Letter: Peer review
and your Observer cartoon – on the Advisory Board for the Research Councils
report on peer review (this Week, 26 January). The report did not recommend
that referees’ reports should no longer be anonymous. Nor did it say that
referees should be encouraged to allow their names to be forwarded to applicants
along with their reports (although the ESRC already does this).
However, it does raise the question of whether the peer community would
be in favour of such a change in reviewing practices. The report states:
‘A very small number of those writing to us wanted reviewer to be named
when their comments were returned to applicants. A study of peer review
in the US by D Chubin and E Hackett has also recommended this approach.
We suspect that, currently in the UK, this might lead on occasion to very
cautions or obscure responses ..In the long run, attitudes to anonymity
may change, perhaps incouraged by the openness generally required of computer
records. For now, as a beginning, we suggest that the councils ask reviewers
the hypothetical question, whether, they would agree (if the option were
available) to their names being included on their reference when it is returned
to the applicant. After, say, a year of this experiment, the councils could
judge the degree of support form the academic community for removing the
‘cloak’ of anonymity.’
In short, anonymity should be retained unless and until the peers themselves
decide that it is no longer appropriate.
Margaret Boden, Chairman ABRC Working Group on Peer Review University
of Sussex
Letter: Bleak outlook
It was nice to learn from Henry Brookman that there are temperate rainforests
in Australia (Letters, 20 October 1990). There used to be one in Cumbria,
where bleak hills (Skiddaw Forest and so on) are still named after it. I’m
dead against the Brazilians cutting down their forests, but what are we
doing to grow our own back?
Adrian O’Hea Hong Kong
Letter: Aspire to retire.
I read with interest the article ‘Bring in the long-service commission’
by John Postgate (Forum, 26 January). While I agree that there should be
some sort of career structure for scientists – I’m one myself – it always
makes me see red when someone produces a plan which depends on other people
losing their jobs.
Although I am a long way from age 45 the thought that some administrator
is going to pat me on the back on my birthday and tell me that I can go
off and do good works in the community is not appealing. I didn’t struggle
through years of the postdoc trap only to have someone older than me tell
me I’m too old.
From the article I can infer that Postgate is older than 45; why didn’t
he retire? The reason is obvious, so why tell other people to? There are
an enormous number of excellent scientists about who are aged 45 or over;
no doubt each of these would be an exception as well.
I’m sure that a wider debate along these lines would go the same way
as the tenure debate. Some senoir scientists will say it’s a good idea (but
not for them of course), just as the opponents of academic tenure for other
people seem to have it themselves, and refuse to give it up.
John Morton University of Buckingham
Letter: Train crash
Mick Hamer wrote that passengers opening doors before the train had
stopped contributed to the severity of the recent train crash at London’s
Cannon Street station (This Week, 19 January). As a passenger on the train,
I can tell you that this is incorrect. The doors of the worst affected part
of the train, the front of the sixth carrage where passenters were tapped
and killed, remained closed until opened by rescuers.
N C Ball Sevenoaks Kent
Letter: Moon named
We were studying the Earth’s moon at school and discovered that most
other moons have names. Since our moon seems to be the most important to
us we thought that it sould have a name. We decided on the name Dijon (pronounced:
deshon), meaning Deanne & Jennie. Our science teacher took it into consideration
and other schools have accepted Dijon. We hope you will accept our name.
Jennie Budd Deanne Dalgleish Christian Community High School Sydney
Austrailia
Letter: Mining Antarctica
Nigel Bonner is wrong in stating that the Antarctic Treaty talks ‘were
about proposals for the comprehensive protection of the environment, not
about mining’ (Letters, 12 January). A permanent ban on minerals activities
were a main feature in two major proposals tabled at the Antarctic Treaty
Special Consultative Meeting in Chile. Treaty parties had already agreed
in 1989 that all proposals would be explored and discussed at this meeting.
Antarctic Treaty nations such as Australia, France, Belgium, Italy and
New Zealand have reassessed their past commitment to the Convention on the
Regulation on Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (CRAMRA) and are instead
convinced that a permanent ban on mining is essential. Indeed, this was
included in draft form as part of the environmental protocol to the treaty,
to be further elaborated upon at the next meeting. No country has, so far,
ratified CRAMRA. Britain is isolated in stubbornly supporting CRAMRA and
is thereby blocking the consensus process in the Antarctic Treaty system
to reach an agreement on a mining ban.
Bonner also declares that ‘Documents were agreed on the prevention of
marine pollution, waste disposal and waste management, protection of fauna
and flora and, very importantly, on environmental impact assessment.’ I
don’t know where Bonner was during the last few days of the meeting but
there certainly was no final agreement on any of the above. The meeting
decided to continue elaborations on the draft protocol in April this year,
in Madrid.
The meeting in Chile did not give the Antarctic environment any further
protection. Hopefully, Britain will come to its senses and real progress
can be made in April.
Jagdish Patel Greenpeace London
Letter: Odd job
Feedback (26 January) makes fun of our job advertisement in IEE’s Recritment.
The background to this ‘odd’ advert is that it was for a research associate
position on a SERC grant (an odd occurrence in itself) for the development
of a cellular automata computer. The odd bits arose from the use of a spelling
checker – ‘automata’ became ‘automate’ and ‘fuzzy logic’ became ‘fussy logic’.
An identical advert appeared in The guardian without any problems, but it’s
well known the The Grauniad does not use a spelling checker.
Nigel Allison University of York
Letter: Clockwise consumers
To reduce Ariadne’s puzzlement, I propose some reasons for the loss
in popularity of digital timepieces (24 November 1990).
A digital clock cannot be read at an acute angle. You have to be almost
full-face to it to decipher the numerals, In contrast, the position of the
hands on an analogue clock face can be recognised at an angle of less than
20 degrees. A glance at the town hall clock is remembered as a visual pattern
which can be recalled minutes later and translated into time if necessary.
When checking to see how long you have, say, to catch a train, the calculation
between the hand-position now and departure time can be done almost without
thought. Numerals must be consciously manipulated, which, except for the
mathematically gifted, comes but poorly to most of us.
And finally, the manufacturers messed in their own nests by competing
with each other on ‘features’. An instrument, which feels as if it weighs
three-quarters of a pound. bristling with seven controls which offer a plethora
of uses is of little use to the commuter on the Clapham omnibus.
Will it be a triumph of progress when all timepieces are digital and
no one knows the meaning of the word clockwise and anticlockwise? How do
you tell someone the correct way to turn off a tap without the word clockwise.
Malcolm Glennie Holmes Wagga Wagga New South Wales Australia
Letter: Biological arms
Steven Rose’s generally helpful review of Susan Wright’s Preventing
a Biological Arms Race is greatly appreciated (12 January), especially since
the Gulf War has made us all acutely conscious of the menace. Two features
of his review are troubling, however.
First, to characterise Wright as a ‘researcher’ and ‘campaigner’ is
demeaning, even if unwittingly so. Such stresss on her acitvist credentials
ignores Proffessor Wright’s stature as a historian and scientist, specialising
in the evolution of policy toward DNA technology in Britian and the US.
My second concern cuts deeper. Rose is correct to suggest that a time
lapse between writing and publishing results in a lack of focus on the problems
posed by the threat of biological warfare in the Middle East, and in the
related insufficiency of treatment of the Iraqi use of chemical weapons
in its war against Iran, and then later against Kurdish villages. No condmenation
is too great for these atrocious crimes.
But to say that this activity ‘is more of less excused’ in the book
is a perverse reading of my attempt to highlight the importance of these
issues. As a contributor, my intention was to stress the critical significance
of what Iraq had done, and to indicate my disappointment over the unduly
tepid response of the international community, including the states leading
the coalition that so self-righteously started the Gulf War.
Richard Falk Stockholm University Sweden
Letter: Seeing is believing
I would like to ask Robert Lanza whether he feels the world will continue
to exist after the death of his consciousness. If not, it’ll be hard luck
for all of us should we outlive him.
G D Page-Wood Saint Jean de Bouzet France
Letter: Brainy computers
While I welcome Michael Cross’s article on the excellent work done in
Japan on neural network computers, the suggestion that ‘Western computer
manufacturers have shown little interest in the concept of neural networks’
is misleading (‘Japan’s quest for the brainy computer’, 26 January). In
a sense it is right to refer to lack of interest among computer manufacturers,
but this does not mean that large parts of the electronics and telecommunications
industry have not taken up the new style with alacrity.
In the US, not only is there much involvement from firms traditionally
linked to defence, but also giants like AT&T have well developed plans
to build neural machines. Also, new firms such as Nestor and Hecht-Nielsen
have developed an expertise that is hard to beat. The first of these is
also developing plans to make large neurocomputers with Intel, which has
produced a high performance chip.
In Europe, Siemens in Germany, Thomson-CSF in France, and the French
laboratories of Philips have well developed plans, while in Britain companies
such as Logica and SD-Scicon are making advances. The world’s first commercial
neural vision system was produced in 1984 through a collaboration between
Computer Recognition Systems, Brunel University and Imperial College.
The major difference between the Japanese effort and that of the West
lies in the fact that the Japanese are redirecting some of their parallel
hardware work which was developed under the ‘fifth generation’ banner towards
neurocomputing, while the West is creating new neural architectures. These
two activities are compatible and there is much scope for East-West collaboration
which should not be lost.
Igor Aleksander Imperial College London
Letter: Seeing is believing
I was annoyed by the lack of any real explanation in Robert Lanza’s
article ‘The past needs its people’ (Forum, 12 January). He cites experimental
findings of quantum theory as an argument that ‘reality is created by the
observer’, and that ‘it is in this light that evolutionary philosophy must
be reinterpreted’.
Why? Surely it’s a mistake to interpret the events of particle interaction
on a quantum scale with the gross scale of living things? As Lanza has singled
out evolution, is he saying that evolution ‘isn’t there’ and therefore invalid
if people weren’t around at the time that DNA first became a self-assembly
molecule?
Also, is Lanza serious when he claims that ‘Before matter can peep forth,
even as a pebble or a snowflake, it has to be observed by a consciousness?’
What kind of mind is he referring to? And when he asks ‘How many more rocks
must we uncover before we learn this’, then what is he saying? Is he suggesting
that scientists give up tangible empirical research and indulge in speculation?
It seems to me that extending the quantum argument to mean that reality
is created by the observer, so it encompasses the larger events of everyday
life, is an illusion. To use an analogy, it’s like extending the strong
nuclear force to cover events taking place over cosmological distance rather
than just the domain of nucleons. Indeed, it would appear to have the same
spurious air of logic which persuaded Bishop Ussher to count the ‘begats’
in the Bible to arrive at the age of the Earth.
Christopher Ellerby London