Global Strategy - blog

As everyone knows, it is the ultimate honour of a Briton to have one's portrait in a banknote. The Guardian raised an issue today, as there seems to be a problem with the ten pound note, which has Charles Darwin and a hummingbird printed on it.

Darwin's work in laying the foundations of the theory of evolution is well known and far-reaching (considering the evolutionary aspects of this research project). Now, the problem with the banknote is that hummingbirds have no relevance whatsoever to the development of his theory. As taught in the elementary biology classes, Darwin observed the beaks of finches.

Bank of England denies the problem.

Now, two issues came into my mind. First, how is it possible that this kind of blunder ever happens? This seems to justify the importance of a rigorous review process. Letting artists to do all the artistic stuff by themselves can obviously lead to similar situations as when architects do the drawing, urban planning, construction engineering and budgeting.

Second, denial is unlikely to be a fruitful way forward. Trying to understand, they might have other worries in the Bank of England these days. Alternatively, they have strict house rules: "1. Deny..."

Let us be fair. Despite ‘knowing' about the finches, beaks and stuff, as well as handling the ten pound notes, did not help me in realising the problem. Only after reading the article I went through a process of illumination. It is interesting to ‘know' something without knowing it.

So, as pretty much everything, also this falls into the field of epistemology...