Jolly and fatuous

Speaking of fat, jolly bearded men, the word for today is Fatuous.

Fat u ous means silly, lacking judgement, and is a synonym for daft. Because it starts with F, not PH, I'll venture a guess that it is from a Latin word.

I just finished listening to an audio book with very fatuous music. I'd say it was a fatuous look at the scientific studies searching for evidence for an afterlife. Or is it a scientific look at the more fatuous experiments designed to find evidence for an afterlife? It definitely includes "experiments" done in a very spurious manner, with questionable results. I think the author, Mary Roach, could have provided much better examples. I can think of many, but is that because they are more objective, or is it because I am less objective? I used to think I was a skeptic, but after listening to this I realize that my exposure to hypnosis, and the many metaphysical books I read, have influenced my beliefs and I can really no longer say I am skeptical about reincarnation or the existence of an afterlife.

The book is called Spooks, a scientific search for the afterlife. It is quite funny in places. It shows how scientists can be influenced by popular trends in thought, like spiritualism. There is a museum which claims to have the only known quantity of ectoplasm on the planet. Funny, how I thought ectoplasm was a gelatinous material, when most mediums who produced it seemed to produce a length of gauze or chiffon. I'm talking about actual CLOTH. And the only known quantity of it appears to be a rather large, stained square of cotton cloth. And redolent, also. I don't quite understand why.

Red o lent means smelly. Probably Latin.