Letters: Invisible men
Regarding Tony Jones’s excellent review of the not-so-good Fantastic
Voyages book of science in SF films (Review, 26 February), I too occasionally
get puzzled by some exotic phenomenon portrayed by the genre, but enjoy
inventing rationales for them. As for Jones’s ‘favourite puzzle – if the
Invisible Man has invisible eyes, how can he see?’, one answer might be
that the invisible man is only invisible in the visible light part of the
spectrum, and that he sees (and his eyes are visible) in some other part
of the spectrum, probably infrared.
Of course, H. G. Wells probably was a tad over the top with his Invisible
Man. I much prefer the portrayal of invisibility in the film Predator, when
the alien was not completely invisible as light diffracted around him(/her/it).
Jonathan Cowie Erith, Kent
Letters: Trouser trap
I was interested to read the correspondence about the fate of tin trouser
buttons in cold Russian winters (12 February). I have heard similar tales
about medals made of tin.
The transition temperature is certainly 13.2 degree C, but the change
from bright (b) tin to the coarse grey powder (a) tin is difficult to initiate
and the change will have progressed only 1 millimetre after 800 hours at
-10 degree C. It is also made well nigh impossible by very small amounts
of common impurities such as lead. The transition is accompanied by a 27
per cent increase in volume (certainly hindering rapid unbuttoning in the
cold), but it is this expansion that turns the buttons into powder.
Finally, all but senior officers would have had their buttons fashioned
from bone.
I hope your readers aren’t too saddened by this gradual demolition of
the interesting tales that made many of us become (doubting) scientists.
Jim Tew Oxford
Letters: Private clock
It seems a bit silly of Geoffrey Miller (Letters, 5 February) to sound
off about what ‘Humphrey claims’ about the privacy of sensory consciousness,
when he has apparently neither read my article carefully, nor read the book
on which it was based (let alone my earlier books, where I discuss the social
functions of the human ability for conscious introspection, which he says
I ignore).
Admittedly, the title that New 杏吧原创 (not I) gave my article, ‘The
private world of consciousness’, was provocative. But as I hope the text
made clear, I was talking about the qualitative aspects of sensory consciousness,
not the fact that we have this kind of raw consciousness at all. My claim
is not that it makes no public difference whether someone is experiencing
a red sensation as opposed to no sensation, but rather that it makes no
such difference whether his red sensation has the particular subjective
quality that it does. I suggested, therefore, that the quality of sensations
is an evolutionary hang-over. Once upon a time – when this quality was correlated
with the form of sensory response at the body surface – it was indeed subject
to evolution by natural selection. But it no longer is.
An analogy may help. Suppose we were all to have an internal clock with
a face and hands, by which we could tell the time. Would it make any difference
whether the hands turned clockwise or counter-clockwise? If the clock had
evolved from a sundial on the surface of the skin, there might indeed be
a good reason from the past why the hands did as a matter of fact still
turn clockwise. But once the clock had been internalised or privatised,
the ‘quality of the rotation’ would no longer be of any public consequence.
Of course the hands would still have to be rotating one way or the other,
or else we would not be able to tell the time at all. But nobody other than
the clock’s owner would be ‘in on’ the rotational experience – and nobody
else (not even natural selection) need know which way it goes.
Nicholas Humphrey Cambridge
Letters: Green Hong Kong
It was very perceptive of Fred Pearce to note that ‘Some of our islands
are missing . . .’ in his article on the treatment of ‘dependent territories’
in the government environment reports released last month (This Week, 5
February).
The inclusion of Hong Kong in the accompanying world map may, however,
have misled some of your readers about the state of environmental policy
there.
Hong Kong has a vigorous environmental programme, most of which is internally
driven, with a lead role taken, since 1986, by the Environmental Protection
Department. Despite the problems inevitably caused by a densely populated,
rapidly growing area, Hong Kong is fast becoming a model for Asia in its
environmental policy. The need to reach agreement with China does affect
the application of new international conventions, however.
Despite this, department officials are looking at the implications of
meeting the requirements of the Biodiversity Convention and other recent
agreements and should be able to do this without requiring either British
funding or scientific expertise.
Hong Kong also has a vigorous and innovative voluntary environmental
sector. Interestingly, it was one of the first to reject the outright antagonism
to the enterprise sector which characterises many Western environmental
organisations and has developed many pioneering initiatives such as species
and habitat monitoring with funding assistance from the private sector.
That both official and voluntary activity should survive through the
transition period and flourish in the post-1997 situation is a dimension
of the current political debate that is usually overlooked.
David Cope UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development Cambridge
Letters: Silly hippies
If Brendan Hill is right in his review of The Biophilia Hypothesis (29
January) and the planet is to be redeemed only through Deep Ecology, ecofeminism,
New Age schools of thought, and the revival of paganism, then the Earth
is indeed in a terminal state.
But it is possible to love nature and still not be a kook, pseud or
charlatan; it is possible to rescue the environment while not dancing naked
on Glastonbury Tor. It is even possible to behave rationally – and still
save our world.
I am aware my notions are way out, radical, strange and even frightening
to Deep Ecologists, ecofeminists, New Agers and pagans from Macclesfield,
but, although the people Hill extols may not be spiritually or emotionally
prepared for it, Deep Sanity should be tried, if only as a last resort.
Striving to attain a measure of rationality will never be easy, using our
brains to solve our problems is never easy, thinking causes sweat and is
often painful and disturbing. Yet, there is a wonderful goal before us,
dare I say it? It is known as Growing Up.
When our Life Lovers and Gaia Worshippers achieve this feat, this apotheosis
may not save the world. But it will come as a great, great relief to the
rest of us.
Ralph Estling Ilminster, Somerset
Letters: Bees see more
I was intrigued to read the report ‘Bees can see what we see, even
if it isn’t there’ (New 杏吧原创, Science, 26 February). The reason for
the intrigue – quite apart from the fascinating science – is that we investigated
this very same question, with bees, in our laboratory four years ago and
published three papers on the subject, in international journals.
Not only have we carried out behavioural experiments to establish that
bees experience illusory contours in Kanizsa figures, we have also recorded
from neurons in the insect brain that respond as though they ‘see’ the illusory
contours. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that insects experience a wide
variety of visual illusions that humans experience. Dora Ventura is clearly
incorrect in claiming that ‘this is the first time anyone has demonstrated
that invertebrates can detect ‘contour illusions’.’ Evidently, scientists,
contrary to bees, suffer from the opposite kind of illusion; they do not
see published articles, even if the articles really are there.
M. V. Srinivasan Australian National University Canberra
Letters: Wishful thinking
My curiosity quickly turned to frustration as I read the two reports
regarding genetic influence on human temperament. The report in This Week,
entitled ‘The fearful gene in our children’s make-up’, suggests that the
childhood trait of excessive timidity could be genetically based. This trait
is evidently thought of as undesirable by the scientists conducting the
research as they say that ‘Parents . . . may feel less guilty when they
learn that their child is timid because of genes and not bad parenting.’
A few pages on, the article entitled ‘What triggers the violence within?’
suggests that children who are not timid, but fearless, may have a genetic
predisposition to commit violent crimes in later life. Surely this suggests
that the childhood trait of ‘lack of timidity’ is also undesirable.
Perhaps the psychologists who carry out this research should get together
and inform us of the ‘ideal level of childhood timidity’. I’m sure it
would be very useful for parents who are worried that their child may be
genetically predisposed to becoming either a hopeless neurotic or a violent
criminal.
Frances Culshaw Stockport, Cheshire
Letters: In praise of bricks
Your article criticising a major British company for putting bricks
before microprocessors (Comment, 26 February) appears to have misinterpreted
the message behind the advertisement concerned. Rather than leaping to the
defence of the obviously important, but already fashionable microprocessor,
perhaps we need to get back to basics, and look more carefully at the humble
brick.
Every nation needs buildings and other infrastructure before it can
even consider developing ‘high’ technology. The need for infrastructure,
and the huge resources needed to build and maintain it, make it apparent
that tremendous benefits can be derived from very small improvements in
infrastructure technology (‘low’ technology?).
Building materials improvement is both as demanding and as worthy an
objective for the R&D community as microprocessor development. To suggest
otherwise is snobbery.
Simon Reynolds Hollesley, Suffolk
Letters: Clouded judgment
Your editorial ‘In the name of consent . . .’ (Comment, 19 February),
concerning ‘secret radiation experiments carried out in the US after the
war’, raises some important questions about ethical standards in medical
science.
The basis of informed consent must be that the rights and needs of
the patient take precedence over all other considerations. Sadly, this is
not always the case. Medical research and practice are sometimes influenced
more by economic and political concerns than by humanitarian principles.
Yet it cannot come as a surprise that this sort of thing occurs. You
ask if there is anything which might cloud the ethical judgement of scientists
and suggest that ‘as economic competition continues to replace the arms
race, the answer might be ‘national economic needs’.’ It is worth noting
here that in the US, where many of these questionable experiments have
been carried out, the medical-industrial complex is twice as large (at 13
per cent of GNP) as the military (6 per cent), with a corresponding number
of lobbyists based in Washington DC.
In science, yesterday’s heresy is often today’s orthodoxy, but years,
decades, even centuries may elapse between discovery and widespread acceptance.
While this is no great catastrophe in, say, astronomy, in medicine the consequences
can be fatal.
Simon Comer Roscahill, Galway, Ireland
Letters: Wishful thinking
Rosie Mestel gets two bites at the genetics of violence in her article
‘What triggers the violence within?’ and her AAAS report of Jerome Kagan’s
research on ‘temperament’ in the same issue (This Week, 26 February). Had
she come to the session that followed Kagan’s, however, she would have
heard a very different story.
The arguments against attempting to explain the high incidence of violence
in American society by an appeal to genetics are strong. The reductionism
of the biological approach begins by lumping together many disparate phenomena,
ranging from pub brawls through men’s brutality to women, racial attacks
and even the legitimated violence of warfare, as if they were all examples
of the same phenomenon, some reified lump of aggression within the brain.
It biologises them still further by equating human violence with attacks
between other species (in his presentation Kagan compared the ‘temperament’
of his potentially ‘violent’ toddlers to the mouse-killing behaviour of
cats).
Of course there are individual differences, dependent on genotype, childhood
experience and social context, in whether A or B takes out a gun and sprays
passers-by with it, but unless there is something unique about the American
genotype compared with that of people born into other societies, it is scientifically
trivial and socially offensive to seek biological explanations in a society
rift by contradictions of wealth and poverty, in which those who attended
the AAAS in its elegant San Francisco Hilton venue could not step outside
without being besieged by appeals from homeless street-sleepers, and with
an estimated 280 million guns in private ownership.
Similarly, to believe that the massacre of Palestinians in Hebron can
usefully be explained by a disorder in the genes, brain chemistry or childhood
upbringing of Baruch Goldstein is to ignore the inherent violence of a settler
society determined to hold on to the land it has expropriated.
Such obvious social determinants of violent behaviour are ignored in
the rush to genetics. The unreported AAAS session heard accounts of millions
of federal dollars being spent in a ‘violence initiative’ committed to the
view that there is a biological predisposition to criminality amongst poor
and mainly black Americans. It is not so long ago that the editor of Science,
Daniel Koshland, wrote of ‘genes for homelessness’ and even before I had
spoken at the AAAS session, I was approached to ask if I would be interested
in taking part in a research programme aimed at measuring biological markers,
drawn from spinal taps made on incarcerated and presumably violent criminals,
in an attempt to verify the currently popular serotonin hypothesis of the
origins of violence.
The naivety, greed or mendacity of neuroscientists, geneticists or psychologists
in promising that such research may help make the US as relatively nonviolent
a society as many in northern Europe is matched only by the wishful thinking
of those who fund it as a substitute for tackling the basic social ills
its rhetoric helps disguise.
Steven Rose The Open University Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire