Sherlock Holmes – a fine tribute to logical deduction

I have always been a big fan of detective work where logic and deduction plays a large part in solving the case.

My favorite is the fictitious character Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The best parts are when looking at simple objects like a hat, coat, pipe etc he is able to amazingly deduce quite a bit of information about the person(s) it belongs to. Also to him the satisfaction derived from solving the case is more important than any monetary gains.

The next favorite I have is another fictitious character Monk on USA Networks. Some of the cases he solves are just mind boggling. One of my favorite is the chess grandmaster who seems to always be one step in front of everyone including Monk.

Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Columbo, Matlock .. the list goes on but they all have the same things. Usually the clues are right in front of us and it is a matter of thinking out of the box and logical deduction that gets you to solve the case. What it also makes you wonder is the brilliance of the human minds out there.

Taboo on National Geographic Channel

I recently watched a few reruns of the show Taboo on National Geographic Channel. It is pretty graphic and not for the faint of heart as it presents extreme cases from several cultures around the globe. Such a show would probably not have aired just a few decades back.

What I like about the show is that it brings out the skeptic in me .. it challenges my values and beliefs .. it makes me question things I take for granted. As babies and children we are born a blank slate and many of the things we know or do are imprinted on us by the environment and people we know.

I believe it is important to constantly question things even those we take for granted. Just like we have to make sure the foundation of a bridge over a river continues to be robust, we need to check our foundation occasionally to make sure that it is not flawed.