Terry Pratchett on "We only use 10% of our brain"

This post may not be especially useful for instruction, but I thought I'd share it in case anyone needs a smile from a good (in my opinion) quote today. Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite authors, and he often comments on scientific topics in the midst of his creative, chaotic, and VERY funny fiction novels. In the quote below, Pratchet comments on the "we only use 10% of our brain" myth:

"It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. No one would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary gray goo . . . It is used. And one of the functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual. Because if this were not the case, then human beings, faced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big stupid grins, similar to those worn by certain people who occasionally get raided by the authorities to have the contents of their plastic greenhouses very seriously inspected. They'd say 'Wow!' a lot. And no one would do much work." (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Posted by Rob McEntarffer