clues and clouds

In his famous 1980 article "Morelli, Freud and Sherlock Holmes: Clues and Scientific Method", Carlo Ginzburg discusses the importance of clues. He talks about the art historian Giovanni Morelli- who looked at hands and the minor details of art works to establish their authenticity. He discusses Sigmund Freud and his predilection for parapraxes. Sherlock Holmes gets a mention as well*.

The plethora of new media that we engage with can be seen as clue-creation machines. When Nancy White was using del.icio.us to bookmark a bunch of sites on breast cancer as part of some client work, she got a stream of concerned emails from those who had put 2 and 2 together and got 5.

Are we aware of the clues we create ourselves and those we sense from others?

*Ginzburg notes that Morelli, Freud and Conan-Doyle were all trained as doctors. More posts on medicine shortly.