Letters: Crop circles . . .
Examination of soil and crop samples and controls taken from so-called
corn circles in England last year has revealed a number of significant features
suggesting the operation of a short-lived force, not yet identified, which
flattens crops in distinctive patterns. The evidence for such a force is
not yet conclusive, but the preliminary indications are strong.
This summer, the Centre for Crop Circle Studies is joining with a number
of scientists from the USA (where most of the work has so far been done)
to see whether the initial evidence of radioactivity from short-lived radionuclides,
together with apparently abnormal microwave-like effects in plant tissues
and unexplained carbonisation of cellular layers, can be confirmed or negated,
by more extensive and rigorous sampling and examination in this country.
However, we urgently need voluntary help, either from individual biologists
able to section and examine fresh plant samples, particularly in central
southern England, where the bulk of formations have hitherto occurred, or
from college or university departments which may have facilities available
at any time from June to the end of August, the main period (usually on
a rising scale of intensity) of the crop circle season.
Any suitably qualified reader interested in helping to explore this
controversial, puzzling and remarkable phenomenon can write for more details
to the Centre for Crop Circle Studies’ coordinator of crop and soil effects
panel: Montague Keen, School Barn Farm, Penlow, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 7JN.
Archie Roy Centre for Crop Circle Studies Glasgow University
Letters: Aid constraints
Fred Pearce was less than fair in making the bald statement ‘. . .the
Overseas Development Administration (ODA) would not comment. . .’ on the
report by the National Audit Office (NAO) on our work in the water and environment
field (‘British aid: a hindrance as much as a help’, 23 May). The ODA was
following the practice of all government departments not to offer comments
on conclusions and recommendations in reports by the NAO until the report
has been considered by the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
The report itself recognises the difficulties and constraints faced
by the ODA. For instance, in summary it says: ‘The NAO recognised that the
Overseas Development Administration often faced difficulties in managing
the aid programme but did not have the power to overcome them. Projects
are often implemented in difficult political, climatic and topographical
conditions; and the UK may be only one of several donors. The Administration
can make proposals and impose conditions as part of the aid agreement but
they are not in direct control as projects are in sovereign countries.’
P. A. Bearpark Overseas Development Administration London
Letters: New words needed
Could I make a plea for someone to come up with two different words
to replace ‘environment’?
Mick Hamer mentions several times in his article on high-speed rail
links (‘The second railway revolution’, 23 May) that ‘environmental objections’
have hampered their development. Surely it is time that we had some new
words to help distinguish between those ‘conservationists’ who are trying
to protect their golf-courses, and ‘ecologists’ who are often promoting
railways (over road transport) to try to protect the Earth?
A. H. Millar Witney, Oxfordshire
Letters: Hurray for us!
Some may well accept that the advent and development of life is not
simply a matter of the application of statistics to basic chemical constituents;
some may go further and accept that life both ‘strives’ and is ‘impelled’
onwards towards some goal unspecified in the article. Nowhere does this
justify the assertion that life on Earth is unique. Maybe God is genuinely
cosmopolitan.
Revd. David Lawrence Winsford, Cheshire
Letters: Hurray for us!
Holbrook sees a violation of the second law of thermodynamics in the
claim that molecules gradually organised themselves into complex life forms.
It is true that a cold collection of particles will never form anything
other than, perhaps, a dead crystal lattice; but that argument ignores the
large amount of power that is provided at the Earth’s surface by sunlight.
Recent work in mathematics (the well-publicised chaos theory) has demonstrated
that where energy is forced through a system, driving it far from equilibrium,
we can expect complex structures and processes to appear spontaneously.
Sunlight could have powered the rise of life without violating any law of
physics; it certainly powers life on Earth today, through the food chain.
Yet, in the end, I agree with his conclusion that the search is wasteful.
Even if the Universe is swarming with life (which I believe it to be) we
can be almost certain that it is many hundreds of light years to the nearest
beings that could talk with us by radio; a dialogue would be impossible,
due to the time delay. The ecstatic astronomers who find them can only
announce that ‘aliens exist’, which the man in the street half believes
anyway.
Ironically, the real beneficiaries of the discovery would be those who
peddle UFO-related quackery. While SETI costs science dear, it can only
enrich the enemies of science.
David Byrden Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
Letters: Hurray for us!
David Holbrook’s thesis that modern science is antithetical to recognition
of the creative genius of humanity (Forum, 23 May) has been having a lot
of press coverage recently. But the argument is nonsense.
Evolution is not teleological. Survival is not a goal of evolution in
the same sense as shopping is the goal of driving into town. Survival is
what happens when you take a collection of things and sift out some of them.
Fish that are fish-shaped swim away from predators or towards food faster
than ones shaped like a brick or a string quartet. As a result, they survive.
There is no teleology.
‘Surely’, the argument goes, ‘blind evolutionary forces cannot have
produced something as wonderful as me?’ Surely, the argument should go,
you could not give yourself any credit for your wonderfulness if it was
designed by someone else. If we were ‘designed’, then our creators take
the credit for radio and flight and Chartres Cathedral, and the blame for
Hiroshima and the Amazon rainforest. But we were not designed. We evolved.
Who achieves my writing, my invention? Me! Who else? Hurray for me! And
all the rest of us.
The search for extraterrestrial life is a celebration of just this feeling.
As Holbrook says, they may not have evolved yet, or may have not have bothered
with radio. Or there may simply not be anyone out there. But to deny that
we should look because it debases our humanity is to get the argument exactly
wrong. It celebrates out achievements, seeks to place them not merely in
a terrestrial context but in a truly Universal one.
Science is a critical part of those achievements. It makes the faxes
and the phones and the colour printing that propagates the anti-science
views of the chatterati. Science actually works. And it is this practicality
that drives science to look for ET life, not just argue about it. ‘Would
not a cheaper way of approaching this question be to hold a philosophical
conference on the implications of the search itself?’ asks Holbrook. More
words! For over 5000 years people have talked about whether there is anyone
else. We have had enough talk. Let’s go and see.
William Bains Royston, Hertfordshire
Letters: New art form
May I nominate Robert Knell’s letter ‘Get stuffed bignose’ (30 May)
for the 1992 Letter of the Year Award, and if there is no such thing, respectfully
suggest that one be inaugurated without delay? Surely he will go far, but
perhaps not in the field of his present choosing.
Remember the words of George Orwell, who asked, apropos of publishers,
‘Why don’t they just say, ‘We don’t want your bloody poems’.’
And as for the idea of the self addressed rejection letter, this must
surely rate as a new art form. How appropriate, therefore, that it should
come from a scientist.
Bill Badger Crediton, Devon
Letters: Roast chickens
M. A. Crooks should not be concerned (Letters, 16 May and 6 June). The
phenomenon of laying hens changing their sexual characteristics to appear
as cockerels is well known.
Many of these unfortunate birds were ritually burnt at the stake until
well into the 18th century for alleged heresy and interference with religious
doctrines.
Olaf Swarbrick Arundel, West Sussex
Letters: Stone circles
Your article ‘Science finds its champion’ (Forum, 16 May) is optimistic
that the new Office of Science and Technology under William Waldergrave
will rescue science from the many difficulties your periodical has listed
over recent years.
The recent history of the interface of science and government is not
happy in terms of identifying champions and arming them with suitable weapons
to do battle on behalf of science. Within the higher education sector
one body with a unique perspective is the Committee of Deans of Science.
At the most recent of what has become a regular forum for discussing
and taking action on management, teaching and research issues, John Maddox,
editor of Nature, reminded us of the evidence that Stonehenge was less a
temple but more an essential scientific instrument built over 5000 years
ago to measure the passing of days and seasons which determined when crops
were to be planted and harvested.
If the blue-stones of Stonehenge came from the Preselli mountains, it
could be argued that this was the first Britain-wide government funded research
project. The absence of separate megolithic funding and research councils
or binary lines may have fostered better Celtic collaboration. It is also
unlikely that the Druids distinguished between basic, strategic and applied
research when allocating resources.
The existence of similar stone circles elsewhere in Europe suggests
a wider community. In this context the Deans of Science Committee have affiliated
to the European Association of Deans of Science towards the solution of
existing and future problems and the provision of the necessary infrastructure.
W. O. George Chairman of the Deans of Science Committee Polytechnic
of Wales Mid Glamorgan
Letters: Milk first
Following recent discussions about tea leaves (Letters, 18 April, 2
May and 9 May), I was wondering if any of your readers can shed any scientific
light on why tea tastes different depending on whether or not the tea is
added prior to the milk?
Colin McCoy (milk first) Belfast, Northern Ireland
Letters: Siamese calves
The claim of Godwin Isitor of the University of the West Indies (In
Brief, 23 May) that ‘It (the siamese calf) appears to be the first of its
kind’ cannot be true because I saw such a calf on my Uncle’s farm on the
Isle of Wight in 1939. It attempted to suckle unsuccessfully and was hand-fed
for a short time before being put down by a vet.
Michael D. Fellows Fareham, Hampshire
Letters: Skinny old fellows
I infer that cannibalism occurred in the American Southwest in Prehistoric
Cannibalism at Mancos 5MTUMR-2346, reviewed by Paul Bahn (11 April). Bahn
states: ‘Archaeologist Michael Pickering has pointed out that the mortuary
rituals of some Australian Aborigines produce exactly this type of remains
. . . In ignoring Pickering’s data and other similar examples, White
has inevitably skewed the case in favour of cannibalism.’ This is an outrageous
assault on my scholarship.
Pickering’s five page publication summarises his unpublished Canberra
B. Litt. thesis, a review of ethnohistorical accounts of Australian cannibalism.
Pickering dismisses cannibalism but asserts that mortuary practices yield
patterns of bone representation and damage ‘similar’ to those interpreted
as cannibalism by others. Bahn alters ‘similar’ to ‘exactly,’ characterising
Pickering’s sources as ‘data’.
The ‘data’ that Bahn, via Pickering, uses to claim that aborigines fractured
limb bones to extract marrow during mortuary practice is an 1870 letter
from a witness stating: ‘It was so sickening that I confess I got rather
muddled, and I had a dreadful headache, with the excitement, the smoke,
and stench.’ He describes offering 拢1 for the skin of an aborigine,
and concludes: ‘. . . but the men are still eaten, especially chiefs.
And I have heard of cases recently where tough, skinny old fellows have
been faithfully eaten, although they could not have been very juicy.’ I
did not cite such ‘data’ in my book. The most reliable of the nine Australian
mortuary ritual descriptions cited by Pickering is a film described in my
book. I also discuss extensive work of Betty Hiatt on Australian mortuary
practices.
Bahn’s review asserts: ‘The destruction of many of these Anasazi bodies
goes far beyond what was necessary if they were merely to be eaten.’ This
ignores my descriptions of bone grease production and spongy bone exploitation.
Too bad, because there Bahn would have found nine additional citations to
Australian ethnogaphy relating bone destruction to dietary butchery. Bahn
attempts to trivialize pot polish found on Anasazi bone fragments and ignores
patterns of bone representation and fracture upon which the inference of
cannibalism is warranted.
Bahn describes my conclusions as ‘mere inference, as (White) admits.’
I will leave Bahn to reconcile his disdain for inference with his archaeologist
title, but I cannot let stand his egregious mischaracterisation of my work.
Tim White University of California
Letters: Blind spot
In the virtual reality article ‘Did reality move for you?’ (23 May),
the programmers quoted are missing a simple trick that could sharply increase
the display speed.
The precise (foveal) vision of the human eye occupies only a tiny part
of the visual field. The detail that can be perceived more than a few degrees
away from this retinal ‘yellow spot’ is very poor indeed. The ability to
perceive colour also declines rapidly away from the fovea. Effectively,
parafoveal (off-centre) vision is little more than a crude movement sensor
to which foveal vision is directed when this alarm is triggered.
A VR helmet that tracked the direction of gaze precisely (using standard
techniques), as well as the orientation of the head, would offer enormous
processor savings. A coloured, detailed view need be computed only for,
say, a five degree fovea-centred cone. A crude, black and white, very low
resolution indication would suffice for the rest of the visual field. Compared
with full field colour graphics, the processing power needed would be cut
by perhaps a 1000 times or more.
Surprisingly, many experiments show that observers remain largely unaware
of such a lack of peripheral detail. May I suggest that the VR buffs have
a blind spot for this result.
Bill Allen Oxshott, Surrey
Letters: Key notes
My own frustration with normal notation tempted me to analyse it and
see if I could do better and I think I have succeeded.
My notation consists of one three-line stave per octave (seven white
notes equalling four spaces and three lines), each octave separated from
its neighbour by a small space. All octaves are thus alike. To indicate
which notes are to be played on the black keys, an upwards facing ‘nose’
or ‘beak’ is added to notes to be played sharp and a downwards facing one
for flats, thus there is no need for any accidentals.
Fingering is included by adding colour to a note, red for a thumb and
the next four colours of the spectrum for the fingers.
L. Morley Redcar, Cleveland
Letters: Key notes
I read your article ‘Mathematical piano sounds a logical note (Technology,
16 May) with a certain sense of Deja vu. In the past century there have
been at least eight attempts to reform the piano keyboard, all of them admirably
logical. One of them, the Janko keyboard, was even promoted by Franz Liszt
and Anton Rubinstein. There have been just as many novel systems of notation.
Nothing much has come of any of them.
Obviously, conservatism and the existence of a vast number of conventional
instruments have played a large role in their failure. But there are other,
more soundly based reasons.
Visually, the conventional keyboard has a distinctive pattern of groups
of two and three black notes. Although this evolved simply as a result of
filling in semitones as they were needed when music was becoming more chromatic,
it must have persisted because it makes the strongest possible impression
on the areas of the visual cortex which register edges. These work efficiently
and quickly even when the edges are in the blurred area of peripheral vision.
It would be very hard to make large jumps on a keyboard with neatly alternating
black and white notes. Music exists in which both hands are required to
leap five octaves twice in a short bar – for example Scarlatti’s sonata
in D minor, K120.
The proposed system of notation takes even less account of human visual
perception. Each stave has nine lines, and the attempt to subdivide it by
dotted lines is barely noticeable. The existing stave of five lines has
not evolved by chance. In the early 17th century the stave commonly had
six lines. The stave was soon reduced to five lines, simply because six
was too hard to read: five is the largest number which may be recognised
at a fleeting glance.
Ralph Hancock London
Letters: Mental maps
Your report on MetaDesign development of a prototype signing system for Berlin’s united U-Bahn network (This Week, 9 May) showed the importance of information design. But it offered little evidence to support its assertion that MetaDesign ‘based its work on theories of cognitive psychology’.
Just what is being ‘tested’ at the Alexanderplatz pilot project, and how? Do we need cognitive psychology to tell us that ‘signs should not confuse people with superfluous information’? Just which graphic and linguistic attributes of the proposed sign system will help users to ‘draw a mental map’ of the U-Bahn network, and how would we know?
If we had answers to such questions, designing might be less of a hit-or-miss affair. It seems that cognitive psychology can’t offer answers yet, at least in a form which working designers can apply to the messy real-world contexts in which design solutions have to work. So we need more practical collaboration between designers and applied psychologists, who can suggest how to test the usability of different design proposals.
Paul Stiff University of Reading
Letters: Mailing list
Mike Holderness’s article (Review, 9 May), which outlines some of the
services offered by the Joint Academic Network (JANET), omits an important
facility which bridges the gap between electronic mail and bulletin boards
– the distribution list. This service allows groups of individuals with
a particular specialist interest to communicate quickly and easily using
electronic mail.
The Mailbase Service, developed by the Networked Information Services
Project (NISP), aims to be easier to use than previous systems. At present,
Mailbase maintains 118 lists covering subject areas such as chemical modelling,
engineering design and psychology. NISP is funded by the Information Systems
Committee of the University Funding Council and is therefore effectively
free to the British higher education community. Anyone interested should
contact the NISP Team at: The Computing Laboratory, The University, Newcastle
upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
David Hartland University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Letters: Aid constraints
The surprising thing about Fred Pearce’s article on British aid is that
we are still surprised. Ever since the abortive attempt to grow groundnuts
in Tanganyika, we have endlessly reiterated our mistakes.
We need to understand why such projects are still promoted in spite
of their almost universal failure. We also need to discover new ways of
using technical aid to promote development. The answer to this problem seems
to me to be clear. We need to work with people and not for people. We need
to start with exacting and detailed studies of the ecological and social
problems of the places in which we intend to work. Since we have no way
of knowing in advance which strategies will succeed, we need to try many
and be willing to adapt them in the light of experience. If we are to explore
many different paths, it is best to start on a small-scale. Eventually the
successful small projects will be expanded and replicated on a large-scale.
The point is that we must start from the actual problems that people experience
in their own lives and use our knowledge of science and technology to remedy
or at least alleviate these problems. We must no longer start from a presumed
knowledge of the problems and from solutions developed in other places and
at other times and then express surprise when these technical fixes to misunderstood
problems lead to failure.
Brian Williams University of Oxford