Daredevil

Superheroes are designed to be idols, I mean that's the whole idea right? They are characters able to do impossible things that exceed normal human ability and so we all think "Woah I'd love to be like that " and suddenly they become an aspiration, an idol.

And its pretty evident how trial and error has been used and new characters have been created to refine this process. I mean back at the dawn of comics you've got superman in 1938 - A man who is today criticised as overpowered simply because he can do everything, fly, shoot lasers, move fast, super strength; if you think of a power, odds are that he could manipulate his own extensive powers in one way or another to have that power. So there we have the prototype, appealing to a large audience.

Of course as time went on you get more and more superheroes made and each one is made to appeal to a particular audience so their morals, backstory, costume, weapons of choice and such are all moulded and designed to resonate with particular people. I mean you've got characters like the fantastic four for those who like science, more gothic characters like batman and punisher, and Deadpool to appeal to that little bit of crazy in all of us.

But one which I think is possibly my favourite character and origin story in the marvel or DC universes is Daredevil. I mean this is a superhero who is completely BLIND! Now that is an interesting choice.

Before I go any further with this I just want to make clear that yes this post is because I just finished watching daredevil season 2, no I am not just saying that he is awesome because I am currently obsessing over it and I am going to explain where necessary as if the reader has no knowledge of the subject so sorry to any seasoned marvel veterans reading!

So the premise of daredevil is that he loses his sight in a horrible accident when he pushes a man out of the way of an oncoming lorry. However due to radioactive exposure and the fact that he has gone blind, his other senses are heightened extraordinarily. 

Now this is all well and good but I want to ask just how realistic is this idea? You hear stories of people being able to hear better and use clicking like sonar to see after sight loss but how much science is there really behind these cases.

Lets get into it then.

So firstly this heightening of the senses is not fiction, it is 100% fact. In fact a paper published in the journal of neuroscience also provides an explanation.

It is shown that when a person goes blind, the part of the brain that would normally process visual data doesn't just go to waste, it is effectively rewired in order to process information from the other senses. So people without sight gain a greater capacity to use their other senses right off the bat thanks to this phenomena known as cross-modal neuroplasticity.

Then there's the fact that humans are nothing if not adaptable. Anyone can relate that after doing any one task for a time, they pick up small things about it and learn how to do that task better, improving at it as they practise. This is called learned behaviour and is how we learn how to do anything. It also means that even people blinded in later life will still learn to use their their other senses more acutely.




And this effect isn't even one way! People who go deaf experience a similar effect which makes them less susceptible to optical illusions and gives them better processing of visual information.

But what is the extent of these abilities? It is hard to say for certain because everybody is different and few large scale studies have been done to test this. There are however several spectacular cases in which people are actually able to navigate in a similar way to bats and dolphins by using clicking noises to create a sort of sonar, I'm including a video below of a man called Daniel Kish who has improved his ability enough to actually be able to ride a bike. 

So there you have it! That is why daredevil isn't as completely bizzare as it seems, even if it is a little exaggerated, it is based on hard science. Even if blind people can't her people's heartbeats or fight crime with their super senses, they are still able to train themselves even to the extent to being able to see with sound, which is a pretty incredible thing.

Once again thank you all for reading now if you'll excuse me Game of Thrones beckons....