My morning newsfeed presented this Christian Science Monitor story on the work of MIT professor Nicholas Makris – titled “Study reveals the accidental origins of the violin”. Accidental, my arse! My lazy Sunday morning breakfast of fatty fried egg on toast with herb cracked olives was disturbed. I was moved to respond.
Just because an MIT professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering found after-the-fact scientific explanation (see below*) for the evolution of the “f” shaped holes found in most violins, how on earth does the author of the article, Joseph Dussault, arrive at the absurd conclusion that “the violin’s distinctive, f-shaped sound hole came not as a result of human ingenuity, but rather a series of random mutations”. Really!? There is nothing “random” about intuitively driven design decisions! They are the epitome of human ingenuity!