Letters: Science funding
Your editorial and story in This Week gave a depressing account of the
state of science funding in Britain (16 February). The squeeze on nuclear
physics research has arisen as it shares the same funding pocket as particle
physics research, although they are clearly separate and distinct sciences.
It is astonishing that the Science and Engineering Research Council’s response
to these financial difficulties should be a suggestion that one of its world
class facilities be abruptly closed.
The chairman of SERC, Mark Richmond, is quoted as saying ‘the cost per
head of the synchrotron radiation source (at Daresbury) is a much more effective
use of resource than the Nuclear Structure Facility’. This statement appears
to suggest that decisions on the support of scientific research in the country
should be made on accounting arguments. It is sad to hear such views expressed,
the more so since the logic of the argument has not been carried through.
It is clearly naive to measure the cost of a research activity as being
the funds needed for central facilities. University groups using such facilities
also require home-based laboratories, and these are funded both from grants
awarded by the research councils and funds from the Universities Funding
Council. In many areas, this may involve considerable resources. Indeed,
a part of this ‘hidden’ funding is represented by the pounds sterling 100
million which will be transferred from the UFC to SERC in future years.
I doubt whether anyone knows the true cost of supporting research in any
area, and the arguments based on central facility costs alone are entirely
specious.
David Phillips is quoted as saying that he wishes to shift funding towards
grant requests-the ‘responsive mode grants’ policy oft quoted of late. I
have not heard the Advisory Board for the Research Councils define what
this phrase means, but I presume it suggests that funds should be directed
in response to requests for support of good science from university groups.
In the case of nuclear physics research groups in universities this would
refer to the funds needed to support postdoctoral researchers, to design
and construct new and innovative experimental equipment, and to provide
access to the facilities needed to pursue the science.
The NSF at Daresbury is our instrument of research, just as the laser
is to the atomic physicist, the neutron source to the metallurgist or solid-state
scientist, or the synchrotron light source to the biologist, surface scientist
or crystallographers. There would appear to be little difference between
this requirement in nuclear physics research and those in many other areas
of science.
Brian Fulton, chairman, NSF Coordinating Committee University of Birmingham
Letters: Science funding
Your editorial on the Commons debate on science policy did science a
disservice. You said, ‘Parliamentarians scattered OECD statistics around
like confetti, but carefully ducked any attempt at serious discussion of
what the statistics really mean.’ Yet I did explain carefully twice-once
in an intervention in Kenneth Clarke’s speech and once in my own.
I said, ‘Science is not measured in tonnes like steel. If scientists’
pay goes up by no more than the national average, the so-called real measure
of R&D expenditure increases proportionately to GDP, by definition.
So-called level funding means a decline in research done and a decline in
the number of scientists at the same rate at which GDP is growing.’
You asked, ‘Where was the discussion about the implications of the government’s
plans to privatise the British Technology Group?’ It was in the House of
Commons on 12 February, when Labour opposed the second reading of the bill
to privatise BTG, and it will continue on Tuesdays and Thursdays in committee
for weeks to come.
You said Labour ‘was disappointing in its reluctance to sketch out what
an alternative science policy might look like.’ I did precisely that in
my speech in the little time that I had.
Jeremy Bray Labour spokesman on science and technology House of Commons,
London
Letters: Bomb shelter
Nearly six weeks into the war to end not just wars but also many other,
more interesting, subjects, and not one single Gulf hostility letter in
New 杏吧原创. Are ivory towers bomb-proof? If so, could somebody please
lend me one?
Jane Leitch Haworth West Yorkshire
Letters: Antibody treatments
As a person suffering from a chronic antibody deficiency (hypogammaglobulinaemia)
I was very interested to read your feature on the clinical uses of antibodies
(‘A second chance for antibodies’, 9 February). As ever with such articles
I was puzzled to find no mention of the fact that patients like myself have
been treated successfully with antibodies from pooled plasma for more than
30 years or that developments like the ones you describe may be important
for us.
We get good general protection from our treatment, but to receive antibodies
tailored to specifically troublesome organisms would solve significant problems
for us and almost certainly be life-saving in some cases.
Alan Scott Lewes East Sussex
Letters: Brought from book
I feel that Roy Herbert’s view on the future of reference books, in
comparison to online databases, is both blinkered and uninformed (Review,
2 February). He seems to imply that there is a choice to be made: book or
database.
But, for the very reasons mentioned in the article (ease of accessibility
and browsing, versus the ability to make full use of the world’s library
resources), books and online databases are complementary. There are so many
different types of people wanting to use that information in different ways,
that there will always be a need for a variety of methods of accessing information.
Just because technology produces a new way of doing things does not
mean that the old way has to disappear. The advent of television did not
see the extinction of radio, or, for that matter of books.
Other information systems which might have merited a mention, especially
as they do not rely on long-distance computer communications, are : CD-ROM
(which allows an entire encyclopedia, including illustrations, to be stored
on a compact disc); CD-I (similar to CD-ROM, and allowing video and audio
to be stored-imagine looking up Hamlet’s soliloquies and immediately being
able to see Laurence Olivier performing them); and hypertext (which enables
lined browsing, so that when you find something interesting in one section
you can straightaway access any cross-references).
I will always enjoy books, but there are more ways than one to skin
a cat.
Andrew Tatham Dorking Surrey
Letters: Middle-age duty
I applaud John Postgate’s article outlining the benefits of a new style
of contract for research and university staff in which retirement on a pension
is automatic in middle age, except for a meritorious few who continue to
greater age (‘Bring in the long-service commission’, Forum, 26 January).
The benefits are many. Expensive senior people leave, freeing money
to allow younger people to begin a career (otherwise denied them). The ‘victims’
have a chance to pursue alternative interests before they are too old to
enjoy doing so. The employing institution gains from turnover, getting fresh
ideas and personalities.
Even better than retirement would be part-time engagement. Universities,
especially, need diversity of brains. Middle-aged, senior people should
not go completely, but stay around to add ideas and experience to the pool.
Ten years ago I suggested a scheme whereby university staff automatically
went on to part-time contracts at age 50 (unless they wanted to remain full-time,
and by peer review were allowed to do so).
Whenever I described my scheme outside universities, it was hailed as
imaginative; within university circles, it was ignored or received with
hostility. Universities are supposed to contain people who can think of
new ideas, and set a lead in society. Where better to start than solving
their own financial and employment problems in our post-industrial society?
P. A. Morris Ascot Berkshire
Letters: Nostalgic smell
Simon Hadlington’s piece extolling the originality of a team of workers
who used a piezoelectric crystal coated with lipid bilayers for sensing
gaseous species, stirred some almost forgotten emotions deep within me (Science,
16 February). Carefully blowing the dust from my PhD thesis, I turned up
a reference to work done in 1963 in which the concept of gas or vapour sensing
by coated piezoelectric crystals had been described and tested.
My emotions had not let me down. Weighing smells is not new; the majority
of sensors developed over the subsequent 28 years have responded to gases
that can be detected by olfactory means.
I think I shall resume mywork on piezoelectric sensors; I’ll try to
make one that diligently sniffs out facts. There may be a ready market among
your correspondents.
T. E. Edmonds Loughborough University of Technology Leicestershire
Letters: Hat and tales
Your cartoonist David Austin depicts an Australian man wearing a hat
with corks dangling from the brim (Letters, 9 February). I am not sure where
that idea comes from, though I suspect that an expatriate comedian had something
to do with it.
During my 64 years in this country I have never seen such headgear.
Broad brimmed hats are indeed fashionable, but not corks.
James Campbell South Yarra Victoria Australia
Letters: Astrology research
The continuing interest in astrology-despite the attempts of many scientists-can
be explained without recourse to Freudian notions or the patronising ‘Barnum
effect’ (‘Hooked on horoscopes’, 26 January). Astrology has behind it centuries
of unbroken observation and correlation of events (albeit not the hallowed
double-blind trials). To try to prove it false by relating it to facile
psychological tests of dubious objectivity will get people nowhere; in fact
this is perhaps where the true ‘illusion of scientific validity’ may be
found.
As Adrian Furnham indeed suggests, in order to minimise stress, many
people take the reasonable option of attempting to gain information about
their situations, both in terms of the outside world and the impulses within
each of us. Such people are in good company with Plato, Pythagoras and Newton
to mention just a few.
To say that astrology as a whole has been falsified is not true. For
example, Michel Gauquelin, who started out sceptical of astrology, examined
thousands of cases and came up with correlations unpredicted by chance.
But studies only scratch the surface. There are many research topics within
astrology ready to be addressed by scientists with sufficiently open minds.
People would then be able to choose freely whether to use the astrological
key to help them chart a fulfilling course through life, or not.
Wendy Miller London
Letters: Astrology research
I wish to upbraid Adrian Furnham for a lack of candour in his article
which sought to reject the practice of graphology. I, like almost all serious
practitioners, first approached the subject with his attitude but, thankfully,
with a rather more open mind.
Furnham is right to point out that it is possible to convince people
of almost anything, provided one is economical with detail. He is quite
wrong to assume that this is the basis of true graphology. A graphological
report will be the result of hours of careful work, based on years of study,
will run to several pages and will contain many specific details. By no
means all will be complimentary, and I have on occasion had to produce some
very critical reports.
I have yet to read the test by Stagner, but as described by Furnham,
it seems to be open to the opposite interpretation-the assessments based
on graphology may indeed have been more accurate than those of the particular
‘scientific’ tests in use at the time.
My own study of graphology has convinced me of its value. We expect
to take account of ‘nonverbal communication’: nuances of tone, of emphasis
in conversation, of posture and of glance. So why not take note of changes
in pressure, or slant, in speed or in size of writing?
David Perry Chilton, Oxfordshire
Letters: Salt cellar
My photograph showing dead trees and the effects of salinisation did
not match your caption, which said that trees had been planted to turn Australian
salt lands back into productive use. (In Brief, 9 February). You should
have used my picture that showed live trees planted by Alcoa, as part of
its Land Care programme. The trees ring the affected land, lowering the
water table and cutting the flow of salt to the surface.
Mark Edwards London
Letters: Sun block
Ariadne (9 February) need have no worries about observing the total
solar eclipse on 11 July 1991. Before crossing Mexico the track of totality
passes over the Big Island of Hawaii where the duration of totality will
be four minutes. There are very good prospects for clear skies and excellent
hotel accommodation is still available within a couple of kilometres of
the centre line. I will be happy to provide details.
John Parkinson University College London