Disasters are much misunderstood events, with misassumptions being common currency in popular culture, mass media, and even professional walks of life. We term these the myths of disasters for convenience. Rather than absolute errors of perception, they represent statistical generalisations about what is unlikely to happen in calamity. That people panic is perhaps the most common and enduring myth of all. Panic is a transient phenomenon that occurs only in specific circumstances. Looting, a measure of the breakdown of social order, is also uncommon, although it may occur where preconditions for it exist. Like other misconceptions, these myths fit easily into the ‘Hollywood model’ derived from highly stylised disaster movies. This model is countered by the therapeutic community that sociologists have found in post-disaster settings. Better education and more responsible reporting could do much to reduce beliefs in inaccurate portrayals of the phenomenon.

At the time of Sebald’s death in December 2001, a cult of all things “Sebaldian” was already emerging among his Anglo-American readership in particular. Since then, his consecration has reached almost hagiographic heights. His reticence in interviews and his reluctance to participate in the promotional circus of literary publishing amplified his posthumous apotheosis. The timing of his death after the release of the English translation of Austerlitz led to his rise beyond art and academia to cult author status. To many readers and even non-readers of his work, Sebald constituted a messianic exemplum of the “good German” and the “prime speaker of the Holocaust”, as well as a model proponent of the nature writing genre. This led to the creation of touristic walking routes that followed in the footsteps of his novels’ narrators, as well as social media reading groups, engendering further abstractions and misconceptions. Parodic articles emulating his style and overblown tributes only fuelled the cult’s fire. The suddenness of Sebald’s rise from obscurity to international stardom late in life, along with his unexpected demise merely half a decade later, ensure his cult status lives on.

How does a person curious about or wanting to do science learn it? The thesis of this book is learning science requires not only digging deeply into the subject but learning how to learn. It is not enough to learn facts about the history of science or to study chemistry, biology, or physics per se. One must also have a sense of the roles of psychological and social factors in science. We can read about the development of Newtonian mechanics or quantum physics, but that does not tell us why Newton, or Planck, Bohr, Born, or Heisenberg studied these subjects in the first place or what thought processes they used in their work. It does not tell us how their personalities and intuition drove their work. It also does not tell us why the work of these scientists was or was not accepted by the scientific community, rightly or wrongly. Most importantly, it does not tell us why we think we know what we do or even if what we study is real. Epistemology and metaphysics are required here. This chapter explains why such knowledge is obligatory if one is to do science well.

The work of codification of civil and commercial law, which began in 1908 under the direction of French draftsmen, produced the desired result in 1925 only after Phraya Manavarajasevi (Plod na Songkhla) became involved. Plod was instrumental in replacing the French Civil Code of 1804 with the German Civil Code of 1900 (“BGB”) as the principal model and introducing the Japanese Civil Code of 1898 (“JCC”) and a copying method which he referred to as the ‘Japanese method’ to the new Thai-dominated drafting committee. The JCC and the ‘Japanese method’ were chosen owing to Plod’s conviction that the Japanese had established their civil code by copying the BGB. In reality, the JCC was influenced by a variety of foreign laws, including German and French law. The drafting committee’s lack of knowledge about the rules and concepts they borrowed and the method they adopted led to difficulties in interpreting the rules and concepts in question. This chapter will explore Plod’s fundamental misconception in the drafting of the TCCC and its consequences with a particular focus on the principle of fault in breach of contract.