Letters: Facts of life
Phyllida Brown writes that teachers are prevented from promoting homosexuality
under Section 28 of the Local Government Act but they may discuss the issue
when teaching about sexually transmitted diseases (This Week, 6 April).
Sir Derek Bodell, of the Health Education Authority, is reported as saying
that many teachers have become confused about what they can and cannot mention
and suggests the law restricts the teacher’s ability to respond spontaneously
to a young person’s questions.
Whilst appreciating the spirit in which this point is put, I am concerned
that this presentation of the point may add to the confusion which undoubtedly
exists. It is, in fact, local education authorities who are barred by the
legislation from promoting the teaching in any maintained school of the
acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. Generally,
local authorities, including local education authorities, are prohibited
from intentionally promoting homosexuality and publishing material with
the intention of promoting homosexuality.
The particular restriction on teaching, although offensive to the gay
community for what it does say, is nonetheless a relatively narrow restriction.
Whilst there is obvious uncertainty about the more general prohibition,
it should be clear that there is not a prohibition on teaching about homosexuality
in a proper and suitable teaching context. The idea must not gain currency
that teachers are now denied their opportunity to use sound professional
judgment in educating pupils against prejudice and discrimination.
Graham Clayton Senior Solicitor National Union of Teachers London
Letters: Buddhist zoos
However much one may sympathise with Colin Tudge’s wish to defend London
Zoo (Talking Point, 13 April), it does not seem appropriate to use that
defence as an excuse to criticise Buddhism and advocate Christianity.
As a zoologist, Tudge would surely be surprised by a taxonomy which
divided animals into reptiles and non-reptiles (grouping together mammals
and fish). Yet he is guilty of just such an error when he speaks of Eastern
religions as a group (presumably as opposed to Western religion, whatever
that is). Such an error in religious taxonomy obscures religious diversity
and has serious consequences.
Tudge claims that Christianity ‘more than any other religion’ is hands-on.
This is plainly not the case. Ancient Confucianism and modern Judaism, to
name only two, can make just as good a claim for this. Similarly, Tudge
accuses Eastern religions of passivity, again ignoring the great diversity
of religious practice involved.
Returning specifically to Buddhism, Tudge claims that ‘it is not a cheap
point to observe that the animals living in the countries where Buddhism
was born and flourishes are among the most endangered in the world. There
is hardly a large mammal in India, Southeast Asia or Japan that is not severely
threatened . . . ‘ It is indeed not a cheap point. We do not have this problem
in Britain today because our large mammals (the wolf, the bear, the wild
boar, etc.) became extinct long ago. It is precisely the values of traditional
Buddhism which have helped to preserve them in Southeast Asia. Part of the
reason they are now threatened is the erosion of those values due to the
impact of alien ideas and practices. Buddhism has a long history of opposition
to the needless killing of animals and of concern for their welfare.
L. S. Cousins University of Manchester Manchester
Letters: Antarctic alarm
The article ‘British plans for Antarctic station cause alarm’ (This
Week, 6 April) presents an inaccurate, biased and emotional view of the
environmental situation at the British Antarctic Survey’s research station
at Signy Island.
BAS wishes to replace the ageing accommodation and scientific facilities
at Signy to improve its ability to support the high demand for quality research
at a location which is addressing topics of global relevance, ranging from
ecological processes, population dynamics and survival strategies to climate
change. It has the longest record of environmental monitoring of ecological
change anywhere in Antarctica and has produced over 300 referred scientific
papers during the last 10 years (not 200 in total as quoted by Michael Cross).
BAS prepared and published an Initial Environmental Evaluation to address
specifically the impact that might result from an expansion from 27 to a
maximum of 40 personnel at the station. The IEE was circulated for comment
to eminent scientists, and to participants in the Special Antarctic Treaty
meeting Chile in November 1990; this included Antarctic Treaty consultative
parties as well as non-governmental organisations. To date no adverse comments
have been received by BAS. It is only through feedback that modifications
and improvements can be made. No reference to this consultation process
was made in New 杏吧原创. The rebuilding will, in any case, be the subject
of a full and detailed Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation, before any
work is undertaken, which will be widely circulated for comment.
The IEE deals with the general effects of rebuilding the station, the
removal and disposal of the old structures, the improvement to waste disposal
and the wider impacts on Signy Island. It concludes that a potential increase
to 40 scientific and support personnel will not be significant providing
there is strict enforcement of waste disposal regulations and establishment
of new codes of conduct for personnel.
Michael Cross recounts a Greenpeace view that because of the serious
science activity at Signy, it should be judged more harshly. I repudiate
this view. All stations should strive to achieve the best environmental
practice possible; that some stations undertake little effective science
as a benefit to balance their impact is the real scandal.
D. J. Drewry Director British Antarctic Survey Cambridge
Letters: Share and survive
How strange that Linda Gamlin should castigate the preface of The Greenpeace
Book of Dolphins (Review, 13 April) for declaring that ‘cooperation, not
competition, is the secret of survival’.
Does Gamlin therefore think that Lynn Margulis, Distinguished Professor
of Botany at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has similar ‘romantic
New Age notions masquerading as science’ when she writes in her book Microcosmos:
Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution (with Dorian Sagan, Allen and
Unwin, 1987): ‘ . . . the view of evolution as chronic bloody competition
among individuals and species, a popular distortion of Darwin’s notion of
‘survival of the fittest’, dissolves before a new view of continual cooperation,
strong interaction, and mutual dependence among life forms. Life did not
take over the globe by combat, but by networking . . . ‘Survival of the
fittest’ refers not to large muscles, predatory habits, or the master’s
whip, but to leaving more offspring. The point is not so much the infliction
of death, which is inevitable, as the propagation of life, which is not’?
Can this ‘notion’ seriously be dismissed as ‘absurd and inappropriate’,
as Gamlin would have us believe? Perhaps the dolphins celebrated in Greenpeace’s
book can teach us much about ‘appropriate intelligence’-ie living with the
environment, not off it.
Dominic Belfield Sinclair Gardens London
Letters: Turbulent bikes
Regarding the ‘Turbo bicycle’ (Patents, 26 January), the problems of
driving a cycle with non-head winds may be solved using a vertical axis
turbine, as sixth form students did at Woking College some seven years ago.
They mounted a Savonius rotor (made from two halves of a coffee tin) on
a Meccano chassis, suitably geared down; the cart moved forward with winds
from any angle. Efficiency fell as the wind direction varied from head to
tail.
Malcolm Parry Blue Mountain Community College Oregon, USA.
Letters: Moon bombs
Nicholas Booth’s article ‘Space travel sticks in Earthly orbit’ (6 April)
points to the need for some large-scale commercial justification for travel
beyond Earth orbit. One possibility might be to harness the large gravitational-potential
difference between the surfaces of the Earth and the Moon (or asteroids)
to help solve our energy problems.
The energy of lunar material launched electromagnetically from Moon
to Earth would be amplified gravitationally by a factor of 20 as it is made
to home in on multi-coil induction generators just above the Earth’s atmosphere.
The bulk of it would be slowed down electromagnetically by the coils, thereby
generating electrical power. Most of this could be transmitted to Earth,
eg by microwave, or be used to power the final stages of electromagnetic
space launches from Earth. But a fraction could be sent back to the Moon
by microwave or by speeding up the remaining lunar material, which would
then home in on and be slowed down by coils on the Moon. This would provide
power for launching additional lunar material and repeating the cycle.
Eventually the Moon would shrink and change its orbit. But this would
take many millions of years.
Louis A. P. Balazs Purdue University West Lafayette, USA
Letters: Browned off
Marcus L. Rowland might not be seeing Brownian motion (Forum, 13 April),
but we first-year undergraduates can reproduce the experiment in minutes.
Just to make sure, all three of us separately did the experiment this morning.
Paper drinking straws are obtainable, not for drinking through though.
They are called art straws and they elegantly funnel the smoke into the
cell. The ‘special linear filament bulb’ in our case is a common 12 V type
used in car interior lights, hardly scarce.
We would be happy to show how it’s done. Once set up properly the random
dance of hundreds of glistening smoke particles is beautiful.
Dawn Paul, Mike Stoddart, Paul Whatton Christchurch College Canterbury
Kent
Letters: Browned off
I used this experiment many times, not with GCSE pupils, but with 11-year-olds.
It is a fiddly experiment, but one has to be patient. Our technician did
not set up the experiment, the pupils themselves did, with help as necessary.
I am sure that my procedure was that of many physics teachers, in that the
pupils saw the Brownian motion first, they were questioned carefully to
check that they had indeed seen it and only then would discussion of this
very important observation occur.
D. Kempson Stamford Lincolnshire
Letters: Browned off
Our school uses the simple ‘Whitley Bay’ smoke cell, which has worked
for more than 10 years to my knowledge without cleaning. A mere chemistry
teacher, I regularly set it up in a few minutes – the smoke is obtained
from smouldering corrugated cardboard and transferred to the cell by means
of a teat pipette.
I also wonder about the size of class involved – our one cell is quite
sufficient to allow a class of 20 to observe genuine Brownian motion at
leisure, since it lasts up to half an hour. The exclamations of delight
from the pupils make this one of the most satisfying lessons in the academic
year.
Vera Silberberg Bootham, York
Letters: Plummeting planes
In ‘How pilots avoid volcanic clouds’ (Technology, 13 April), we are
told that aircraft with total engine failure either plunge or plummet. No
so. They glide until the engines can be restarted.
Indeed, according to the KLM example given in the article, the quoted
near-miraculous rate of descent of 160 feet per minute would give an aircraft
at normal cruising altitude a comfortable 3.5 hours before making contact
with something solid.
I do not suggest that a total loss of power is a trivial event and,
at the very least the pilots are going to incur a significant laundry bill.
However, using words which suggest that, unpowered, an aircraft will do
an immediate impression of Newton’s apple is helpful to no one.
P. J. Severn Cornwall College Redruth, Cornwall
Letters: Dem chance bones
I read the article about the game of Senet (‘Play games with the Pharaohs’,
22/29 December) with great interest. A few days ago I happened to read part
of the works of Polydore Virgil, the Elizabethan antiquary. He mentions
the ‘Norfolk Chance Bones’, which appear to be remarkably similar to the
dice game that you mention in your article. I really do not know what to
make of it. Is this a survival of the Roman occupation of Britain, left
behind by the Roman army, or what?
Polydore Virgil says: ‘There is a game also that is played with the
pastern bone, in the hinder foot of the sheep, ox, goat, fallow or red deer,
which in the Latin is called Talus. It hath four chances, the ace-point
(that is named Canis or Canicula) was on one of the sides. He that cast
it layed down a penny, or so much as the games were agreed on. The other
side was called Venus, that signifieth 7. He that cast the chance won six,
and all that was laid down, for the calling of Canis. The two other sides
were called Chius and Senio. He that did throw Chius won 3 and he that cast
Senio gained 4. This game (as I take it) is used of children in Norfolk
and they call it the chance-bone. They play with three or four of those
bones together.’ (The Works of Polydore Virgil, London 1663.)
Roger Morgan Cambridge