Ending up approximately where you want to be

A couple of weeks ago there was a discussion on the Radio 4 Today programme of that hoary old question of which sex is better at navigating.

Tristan Gooley, author of the Natural Navigator, has come up with a non-scientific comparison, based on his experience of teaching his methods.

Women are very good at making use of all the information that is available to them; for example they noticed the lights on in the houses, deduced that it must be evening rather than early morning, & so did not need to work through other methods, based on natural science, in order to distinguish east from west.

But is this because men simply do not notice, or are reluctant to rely upon such soft information based on ideas of human behaviour which do not provide reliable (invariant) rules.

Once in a while at least there will be some very good local reason for all the neighbours to be up so early (or late)

Links
BBC Radio 4 Today programme 17 September
The Natural Navigator