![]() ![]() Read more: Why does my cat knead and bite my blanket But on closer inspection, might Kipling’s fantasies contain a grain of truth? And might the “truth” as science understands it, be even more fantastic than fiction? They’re ad hoc fallacies, designed to explain-away a biological or behavioural trait, more akin to folklore than the laws of science. ![]() But what does science make of these lyrical tales? For the most part, just-so stories are to be dismissed as the antithesis of scientific reasoning. In Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, we’re told how the leopard got his spots, the camel his hump, the whale his throat and so forth. Vivienne Parry presents the science behind some of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, with wondrous tales of how things really came to be. It’s a 15-minute program including a dramatic reading interspersed with intriguing facts about the biology of Felis catus. The latest BBC segment, which you can hear here, deconstructs “The Cat that Walked by Himself”. ![]() “Just So Science” on BBC Radio 4 has taken some of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories and biologized them-interviewing experts on animal behavior to provide a gloss on Kipling’s descriptions. ![]()
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