toward a scientific theory of girth measurement...
A rule of scientific inquiry is that theories, even the greatest ones, must be consistently assessed and challenged. We must consistently test even those theories that have become structural walls and lodestones of our understanding of the world. Think of where we would be if Einstein had not taken us past Newton's physics. Or if Galileo and Copernicus had not taken us past the Ptolomaic system. This being the case, I have decided to offer a series of posts that shall allow interaction on a number of theories in several scientific and historical disciplines. I invite the reader to enter the conversation; to improve, to challenge, or to add to these theories in order to finally use the blogosphere to better Western civilization in a very real and lasting way. I only humbly ask that you engage these theories strictly in a scientific and rational way.
Since the time of classical Athens, great thinkers have dashed themselves upon the rocks of a great philosophical problem. How can aesthetics be reconciled rationally?
In recent years, one aspect of this great challenge was tackled (how successfully I will let the reader judge) by a sort of thinktank comprised in the main of a number of great minds, and in a merely incidental manner by the present author. If memory serves, the greatest service was rendered by one NB.
The problem at hand: There are nearly as many body types as there are bodies. The variety in human form seems nearly endless. And a simple statement of the girth of an individual: "He is fat", "She is thin", even given the seemingly scientific ratio of height to weight, simply does not properly quantify the aesthetic quality which these esteemed scientists chose to call 'girth'. The simple height to weight ratio does not address several important realities such as build that can render two persons of the same height and weight significantly different in aesthetic quality. So, essentially, how can the aesthetics of girth be properly discussed?
Being that those involved were rational men, they chose to attempt to apply a truly scientific method to this distressing aesthetic problem.
This congress of minds occurred at a chalet in the northwoods of Canada. And a story had recently been relayed regarding a group of camp counselors at Lake Michigan, a story that seemed to offer a possible point of departure. It seems that a number of camp counselors had been boating on one of the Great Lakes, and their watercraft had capsized. All aboard had proper flotation devices, but given the extremely cold water temperature, all but one succumbed to the elements. The survivor was a young lady who, fortunately for her in this situation, had an excess of internal personal insulation. So this hypothesis was submitted:
Relative girth can be assessed by the duration of time that a person can be immersed in freezing cold water without experiencing severe hypothermia.
What was then needed was a test case. Obviously, it would have been quite unethical to utilize human experiments to establish such theories. But, fortunately, there was a test case already at hand. There was a young woman, there at the chalet, who had that very week capsized a watercraft in freezing cold water. She was quite physically God-glorifying in a decidedly... well... shall we say voluptuous way. Having been in the water for approximately nine minutes, she was decidedly hypothermic. So they had their upper baseline. And there was a sort of informed group consensus that they could establish a lower baseline at say, three minutes. If she had succumbed after only three minutes of exposure, she would have been dangerously past established extremes of waifish supermodeldom.
And so the theory: Girth can be measured by the above-stated method. And reasonable aesthetic parameters would be three to nine minutes submersion with marginal hypothermia.
Since the time of classical Athens, great thinkers have dashed themselves upon the rocks of a great philosophical problem. How can aesthetics be reconciled rationally?
In recent years, one aspect of this great challenge was tackled (how successfully I will let the reader judge) by a sort of thinktank comprised in the main of a number of great minds, and in a merely incidental manner by the present author. If memory serves, the greatest service was rendered by one NB.
The problem at hand: There are nearly as many body types as there are bodies. The variety in human form seems nearly endless. And a simple statement of the girth of an individual: "He is fat", "She is thin", even given the seemingly scientific ratio of height to weight, simply does not properly quantify the aesthetic quality which these esteemed scientists chose to call 'girth'. The simple height to weight ratio does not address several important realities such as build that can render two persons of the same height and weight significantly different in aesthetic quality. So, essentially, how can the aesthetics of girth be properly discussed?
Being that those involved were rational men, they chose to attempt to apply a truly scientific method to this distressing aesthetic problem.
This congress of minds occurred at a chalet in the northwoods of Canada. And a story had recently been relayed regarding a group of camp counselors at Lake Michigan, a story that seemed to offer a possible point of departure. It seems that a number of camp counselors had been boating on one of the Great Lakes, and their watercraft had capsized. All aboard had proper flotation devices, but given the extremely cold water temperature, all but one succumbed to the elements. The survivor was a young lady who, fortunately for her in this situation, had an excess of internal personal insulation. So this hypothesis was submitted:
Relative girth can be assessed by the duration of time that a person can be immersed in freezing cold water without experiencing severe hypothermia.
What was then needed was a test case. Obviously, it would have been quite unethical to utilize human experiments to establish such theories. But, fortunately, there was a test case already at hand. There was a young woman, there at the chalet, who had that very week capsized a watercraft in freezing cold water. She was quite physically God-glorifying in a decidedly... well... shall we say voluptuous way. Having been in the water for approximately nine minutes, she was decidedly hypothermic. So they had their upper baseline. And there was a sort of informed group consensus that they could establish a lower baseline at say, three minutes. If she had succumbed after only three minutes of exposure, she would have been dangerously past established extremes of waifish supermodeldom.
And so the theory: Girth can be measured by the above-stated method. And reasonable aesthetic parameters would be three to nine minutes submersion with marginal hypothermia.
posted by yonderincarp at 11:11
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