. Available at: https://royalsociety.org/blog/2018/10/leonardo-davinci/#:~:text=Although%20Leonardo%20da%20Vinci%20(1452,wind%20shear%20 for%20sustained%20flight.

Royal Society Publishing (2018) Available at: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/ doi/10.1098/rsif.2017.0828.

Science History Institute (n.d.) Winning Skin: How Sharkskin Swimmers Won the Olympics. Science History Institute [Online]. Available at: https://sciencehistory.org/ stories/magazine/winning-skin.

Sea Museum (2020) Ten interesting facts about sharks. Australian National Maritime Museum [Online]. Available at: https://www.sea.museum/2020/01/16/ten-interestingfacts-about-sharks#:~:text=Sharks%20are%20older%20than%20trees,mass%20 extinctions%20%E2%80%93%20now%20that%27s%20impressive.

Steemit (2018) Biomimetic Architecture: Sagrada Família [Online]. Available at: https://steemit.com/architecture/@snaves/biomimetic-architecture-sagradafamilia#:~:text=The%20most%20notable%20example%20of,for%20the%20 vault%20and%20roof.

Steemit (2018) Biomimetic Architecture: The Gherkin [Online]. Available at: https:// steemit.com/architecture/@snaves/biomimetic-architecture-the-gherkin.

Pinsker, J. (2014) What 50 Years of Bullet Trains Have Done for Japan in ‘The Atlantic’ [Online]. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20220527014442/https://www. theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/what-50-years-of-bullet-trains-have-donefor-japan/381143/. Accessed: 5 February 2024.

The Guardian (2014) How the Shinkansen bullet train made Tokyo into the monster it is today. The Guardian [Online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/ sep/30/-sp-shinkansen-bullet-train-tokyo-rail-japan-50-years. Accessed: 5 February 2024.

GTAC (2016) The Kingfisher and the Bullet Train in the News [Online]. Available at: https://gtac.edu.au/the-kingfisher-and-the-bullet-train-in-thenews/#:~:text=Tests%20showed%20that%20objects%20shaped,electricity%20 and%20are%2010%25%20faster. Accessed: 5 February 2024.

Images:

Audet, P. (2014) Sagrada Familia. Pixabay.com.

Flikr (2016) Close up of coral reef. Pexels.com.

Gudka, H. (2018) The Gerkhin, Unsplash.com

Free to Choose: What Can the Coeliac Community Learn from the Rise of Veganism?

Lottie Graves, Second Form, Gascoigne House. Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

Recent studies estimate that 3% of the UK population is vegan and 1% diagnosed coeliacs. However, taking into account those whose condition has not yet been diagnosed, research suggests a more accurate figure is that 3% of the population has coeliac disease (Kim, H. 2022, and Mearin, M., et al, 2022) Though the statistics are comparable for the two, the contrast of current food options when out and about for the two is surprisingly vast. The anecdote below encapsulates three realities of coeliac life.

You are walking down the street in London and happen across a chocolate company handing out free samples. You ask them if they are gluten-free because you are coeliac, and the response you receive is, 'I’m not sure… they are vegan though'.

To begin with, there is a significant lack of understanding among the general public about coeliac disease and how it affects one’s diet, health, and general quality of life. Another unconsidered factor is that the majority of vegans have chosen to limit their food choices; however, the entirety of people with coeliac disease eat gluten free due to a dietary necessity. Lastly, as vegans have managed to gain such publicity and successful mainstreaming of food choices, coeliacs can certainly learn from their actions, hopefully resulting in them eating as freely as vegans.

What Does Coeliac Even Mean?

Coeliac disease is a genetic autoimmune disorder that affects the small intestine. It is triggered by the consumption of gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and sometimes other grains. Historically, humans began to cultivate grains in the Neolithic period (beginning about 9,500BC) in Western Asia, and likely, this was when coeliac disease first occurred (Aretaeus, the Cappadocian 1856).

A common misconception about coeliac disease is that it is the same as a gluten intolerance. Gluten intolerance is a sensitivity occurring when one eats cereals containing gluten, which may lead to intestinal discomfort. However, when individuals with coeliac disease consume gluten, their immune system believes it is a virus, and mistakenly attacks the lining

of the small intestine, causing inflammation and damage to the villi. The symptoms vary from person to person. Some individuals may experience digestive issues such as bloating, while others may suffer from anaemia, infections, and growth distortion. If left untreated, coeliac disease has been linked to serious complications like malnutrition and even colon cancer.

A Week the Life of a Coeliac

It is Monday evening, and you try and go out for dinner, but can only have “salad” with just lettuce and tomatoes.

On Tuesday, you get your food shop delivered and they don’t have your normal gluten-free sausages, so they give you vegan ones instead (Main ingredient is wheat protein).

Wednesday comes and you have an away hockey match with school. Packed lunches are provided, but they forget to include your gluten-free one. Next, on Thursday, the school runs out of the normal gluten free option, and you have to eat jacket potato. Again.

For Friday's dinner, you plan to order fish ’n’ chips, but the chips are fried in the same oil as the batter. Do you take the risk?

Saturday arrives and you are going to a birthday party and have been asked to bring your own food because the host is worried about getting it wrong. At least you can go get a Domino's pizza when you get home, because they provide a gluten-free base!

Lastly, on Sunday, your church has tea and biscuits after the service. They have nothing gluten-free, and you have to watch everyone else eat custard-creams and bourbons when you have nothing.

Living with coeliac disease requires careful attention to food choices and ingredient labels. Gluten can hide in unexpected places such as sauces and processed meats and particularly in meat-free replacements

because ingredients like wheat are often used as fillers in vegan products. One crucial aspect of managing coeliac disease is preventing cross-contamination, which occurs when gluten-containing products come into contact with gluten-free items or surfaces. This commonly transpires during food preparation and when sharing utensils, appliances, or preparation surfaces.

Start by Harvesting the Low-Hanging Fruit (They are Vegans Afterall)

As more people have adopted a vegan lifestyle, restaurants have been forced to adapt their menus to cater to this growing demand. Seeing the rise in demand for vegan food, the hospitality industry has gone beyond simply providing salads or vegetable sides, and instead created innovative and delicious plant-based dishes that rival their meat counterparts (Gilbank, L. 2022). Vegetarian restaurants were among the first to make the change, realising they could make small tweaks in their menu from a budget standpoint that would lead to significant positive financial impacts for their business. One example of this is putting a vegetarian burger patty on vegan bread, making this a fully vegan burger. Additionally, restaurants have helped increase the popularity and perceived accessibility of veganism by offering flavourful and nutritious vegan dishes. They show that vegan food isn't boring or tasteless, which encourages more people to try plant-based options and feel healthier when eating out.

While most vegans view veganism from a moral, ethical, spiritual, or health standpoint, the honest truth is that many restaurants are choosing to provide the service primarily because it is a good financial

choice for them. An excellent example of this is an Oxfordshire-based restauranteur, Tom Rainey whose popular locations include both a vegan restaurant and a steakhouse. He is very candid about the fact that he turned his formerly regular establishment into a vegan and vegetarian one largely because it made financial sense. As marketing expert, Aditi Basu said, 'Restaurants not having vegan menus are observing a decline in sales' (Basu, A., 2022). Similarly, EHL Insights, an important source in the world of hospitality, goes as far as to call not providing plant-based food on a menu 'catastrophic' and claims it could 'literally cause them to lose business from a huge customer base'.

Extra, Extra! Eat All About It!

In recent years, the rise of veganism has been undeniable, and one cannot ignore the role that influencers and social media have played in this. With the power to reach millions of people with just one post, influencers have become persuasive advocates of many causes, including veganism, spreading awareness about its benefits and inspiring others to adopt a plant-based lifestyle. Some, like creator Liv Bellefontaine (known on social media as @itslivb), choose to use social media platforms to develop and share recipes and personal journeys (Geyser, W. 2023). On the other hand, individuals like Greta Thunberg, turn to veganism as part of educating their followers on environmental issues and the impact our diet has on animals and our planet. A post from Thunberg 2021 (pic.twitter.com/2tXPFaeqWq) on X (formerly known as Twitter) stated 'If we change towards a plant-based diet, we could save up to eight billion tonnes of CO2 every year. We could feed ourselves on much less land, and nature could recover'.

Moreover, influencers have actively engaged with the vegan community and food providers by hosting special conventions and promotions centred around plant-based cuisine. This has created a sense of inclusivity and support for vegans on a whole host of levels, generally making dining out and otherwise accessing vegan food a much more enjoyable experience for them. As Redefined Meat says, 'With the huge surge in popularity if vegan and vegetarian restaurants and dishes all over the world, comes a demand for culinary experts who can turn plan-based materials into unforgettable masterpieces' (Redefined Meat, 2022). Any quick search online produces numerous lists of almost every type of vegan food 'from street food legions and dessert maestros to Michelin-starred restaurant leaders'. Additionally, vegan chefs are coming up with home-cooking recipes, and money is being invested in technology to improve plant-based foods (Cumbers, J. 2021).

Why should we care about any of this?

The journey through the rise of veganism illustrates that it is possible for special and complex dietary considerations to not just be met, but successfully mainstreamed into general society. Judging by the fact that individuals with coeliac disease have no control over their dietary requirements, it feels exclusionary that they are being overlooked, especially considering that only 42% of the vegan population follow a meat-free diet due to health benefits or religious reasons, while the remaining 58% choose to do so

for other reasons (Wunsch, N. G. 2022). While it can be frustrating to people whose food restrictions are serious and seemingly forgotten to watch society prioritise seemingly optional choices in this way, perhaps a more worthwhile response is to see it as a goal for what is possible for the coeliac community. If these methods for gaining publicity have proven successful for vegans, the coeliac community should follow suit.

Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the subject of dining out. Coeliacs face challenges when trying to eat out due to limited menu options and crosscontamination risks. However, just as restaurants have adapted their menus for vegans, they can also accommodate those with coeliac disease by offering gluten-free alternatives, especially places that already have a gluten-light or easily separated ingredients on their menu. This could be accomplished in numerous ways, and some pizzerias, including the ubiquitous chain Domino’s, have begun to offer their pizzas on gluten-free bases (Domino's, 2024). Additionally, a creperie called Crepe Affaire (Crepe Affaire, 2024) has managed to make more than 95% of their menu accessible to gluten-frees simply by allowing their entire menu to be made on naturally gluten-free galettes (dating back to the 11th century [Great British Chefs, 2019]).

Thinking back to Mr Rainey, the Oxfordshire restauranteur who cares about the bottom line, there

is historical proof that gluten-free doesn’t have to mean expensive. During World War 1, when obtaining wheat was more challenging and expensive than usual, society began making something called War Bread. This involved substituting regular flour with ground oats, rice flour, and sometimes potato starch. It provided a naturally gluten-free bread alternative that some restaurants and cafes even continued after the war. One of the most well-known included the diner at Macy’s department store, which developed an entire wheatless menu following the war. Comparing the menu from the 1920s to the current day shows a drastic decrease in choices; now they have six restaurants, but all only provide limited gluten-free options.

As mentioned above, gluten free does not automatically mean more cost or more effort. A common example of this is that, in the supermarket, 'free from' pasta and regular, wheat pasta now cost the same. Furthermore, there are multiple everyday foods, particularly starches, that are naturally gluten free, for example, potatoes and rice. It is also not difficult to make sauces gluten free by removing unnecessary colourings and flavourings that often include barley malt extract or rye. A more wary mindset when planning dishes is all that is needed to adapt a dish, a meal, and even a whole menu. Also, if the food tastes good, people without a gluten free diet will eat it, as has happened with the rise of veganism. Plenty of meat eaters will meet vegan friends at a vegan restaurant for dinner if that is what the vegan friend requests. Why not the same for gluten free?

The world of influencing and social media is not as effectively used for coeliacs thus far. 54% of food influencers on X (formerly known as Twitter) discussed veganism, however, just over a quarter of them tweeted about gluten-free. If more influential voices rise up and help to spread the word, bringing the experiences of the coeliac community into the mainstream and showing just how easy it could be to provide for their needs, we could see a shift.

Happy and Free

You are walking down a street in London and happen across a chocolate company handing out free samples. You ask them if they are gluten-free because you are coeliac, and the response you receive is, 'Yes!

We ensure all our chocolates are both vegan, and gluten-free!'

While both the vegan and the coeliac community face different challenges regarding their dietary choices, there are valuable lessons that can be learned from each other's experiences. By fostering a sense of community support, raising awareness through social media platforms, and restaurants (especially already gluten-light establishments) providing a more coeliac-friendly menu, coeliacs can continue to make strides towards achieving their goals of inclusivity and accessibility in society at large. The world could be our oyster. Wait, no, those are not vegan. I mean, the sky’s the limit...

References:

Crepe Affaire (2024) - Crepe Affaire Menu [Online]. Available at: https://crepeaffaire. com/menu. Accessed: 07/01/24.

Domino's (2024) - Domino's Menu [Online]. Available at: https://Dominos.co.uk. Accessed: 07/01/24.

Aretaeus the Cappadocian (1856) 'On the Coeliac Affection'. The extant works of Aretaeus the Cappadocian. Translated by Francis Adams. London: Sydenham Society. pp. 350-1. Accessed: 01/02/24.

Basu, A. (2022) Why do Restaurants need to offer vegan food on their menu? Modern Restaurant Management [Online]. Available at: https://modernrestaurantmanagement. com/the-rise-of-vegan-restaurants. Accessed: 29/01/24.

Cumbers, J. (2021) How New Technology is Making Plant-Based Foods Taste and Look Better. Forbes [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ johncumbers/2021/05/13/how-new-technology-is-making-plant-based-foods-tasteand-look-better. Accessed: 01/02/24.

Geyser, W. (2023) Top 38 Vegan Influencers Making a Big Impact on Social Media. Influencer Marketing Hub [Online]. Available at: https://influencermarketinghub.com/ vegan-influencers/#toc-0. Accessed: 07/01/24.

Great British Chefs (2019) An ode to galettes: the flat cakes that took France by storm. Great British Chefs [Online]. Available at: https://www.greatbritishchefs. com/features/galette-varieties-history#:~:text=Dating%20back%20to%20the%20 eleventh,stood%20the%20test%20of%20time. Accessed: 30/01/24.

Gilbank, L. (2022) COLUMBUSCAST: The rise of veganism and its impact on food supply chains. Columbus [Online]. https://www.columbusglobal.com/en-gb/blog/therise-of-veganism-and-its-impact-on-food-supply-chains. Accessed: 07/01/24.

Kim, H. (2022) Is Veganism Becoming More Popular? Using Data to Track the Growing Trend. Sentient Media [Online]. Available at: https://sentientmedia.org/increase-inveganism. Accessed: 07/01/24.

Mearin, M. et al (2022) ESPAGHAN Position Paper on Management and Follow-up of Children and Adolescents with Celiac Disease. Accessed: 04/02/24

Rabb, M. (2022) Eating More Plant-Based? Here are the Top 14 Vegan Chefs You Need to Follow. The Beet [Online]. Available at: https://thebeet.com/eating-more-plantbased-here-are-the-top-14-vegan-chefs-you-need-to-follow. Accessed: 01/02/24.

Redefined Meat (2022) 8 Top Vegan Food Chefs You Need to Follow Today. Redefined Meat [Online]. Available at: https://www.redefinemeat.com/blog/top-vegan-foodchefs. Accessed: 01/02/24.

Wunsch, N. G. (2022) Reasons for being Vegan in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2021. Statista [Online]. Available at: https://statista.com/statistics/1066771/main-reasonsfor-being-vegan-in-the-united-kingdom/#:~:text=As%20of%20December%20 2021%2C%2089,killing%20of%20animals%20as%20cruel. Accessed 07/01/24.

Images:

CatsWithGlasses (2015) No wheat. Pixabay.com.

Kallergis, L. (2018) Vegan burger. Unsplash.com.

Klepacki, S. (2020) Crepes. Unsplash.com.

What Will the Implications be of Using AI in the Workplace?

Alex May, Fourth Form, Vanbrugh House. Supervised by Miss Hutchinson.

ArtificialIntelligence is rapidly transforming the workplace in today’s modern society, automating tasks, changing decision-making, and fundamentally altering the nature of work. Whilst its benefits are undeniable, it is crucial to consider the implications of its increasing presence in the workplace, including job displacement, workplace culture, but more positively, leading innovation and automation. While AI's transformative potential for the workplace is undeniable, analysis of its ethical implications and strategies for responsible implementation are critical to ensuring it makes use of its power for good. It is poised to accelerate in the coming years, as technologies continue to grow, and its knowledge and abilities continue to expand.

One implication that is vital to consider is the ethical surroundings of AI use. Machines, like AI bots, are getting better at mimicking human interactions. They can now pass as humans in conversations, blurring the line between us and machines. They can grab our attention and even trigger addiction, as seen in click-bait headlines and addictive games. Tech addiction is therefore a growing problem. Software can influence human behavior, but it can also have a beneficial impact on a majority of industries, such as in the court of law. Some believe AI can make legal processes more efficient and accurate, benefiting lawyers and clients. It's called 'automatization of justice'. (UNESCO, 2023) AI might lead to a fairer criminal justice system by making impartial decisions based on data. On the other hand, challenges include AI's lack of transparency, potential bias, surveillance

practices, and concerns about human rights. UNESCO has adopted global guidelines called the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence to address these issues. The use of AI in the legal system has potential benefits and ethical dilemmas (UNESCO, 2023). To take an example, Amazon’s recommendation engine poses an issue around ethics as it conducts surveillance on its customers studying different categories and products that customers have been browsing then predicting what you are likely to buy. If you’ve already looked at a product, Amazon has gathered data on you doing that action, assumes that you were slightly interested and will tempt you to go back, and purchase said product (Mike Arsenault, 2021). By passively collecting data on which products you browse and categories you are interested in, Amazon invades your privacy without

your explicit consent, or without making you explicitly aware. This lack of awareness to the consumer and control over your data in turn diminishes your privacy. Additionally, the opaque nature of these algorithms raises concerns about the accountability of Artificial Intelligence. Without understanding how these recommendations are generated and informed, users cannot trust the system and it cannot be held accountable for any potential bias. If these ethical concerns remain unaddressed, they can erode public trust about the responsibility of AI, which could hinder its benefits in the workplace.

By contrast, AI has the potential to address some of the world’s most pressing problems, help companies align their products with customer needs and identify new creative opportunities. However, to ensure a beneficial AI implementation, it needs to be widely accepted by the workforce. The developers of these advanced systems need to address bias by using diverse datasets and other techniques to identify, then mitigate against bias to ensure a positive, equitable decision. When presented with this question, Google’s AI, Bard, stated: 'The widespread adoption of AI in the workplace is likely to have a profound impact on the nature of work, skills required, and the overall job market, necessitating careful consideration and proactive measures to ensure a profitable and equitable transition' (Bard – Google AI, 2023). To get a more widespread opinion of Artificial Intelligence systems, OpenAI’s ChatGPT made a similar comment: 'AI in the workplace has the potential to enhance productivity and decision-making but raises ethical and societal questions that must be carefully addressed in its consideration' (ChatGPT - OpenAI, 2023). Many measures need to be considered to ensure a beneficial implementation that can satisfy the needs of all businesses. The primary challenges that employers face in successfully implementing generative AI are dominated by understanding the risks involved and better being able to understand and interpret the data (Anna Auld, n.d). Officers within the business should take the initiative to place more focus on better equipping their workers with the necessary skills to successfully use generative AI in the workplace. By way of a tangible example, Amazon have stated that 35% of their revenue is generated by their own recommendation engine, which acts as a targeted marketing tool on most of its website’s pages. They use a variety of recommendations to force the customer to ponder over their original decision, to abandon the product, or to interest them towards a new product, which in turn would increase the average order value. The megacorporation 'reported a 29% sales increase to $12.83 billion during its second fiscal quarter, up from $9.9 billion during the same time last year' (Mike Arsenault, 2021). This growth can arguably lead back to its recent integration of recommendations into nearly every

part of the purchasing process, from on-site to offline via email. Its heavy focus on data-driven marketing allows them to get great results and over the years they have continued to develop their software to see how it converts: 'According to Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, Amazon’s conversion to sales of on-site recommendations could be as high as 60% in some cases based off the performance of other e-commerce sites' (Mike Arsenault, 2021). By identifying your preferences, this can be helpful for discovering new items that you might not have found otherwise, further exploring the beneficial implementation of AI. It can also have an indirect impact on businesses selling on the platform; it could increase sales by suggesting relevant products to potential customers. It is important for these engines to be clearly transparent about how they work and what data they collect, as well as giving users control over their data and how it is used. This makes us consider the indisputable fact that AI has revolutionised the sales industry, and by Amazon successfully accepting and willingly implementing it into their day-to-day processes, they have experienced a great output, and should inspire further businesses to follow.

The rise of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives is rapidly transforming the workplace, and businesses need to be prepared for the implications of an AIDriven workforce. AI will automate a lot of tasks, which in turn will create new opportunities for job roles, counteracting the issue of job displacement. These new opportunities will include areas such as AI development, data analysis and cybersecurity. The workforce will have more time to work on their service whilst AI carries out the time-consuming tasks. To prepare for this shift, businesses should invest in reskilling their workforce to focus on the core areas of the business, creating a new atmosphere in the workplace.

A good example of a company that is successfully implementing and adapting for an AI-driven workforce is Microsoft. Sam Altan, CEO of OpenAI, the developers of leading artificial intelligence ChatGPT, was fired as a result of disagreements between other co-founders and board members. Microsoft were swift to hire Altan as part of their artificial intelligence team. As a result, other founders of OpenAI took the decision to step down if Altan did not re-join the board, and as such they rehired Sam Altan, and as well took Microsoft on to the board in a non-voting position (Alex Heath, 2023). This move shows Microsoft's commitment to AI and its willingness to invest in top talent.

Businesses also need to consider the non-operational aspects of these new implementations, such as data privacy and security, as well as the need for

internal ethical guidelines for developing and using AI. Failure to address these aspects can undermine the safety of the company as well as eroding the trust of its customer base. By carefully considering these challenges, this will help to ensure a successful implementation of AI into the workforce.

The implementation of artificial intelligence has brought with it a wave of transformative technologies. In the realm of product and service development, AI is set out to fundamentally reshape the entire process, with more efficiency, advanced insights and creative possibilities that were simply unimaginable just years ago. Traditionally, product development has been a slow and painful process, crowded with manual tasks, unreliable information, and has lacked what truly builds a good product to perfectly fit a customer’s needs. Artificial Intelligence systems introduces intelligence and automation into every stage of the process, making it more efficient from start to finish.

Let us take idea generation as an example. Humans alone can feel stuck with repetitive ideas and a lack of creativity. AI solves this by providing an unbiased opinion and unexpected combinations that allow us to view products and services from another viewpoint without having to have another person there. This way, as AI can analyse vast amounts of data in milliseconds, we can complete the research process in a matter of days that would normally render the process stretched out for months.

Whilst AI holds immense potential, it is important for us to remember that it is not a replacement for human workforce and creativity and is simply a tool that can empower us. The true peak lies in collaboration between humans and AI systems, with human expertise to guide the process and AI to amplify those already-existing capabilities.

What we must keep in mind is: as AI capabilities expand, so does the need for firm regulations and

ethical guidelines enforced to ensure responsible development and use. Although it comes with great benefits, it is crucial to remember that it is not incapable of making mistakes or being wrong, just like any human. We are faced with issues of lack of transparency, potential data risks, biased AI, all which need to be addressed – and not by a singular entity. Each team involved in development and deployment of any Artificial Intelligence system has a distinct role to play, namely the developers, who must prioritise ethical design in their development by building systems that are fair, transparent, and accountable. The users of these systems must be aware of the capabilities, limitations and issues surrounding both. They should understand this; AI is not perfect, and they should be prepared to challenge any response given by it.

Regulatory bodies, such as the Council of Europe, have set in place a legally binding treaty for the ethical development of AI. The OECD has also adopted a set of non-binding principles laying out some values that should underpin AI development. In addition, The Global Partnership on AI was founded in 2020 as an international body that could share research and information on AI. Therefore, there are clear frameworks in place to govern AI development and deployment, safeguarding ethical practices and more, all with the main goal of protecting individuals.

As AI continues to revolutionise the workforce, its transformative potential must be in line with ethical considerations as the workplace shifts. To ensure a beneficial implementation, all parties must navigate the journey with responsibility, from the development stage to a front-line rollout. The future of AI is not predetermined, and is shaped by the decisions that we, as the users, make today. We must embrace the power that it brings to the workforce and prepare ourselves for the new roles that it will create, reskilling ourselves where necessary, still upholding the guidelines that have been put in place.

References:

Arifin, Y. (2023) How can we ensure that Generative AI is used for good and not for harm? [Online]. Available at: https://medium.com/@yeasinarifin/how-can-we-ensurethat-generative-ai-is-used-for-good-and-not-for-harm-5a4ab3e64acf.

Arsenault, M. (2021) The Amazon Recommendations Secret to Selling More Online [Online]. Available at: https://www.rejoiner.com/resources/amazonrecommendations-secret-selling-online.

Auld, A. (n.d.) How to prepare your workforce to work alongside artificial intelligence [Online]. Availble at: https://www.michaelpage.co.uk/our-expertise/human-resources/ prepare-workforce-artificial-intelligence.

Bishop, C. (2018) The basics of AI: Why it’s here to help, not harm [Online]. Available at: https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/features/the-basics-of-ai-why-itshere-to-help-not-harm.

Bossmann, J. (2016) Top 9 ethical issues in artificial intelligence [Online]. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/top-10-ethical-issues-inartificial-intelligence.

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Goldberg, B. (2023) How to Ensure that AI is Used for Good: Navigating Ethical Challenges [Online]. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-ensure-aiused-good-navigating-ethical-challenges-barry-goldberg.

Heath, A. (2023) Microsoft joins OpenAI’s board with Sam Altan officially back as CEO [Online]. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23981848/sam-altmanback-open-ai-ceo-microsoft-board.

Heikkilä, M. (2023) Our quick guide to the 6 ways we can regulate AI [Online]. Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/05/22/1073482/our-quick-guide-to-the-6ways-we-can-regulate-ai.

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Images:

Kelly, A. (2017) Girl with robot. Unsplash.com. De Santis (2021) Robot. Unsplash.com.

mRNA Vaccines: Will This New Technology be a Game Changer?

Simran Panesar, Lower Sixth, Queen Anne House. Supervised by Mr Elkin Jones.

Inless than a decade, the science of vaccinology has made rapid progress. When the Covid-19 Pandemic hit in 2020, the progress of a certain type of vaccine that had never been perfected before was greatly accelerated. This new type of vaccine uses mRNA1, a type of RNA2. Yet suspicion about this new branch of vaccine provided fuel to the fire of the ‘anti-vax’ movement when the first Covid vaccinations were released. Despite this, vaccines in general continue to play a major part in preventing the spread of viruses around the world, and, with mRNA technology, we may even be able to use them for more than just vaccination against viruses.

How does the immune system work?

In order to fully understand vaccines, we must first understand the mechanics of the immune system and how it responds to, and kills off, unwanted foreign substances. In the immune system, there are two main types of white blood cell: phagocytes and lymphocytes. Phagocytes kill pathogens3 by engulfing them, and lymphocytes help to recognise specific pathogens and help provide immunity. Two types of phagocytes, macrophage, and dendritic cells, engulf pathogens to kill them, but they can also present a part of the pathogen called an antigen4 on their surface (How do we fight infections? 2021). Antigens are usually proteins, and they are present on the cell membranes of all cells, even our own. In regard to the immune system, they are used to identify which cells are from us and which are foreign. The antigens present on an individual’s cells are unique to them, just as our DNA is unique. The reason white blood cells do not attack our own cells is because, during development in the womb, we develop self-tolerance, so our body can recognise which cells are ours so

they do not kill them, and which are non-self cells, so they can destroy them to prevent any harm to our body.

Phagocytes presenting antigens on their surface enables lymphocytes, like Helper T-cells5 to recognise the pathogen, which then multiply by mitosis to produce Memory T-cells6 and Activated T-cells7. The helper T-cells release chemicals to signal to Cytotoxic T-cells8 to multiply and destroy the pathogen. After this has occurred, memory T-cells remain in the body in case of secondary infection. This is so the pathogen can be recognised more easily and therefore a more effective immune response can be carried out.

What is mRNA and how does it work in vaccines?

mRNA is a type of RNA which codes for the amino acid sequence for a specific protein. On viruses, there are attachment proteins, which are also antigens. These are the proteins that the mRNA in vaccines code for. The mRNA enters your cells and associates

with ribosomes9 in the cytoplasm. The protein that the mRNA codes for is then formed and the mRNA is broken down. Since the protein is recognised as foreign, the immune system is triggered and carries out an immune response, similar to, if the not the same as, what would occur with an actual pathogen, except with no risk of infection, since the vaccine does not contain any microbes10. Memory T-cells are left behind, which can recognise the protein again should the body become actually infected with the virus, but in that case, the protein would be attached to the virus and white blood cells would attack the virus.

The history of vaccination

Vaccinations have been around for much longer than you may think. At least as far back as the 15th Century, people from various parts of the globe have sought to prevent illness by exposure of healthy people to smallpox (World Health Organisation, no date). The main breakthrough in this technology is thought to have been in the late 18th century, when the Physician Edward Jenner developed on a previous discovery made by Benjamin Jesty, that having been infected with cowpox could protect against infection with smallpox. Jenner inoculated a boy with some matter from a cowpox sore, who made a full recovery and remained in good health, despite being ill for a few days after the ‘vaccination’. He is considered to be the first person to ever be vaccinated. Following this, vaccinations have continued to develop into the vaccines we know today, including the influenza vaccination. Thanks to vaccines, smallpox has been eradicated completely and diseases like Polio have been eradicated from almost every country in the world.

RNA: A shorter history

The history of mRNA vaccines, however, is much shorter. In spite of that, is has taken almost 80 years from the discovery of mRNA itself for the vaccine to be developed into a usable vaccine. The first mRNA vaccine was tested in the 1990s on mice, and it would treat the flu (Bryer, 2021). The next milestone in mRNA vaccines was in 2013, when an mRNA vaccine for rabies was first tested on humans. The reason for this long period of time with little success in making a working mRNA vaccine, is the fact that mRNA has many enzymes which would break it apart and therefore it is very easy for it to be destroyed (Simmons-Duffin, 2020). For enzymes in general to work effectively, higher temperatures increase the rate of reaction, up to a certain point. Consequently, lower temperatures slow down the rate of reaction, so in order to reduce this, it must be kept at very cold temperatures. As well as this, lipid nanoparticles were used to fix this issue, which protect the mRNA molecules to allow for its entry into cells. When the Covid-19 Pandemic hit, there was increased funding

for vaccine manufacturers, which sped up the development of vaccines, including mRNA vaccines. Because they are fast to produce, and the technology had already been discovered to allow the mRNA vaccines to work, the first vaccination for Covid-19 was administered in late 2020, just over a year after the outbreak started.

Different types of Covid-19 vaccinations

Regarding Covid-19 vaccinations, there are three types: mRNA, viral vector, and protein subunit (Mayo Clinic, 2023). All of these are based on the same concept of antigens. The viral vector vaccine is similar to the mRNA vaccine in that it codes for the spike protein, but the difference is that in the viral vector type of vaccine, the genetic material is taken from the virus itself, rather than the mRNA sequence being developed in a lab. The protein subunit vaccine is directly taking the spike protein, so there is no coding for any proteins as they are already in the vaccine. All three of these have no risk of infection from the virus, as the only thing from the virus that would be present is the thing which identifies the virus. In a way, this could be similar to seeing a photo of someone before you meet them, so you know what to expect, except with the immune system being able to recognise a virus, in this case, Covid-19, so that it can and knows how to destroy it before it even encounters it for the first time.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Traditional vs. mRNA vaccines?

Traditional

• Shelf life longer: 1-3 years

• Takes a long time to develop and manufacture

• Very effective, but may not be safe for all people

• Immunity can be for life or requires booster shots to boost immunity over time

• Some contain live (weakened) microbes, which may pose slight risk of infection Common side effects include aching on the arm it is injected into, fever, tiredness, headaches, and chills.

mRNA

• Shelf life is only around 6 months

• Takes less time to develop and manufacture

• Very effective and safe for the vast majority of people

• Immunity may require booster shots as immunity may deteriorate as time goes on

• No risk of infection with the virus as the vaccine does not contain any part of the virus

• Common side effects include the same as traditional vaccines, and a very rare side effect is anaphylaxis.

Conspiracy Theories

In the media, there have been many claims and theories, especially when the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines were first released to the public, on the safety of mRNA vaccines. This fear most likely stemmed from the fact that mRNA is similar to DNA, and that it could somehow change our genetic code (Carmichael and Goodman, 2020). However, the way that mRNA works in the body is that it is produced in the nucleus from a section of our DNA called a gene. This is because the ribosomes that produce proteins from the mRNA template are located outside of the nucleus and DNA is too large to leave the nucleus, so the mRNA leaves the nucleus via nuclear pores and associates with ribosomes in the cytoplasm, outside of the nucleus to produce the protein it codes for. In the case of vaccines, the mRNA is already there and does not need to be coded from by our DNA, as it is a foreign protein, and therefore will never enter the nucleus or interact in any way with our genetic material. In addition to this, once the protein coded for by the vaccine has been produced, the mRNA that coded for it, will be broken down into its nucleotides, the building blocks of RNA. Therefore, there is no reason to worry that mRNA vaccines will alter our DNA, as the way that cells work means that this is impossible.

In addition to this, other conspiracy theories about the vaccine have included that the whole pandemic was a cover for Bill Gates to implant microchips into the population using the vaccines, that the vaccine contains tissue from an aborted foetus, that getting Covid-19 is safer than getting the vaccine, and more (Carmichael and Goodman, 2020). Of course, Bill Gates did not orchestrate a Global Pandemic, but neither did the vaccine making process involve any foetal cells. Furthermore, although the rate of recovery is 99.0% for those who get Covid, this would mean that 100 in 10 000 die from it, and this is not counting those who get Covid and sustain long-term effects on their health and those who survive but become hospitalised from it. Vaccines are there to provide something called ‘herd immunity’, which is when a significantly large amount of people get the vaccine to prevent them from infecting other people, such as those who are unable to get the vaccine, for health and other reasons. This keeps the number of people infected with the virus down, and therefore reducing the impact of the virus on the general population so that the infection does not get out of hand. This means that getting vaccine not only protects you, but the people around you as well.

What else can we use mRNA for in medicine? mRNA technology, so far, has only been successful in humans for Covid-19, but there are many more possibilities for how it can be used in the future. One of these is another way of treating cancer (Pardi et al., 2018). As crazy as it may seem, the same technology that can prevent infection of viral diseases, can also help to combat cancer. Cancer cells have antigens that are different to the rest of our non-cancerous cells, as they have been mutated to become cancerous, and therefore their DNA and the proteins on their surface will be different. With this in mind, the way mRNA can be used to combat cancer is to include the mRNA that codes for an antigen present on Cancer cells, rather than one from a virus, in the ‘vaccine’. This will, of course, trigger an immune response, resulting in the antibodies that can kill the cancer cells to be produced. The concept to this is similar to a vaccine for viral diseases but has a very different purpose. Studies on mice have shown that the cancer vaccine increased the number of a type of T-cell which can kill off the cancerous cells and stopped the growth of a tumour in the mice.

Conclusion

So far, vaccinations have been a highly effective way of preventing and eradicating disease. The latest advances in this technology have uncovered the possibility of another means of vaccinating the general population. Despite having a long history of success, there are still people who will believe in wild theories and conspiracies surrounding vaccinations. However, this has not stopped vaccinations from saving the lives of countless people. No doubt will vaccines continue to do so as they are developed further, as well as the direction of mRNA technology in treating, not only viruses, but other problematic diseases and cancer as well. What will mRNA technology evolve into in the future? If this much progress can be made in such a short time period, then future progress is bound to follow.

Glossary

1mRNA: RNA which acts as a template in protein synthesis.

2RNA: One stranded DNA which plays a role in protein synthesis.

3Pathogen: An organism which causes disease to its host, including bacteria and viruses.

4Antigen: Markers on the cell surface membrane of living organisms and viruses, which tell your body whether it is foreign or not.

5Helper T-cells: A type of lymphocyte white blood cell which can activate B-cells and cytotoxic T-cells, as well as releasing antibodies in order to carry out an immune response.

6Memory T-cells: A type of lymphocyte white blood cell which has receptors on its surface for an antigen

that has previously been encountered, so it can recognise it should it reappear in the body.

7Activated T-cells: A type of lymphocyte white blood cell which sends signals to other immune cells for actions to take against a recognised foreign body.

8Cytotoxic T-cells: A type of lymphocyte white blood cell which perforates (makes holes in) the target cell, so that it bursts, in order to kill it. ‘Cyto-’, meaning ‘cell’ and ‘toxic’, meaning that it kills cells.

9Ribosomes: An organelle found in cells which where proteins are made.

10Microbes: Tiny living things which are too small to be seen by the naked eye, some make us sick, others are important for our health.

References:

A brief history of vaccination (no date) World Health Organization [Online]. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/history-of-vaccination/a-brief-historyof-vaccination. Accessed: 4 November 2023.

Bryer, C. (2021) The Long History of mRNA Vaccines. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health [Online]. Available at: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/the-longhistory-of-mrna-vaccines. Accessed: 1 February 2024.

Carmichael, F. and Goodman, J. (2020) Vaccine rumours debunked: Microchips, ‘altered DNA’ and more. BBC News [Online]. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/54893437. Accessed: 2 November 2023.

Mayo Clinic (2023) How do different types of COVID-19 vaccines work? Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research [Online]. Available at: https://www. mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/different-types-of-covid-19vaccines/art-20506465. Accessed: 2 November 2023.

Oxfordimmunotec (2021) How do we fight infections? YouTube [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNonmDAyy18. Accessed: 31 October 2023.

MediLexicon International (2022) mRNA vaccine vs. traditional vaccine: What to know. Medical News Today [Online]. Available at: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ articles/mrna-vaccine-vs-traditional-vaccine. Accessed: 2 November 2023.

Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy (OIDP) (2022) Vaccine Side Effects. HHS.gov [Online]. Available at: https://www.hhs.gov/immunization/basics/safety/sideeffects/index.html. Accessed: 1 February 2024.

Pardi, N. Hogan, M. J. Porter, F. W. and Weissman, D. (2018) mRNA vaccines - a new era in vaccinology. Nature News [Online]. Nature Publishing Group. Available at: https:// www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2017.243. Accessed: 2 November 2023.

Simmons-Duffin, S. (2020) Why Does Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine Need To Be Kept Colder Than Antarctica? NPR [Online]. Available at: https://www.npr.org/sections/ health-shots/2020/11/17/935563377/why-does-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine-need-to-bekept-colder-than-antarctica. Accessed: 2 November 2023.

Kwon, D. (no date) The Promise of mRNA Vaccines. The Scientist Magazine [Online]. Available at: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/the-promise-of-mrnavaccines-68202. Accessed: 2 November 2023.

Vavilis, T. et al. (2023) mRNA in the Context of Protein Replacement Therapy, Pharmaceutics. U.S. National Library of Medicine [Online]. Available at: https://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9866414. Accessed: 1 February 2024.

Images:

Altmann, G. (2020) Coronavirus. Pixabay.com.

National Cancer Institute (2020) Vaccine. Unsplash.com.

Could we Build a Bridge an Atom Thin? A Thought Experiment in Quantum Physics

Freya Vincent, Second Form, Queen Anne House. Supervised by Mr Elkin-Jones.

The beginning of this thought experiment (as I do not have the funds to make this article’s hypothesis become a reality) was fuelled by an idea that wandered into my head whilst driving over a bridge on my way home from school; I thought, how small could the bridge get? Atoms small? The thought of everything in the universe and the universe itself being made up of invisible elemental spheres, called atoms, which cannot be created or permanently destroyed and are unimaginably small, is truly incredible. So, could we build a bridge one atom thin?

The experiment’s conditions

The experiment will require specific conditions and expensive apparatus. The first problematic requirement is an Atomic Force Microscope. This machine is difficult to obtain as it is expensive, and the user must have experience. It is not a ‘quick get one off Amazon’ scenario. An Atomic Force Microscope (AMF) is a high-resolution microscope that moves a sharp metal probe across a surface. The forces in between the probe tip and the surface being scanned is recorded then inputted into a computer and a three-dimensional image of the scanned surface is produced. (User. S, n.d.). The AFM can be used to study and manipulate a wide variety of samples such as plastic, metals, glasses and biological samples. This includes the cells of bacteria.

glass and a cable will run through one of the walls of the box.

Bricks of choice

Next, we need the construction materials. The material needs to be easy to obtain and manipulate in the Atomic Force Microscope whilst also being able to hold its shape. The material’s atoms must be able to not collapse especially after bonding to the other particles because it could not support its own mass. Alloys or compounds might be too difficult to recreate or to ensure are stable and safe hence a pure element would be ideal.

Parts of the AFM and order of functions

The next obstacle is the environment in which we are to conduct our experiment. All the air around us is made of tiny molecules and loose atoms. These could potentially bond with the bridge’s atoms or bond to the apparatus and hinder the experiment. Due to this fact, we will need a space without any loose atoms: a vacuum sealed chamber. This normally would be no problem except the one we require must be large enough to fit the AMF inside so it can perform the task without the possibility of unwanted bonding between certain atoms. A glass box big enough to hold the AFM could be constructed and then sealed after having all the air sucked out of it. The computer could be connected to the machine outside of the

Originally, I thought that my construction material could be aluminium. The structure of all metals is very organised, with the atoms situated in rows or columns and held together firmly with ionic bonds therefore will not collapse (BBC Bitesize 2023). It is also an element and non-radioactive so is very safe. If we used atoms belonging to a gas, there would be no bridge but a chamber full of gas because these particles are the lightest and the most energetic. They have weak bonds and will not be able to hold themselves together. Liquids are molten metals and water. They will not be able to be crafted into a bridge as the molten metal will burn and melt the Atomic Force Microscope before being placed anywhere. The water will be difficult to recreate because water is a compound H2O and acquiring two gases, placing them, and forcing them to bond would be impossible as they would be too fast to catch and contain too much energy. There would be no bridge using liquids either.

However, a new revolutionary material – graphene – is capturing the interests of many. It is an allotrope (another pure state) of the element carbon like diamond, charcoal and graphite, the carbon form that we obtain graphene from. The atoms form bonds in the shape of a secure hexagonal lattice which allows the graphene to be one atom thin, and to be very versatile and flexible (Katnelson, M.I 2016). Graphene is almost 200 times stronger than steel because of its strong bonding pattern in a hexagonal shape. However, graphene does present a minor issue, because it is tw0 dimensional (it is one atom thin, cannot be cut in half and has the thinnest depth known to man) and is invisible to the naked human eye (Wikipedia Contributors 2019). To be able to see it and use it in the experiment, we will need to have a magnifying glass so we can obtain a layer of graphene from graphite before placing it under the AFM so it can be manipulated. It is also estimated to be 1 million times thinner than a strand of human hair (Anon n.d.).

Using the Atomic Force Microscope

Now we have the building blocks, we need to place them. This is where a sophisticated piece of scientific apparatus comes in - an Atomic Force Microscope comes in.

For the experiment to be achieved, proof is needed that we can successfully extract and replace atoms to be able to manipulate the into any structure. A team of researchers at Osaka University in Japan performed a unique task using an AFM. The team of researchers lowered a silicon AFM tip toward a silicon surface and pushed down on a single atom. The focused pressure on the singular atom forced it free of its bonds to neighbouring atoms and allowed it to bind to the AFM tip. When they lifted the tip and rescanned the material’s surface, they saw a hole where the atom had been. After achieving extracting an atom, they used the tip to press into the vacancy left behind and replace the selected atom, this time using the pressure to break the bond with the tip (Oyabu, N., Custance, Ó., Yi, I., Sugawara, Y. and Morita, S. 2003).

We need a sheet of graphene to function as the 'land' on which we will construct the bridge. Once the Atomic Force Microscope has been acquired then we can perform a similar experiment as the researchers in Japan. The only difference would be that rather than placing the 'grabbed' atom back where it was, we would apply a large amount of pressure to force it to bond with the base, a layer of graphene. Then two small islands or abutments would be created opposite each other opposite each other on the base to allow a gap for the deck of the bridge to be built.

As the extracted layer of graphene atoms is laid over each of the abutments, the atoms will lie on top of

each other. Pressure will then be applied to make the outer shells overlap causing the electrons to flow freely through both atoms' shells, ionically bonding them (BBC Bitesize 2023). This action of placing atoms will begin to decrease the distance of the gap in the bridge and build the deck inwards between the two islands until the atoms coming off them meet. There should be no gaps left in between the atoms making up the deck - the bridge is complete.

Why would this help?

After proving that we can manipulate and build things using graphene, I believe the future of using graphene would bright as there are many ways to harness its many useful features. The world of medicine is becoming revolutionised with graphene added to things such as: bone and teeth implants to improve strength and corrosion resistance; becoming part of the sensor for a new blood glucose monitor (Nanografi (n.d.)). By being placed on the arm over at least one hair follicle, it measures glucose levels by drawing fluid from between the cells and is not as painful as previous finger prick tests. Ultrasensitive biosensors have also been made with Graphene to detect tiny amounts of substances when detecting DNA and dopamine, to name but a few (Nanografi n.d.). UV sensors now made with graphene are used in the military, optical communication (using light to communicate), and environmental monitoring as well. On its own, graphene may not have a high photoresponsivity but when combined with other materials, they create flexible, transparent, environmentally friendly, and low-cost UV sensors which will lead to technologies such as possible wearable electronics in the close future.

Evaluation

With all this information and with the experiment practically planned out, there is a chance for success. The scientific world is ever changing as new areas are explored and new theories tried and assessed. Maybe the method is not right or maybe the universe's laws will not let it be, but could we make a bridge one atom thin? Yes, I think we could. As for my journey over some bridges on the way to school, I will show a little more appreciation for them in the future.

References:

Please see the Appendix on page 78.

Images:

Brownless, N. (2024) Parts of the AFM Brownless, N. (2024) States of matter

References for Will Chandler's article (p.32):

Appendix Additional References

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