Letters: Surplus scientists
I am currently revising for my A levels and would like to put forward
my views about the state of science in schools.
First, as I have learnt over the past two years, the whole structure
and objectives of A levels have to be rethought and rewritten if we are
to keep science students interested in science. A levels are far too rigid,
do not allow individual flair or originality, and most importantly separate
science completely from everyday situations and industrial and environmental
problems. What is the use of learning pages of theory and equations, if
you can’t apply them to real problems?
A-level exams merely test how much you can cram into your memory; and
with the widely held view that A-level science subjects are more difficult
than arts subjects (which have thankfully been brought into the 20th century),
it should come as no surprise that applications to degree courses are dwindling.
Secondly, the main problems the scientific profession must overcome
involve the harsh realities of money, job prospects and the apparent ‘old-boys
network’ on the top floor. As a young woman entering this still male-dominated
career, I am not looking forward to years of competing ‘with the boys’,
absolutely abysmal pay and ever-decreasing real-term financing from government.
Abigail Stewart Wrexham, Clwyd, North Wales
Letters: Wrong island
A tunnel between Japan’s north and south islands would be considerably
more than ‘four kilometres longer than the Channel Tunnel’ (Feedback, 16
April).
There is a tunnel of the length you suggest between Honshu and Hokkaido,
which you could reasonably call the central and north islands of the country
(although a lot of Japanese will give you arguments that there are Japanese
islands still further north than Hokkaido).
Scaling from my atlas, a tunnel from the south island (Kyushu) to the
north island (Hokkaido) would have to be about 800 kilometres long.
Alistair Beck Montreal, Canada
Letters: E before i
David Bradley’s remark about ‘icosa’ (Letters, 7 May) ignores the fact
that the form ‘eicusa’ does exist in Chemistry, while the spelling ei is
used side by side with i and is even preferred sometimes.
The confusion of forms arises from the one-time custom of obtaining
bits of words from ancient Greek via Latin. The Latin rule, when assimilating
Greek words, was to drop the e from ei. Hence icosa as in icosahedron. But
eicosa also exists: witness eicosalexaenoic acid. Other examples are chiromancy
and its alternative cheiromancy, while kaleidoscope and Deimos are standard.
Deriving direct from Greek is coming back into fashion. I myself have
seen stoicheiometry.
P. M. Hemming London
Letters: Visions wanted
We are the Upper Juniors of Edradour School. We are 7, 8 and 9 years
old. We are doing a Futurology Project, studying what the future might be
like. We try to imagine what it would be like, for example, if in 50 years,
we could go to other star systems in our galaxy. We’ve been studying about
robots and about communication and we have been having lots of fun. We are
doing this because we want to learn about it, because it is interesting
and because we want to be prepared for the future.
We would like to find out what different kinds of people, like scientists,
business people or farmers, think about the future and to compare their
ideas. Would you tell us what you think life might be like in 50 years time,
in 2044? Do you know anyone else who might want to write to us about their
ideas of the future? If you do, would you show them our letter? Please write
back.
April Hope Dixon on behalf of the Upper Juniors Edradour School Perthshire
* * *
Please send your letters care of The Editor, New 杏吧原创, Kings Reach
Tower, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LS. We will forward them to Edradour
School – Ed
Letters: Need for support
Simpson bemoans the predicament of academics having to do irksome low-grade
administrative tasks. ‘The result was an extensive misuse of time by highly
trained, highly educated, highly intelligent people . . .’
As a relatively well-trained, educated and intelligent person – BSc(Hons)
– employed as the lowest grade of clerical officer by a large organisation,
I find this arrogant attitude commonplace. He should, if possible, stop
to consider that those at the nadir of the pecking order in his institute
may also be highly trained, educated and intelligent victims of the current
economic climate – some may even have PhDs! I do not have a ‘chip on my
shoulder’, but less qualified, more senior colleagues of mine tend to treat
my fellow administrators and I with similar contempt.
Diane Jones Liverpool
Letters: Need for support
I can tell Simpson why large organisations use highly qualified staff
for mundane tasks.
The staff concerned are highly motivated, are paid relatively modestly,
and have no direct access to budgets. They will work until the job is finished
(unlike secretaries who clock off), don’t need extra holidays or office
space, and don’t take another National Insurance contribution.
As far as the NHS or the Universities are concerned, they are getting
the work done free, or nearly so, at a cost only to the PhD’s own time.
Don’t think the managers (who will all have secretaries) haven’t worked
it out.
Mike Stevenson Millom, Cumbria
Letters: Need for support
Donald Simpson (Letters, 23 April) is absolutely right in his identification
of the waste in British universities caused by highly trained and (relatively)
highly paid academics doing low-grade administrative tasks. However, the
cause is not just ‘the inability of academics to distinguish between secretarial
work, administration and management’. Most of us are quite able to identify
tasks that secretaries and administrators could do more cheaply (and often
more effectively). Unfortunately, what few secretaries and administrators
there are, are already overworked.
The current problem was exacerbated by the attempts to meet government
‘efficiency gains’ (that is, cuts) during the 1980s. Since academics had
tenure, the first target of cuts was often nontenured support staff. It
will take us a while to recover from this situation, but, as Simpson rightly
implies, the first step is to recognise the problem.
Alan Bundy University of Edinburgh
Letters: Safely sunk
You recently published a letter from Hadrian Jeffs alleging that there
is a wrecked Soviet ‘November’-class submarine 70 miles off Land’s End (Letters,
9 April).
The details quoted in Jeffs’s letter are at odds with the facts, which
have been known for some considerable time.
The submarine was abandoned and scuttled, after a major fire, some 540
miles west-southwest of Land’s End, off the continental shelf, in water
over 2000 metres deep; it is understood that the reactor was fully shut
down and made safe prior to scuttling; this particular submarine had a history
of mechanical failure. There is no evidence held which suggests that a Soviet
Don class support ship has ever visited the site.
Alex Armstrong Ministry Of Defence, London
Letters: Bigoted Stalinoids
Stephen Hall gave an unfavourable review of Paul Ormerod’s book The
Death of Economics (Review, 30 April). In summary, Hall said that there
was no need for Ormerod to attack economics as presented in undergraduate
textbooks, the newspapers, and in Parliament, since all Ormerod’s criticisms,
and more, could be found in research journals where they were presented
with much greater refinement.
I suggest that Hall has totally missed the point. He and other advanced
workers in economics may have been gracing the pages of learned journals,
but the financial press and popular media are dominated by dogmatic, intolerant,
arrogant and ignorant advocates of extreme market liberalism. These bigoted
Stalinoids give every last lemma of pure neoclassical theory the status
of Holy Writ if it supports their unfounded and unbounded claims.
While Hall and all that is good and honest in the economics profession
hide in their monasteries, the world is being overrun by the barbarians.
Economics is cited in support of a blatantly partisan agenda; the policies
of pollution, poverty and crime are presented as the natural and inevitable
outcome of the inexorable ‘laws’ of economics; and Hall leaves his sanctuary,
sandbags one of the defenders of reason and humanity for dotting too few
‘i’s, and returns.
Gresham’s law certainly works: bad economics has displaced good in the
corridors of power. Economists, good, bad or ugly, rate with child molesters
in public esteem in consequence. Rather than snipe at Ormerod’s failure
to familiarise himself with the most arcane academic journals, Hall should
have given some thought to the question as to why Ormerod should have felt
compelled to write such a book, and why so many members of the public are
going to buy it.
John Legge Swinburne, Victoria, Australia
Letters: Snucks and snarks
Lewis Carroll would no doubt have been delighted to know that snarks
do indeed exist; it’s just that he was looking in the wrong place (Forum,
9 April). I offer this as a message of hope to those particle physicists
who might be losing faith in ever tracking down a quark. If there really
is a sound mathematical interpretation for Carroll’s nonsense rhyme, as
George Lafferty suggests, then Uganda’s the place to build the next LEP.
I should say that I have yet to glimpse a live snark, but many a rare
or shy forest animal has first been described to science on the basis of
its remains in a hunter’s pot. So it may prove with the snark, since I have
occasionally seen them advertised on the menus of rural eating-places in
parts of southwest Uganda. And the snark is not the only hitherto undescribed
(except by Carroll, of course) beast around here either, although the others
(sometimes advertised on menus as snucks, snuks and snaks) may just be local
forms of the same species (no boojums recorded yet). It does seem that in
parts of Uganda a simple tasty snack in the normal sense of the word is
hard to come by.
Simon Grove Masindi, Uganda
Letters: Surplus scientists
The sixth-formers are behaving much more rationally than our political
masters. They can see that science A levels are not a gateway to a successful
career – nor even a preparation for a job.
The central problem today is that science is changing much faster than
the scientists – and that those scientists engaged in teaching and training
the next generation of scientists are part of the problem.
A-level and undergraduate science are still dedicated to the proposition
that successful students need to know all the answers, whereas they really
need to know how to ask appropriate questions. The old divisions between
biology, chemistry and physics may have been appropriate 60 or 70 years
ago, but over the past 50 years, science has exploded into a bewildering
array of different specialisations, with some of the most exciting advances
coming from a cross-fertilization of ideas and disciplines.
The coming of the desktop computer has utterly changed the way scientists
‘do science’ yet it hasn’t revolutionised (or even touched) the way A-level
science candidates prepare for their exams. Knowledge and understanding
are not the same thing at all, and exams are notoriously better at measuring
knowledge than measuring understanding.
Combined science is the science of the future, and the sooner A-level
and university entrance requirements are brought up to date the better.
Christopher Roper Cambridge
Letters: Surplus scientists
I refer to the article ‘Patten ponders back to basics . . .’ (This Week,
9 April) and subsequent correspondence (Letters, 7 May).
The article suggests that there is no real shortage of scientists. My
own experience bears this out and I would go further and say that right
now there is a substantial surplus of scientists, so that there is certainly
nothing to worry about in the comparative lack of new recruits. Furthermore,
we should not be encouraging young people to go into science in preference
to other subjects as their job prospects are no better in science.
Why should there be this surplus? Part of the reason is the government’s
decision virtually to abdicate from public-funded science. This has resulted
in substantial redundancy. Another reason is the shedding since privatisation
by the former nationalised industries of thousands of scientists as R&D
budgets were cut.
But the overwhelming reason is the catastrophic reduction in our industrial
base since 1979. This reduction is of the order of 30 to 40 per cent and
even in 1979 the industrial base was too small by comparison with our competitors.
Industry was and still is the main employment area for scientists and engineers.
The only way to alleviate this problem is to rebuild our industrial
base to at least its 1979 size.
David Morgan Great Bookham, Surrey
Letters: People and poverty
Hari Sharan attacks the New Delhi population summit for focusing on
only one of the ‘three main parameters’ that affect sustainability (Forum,
2 April). But other aspects had already been tackled at the Rio Earth Summit.
The New Delhi summit was organised so that scientists could make an input
to the International Conference on Population and Development to be held
later this year in Cairo.
I cannot speak for ‘the majority of people in industrialised countries’,
but I am sure that those who have any real knowledge of population issues
are well aware that poverty can cause population growth. What is too often
ignored is that population growth can cause poverty, contributing to a vicious
circle.
Sharan cites an example of a poor family who need six children just
to survive, because of problems like needing between 2 and 6 hours’ labour
per day to gather fuel, and large amounts of labour to till a small plot
of land. But this is an example of the so-called tragedy of the commons,
where everyone is driven by individual need to the detriment of the common
good. If every family is having a similar number of children, gathering
sufficient fuel from a finite supply is likely to get harder and harder.
Moreover, if the children in their turn reproduce at the same rate, the
plot of land is likely to be insufficient for the needs of their families.
The strategies for development sketched out by Hari Sharan make good
sense, but I would add as essential features working for equal rights for
women and access to information and choice in matters of family planning.
Women’s empowerment is important both for defeating poverty and for slowing
population growth.
It used to be said some twenty years ago that ‘development is the best
contraceptive’, but there is increasing evidence that contraceptives are
the best contraceptive and that a majority of people in developing countries,
even the poor, want access to modern methods.
It is interesting that Karan Singh, who originally coined the phrase
‘development is the best contraceptive’, said recently that population was
the most serious problem being faced today by developing countries. He called
for large-scale funding of family planning and of contraceptive research.
He also called for a massive campaign of motivation to take family planning
into villages.
Highly successful campaigns in a number of countries point the way
for others. Bangladesh, for example, is a poor, heavily populated, largely
agrarian country that has managed in the past twenty years to achieve a
rapid increase in contraceptive availability and use and a decrease of 1.5
children per woman in its total fertility rate.
It is no use shutting our eyes to the problems caused by population
growth or waiting for development on its own to solve them. Equally, it
would be foolish to suggest that population growth is the only problem we
have to solve, but then no one is doing so.
Diana Brown Population Concern, London
Letters: Tin and trousers
Still further to the correspondence about the trouser buttons of Napoleon’s
army (Letters, 12 February, 19 March and 23 April), I wish to remain extremely
critical of reports of common tin changing from shiny metal to grey powder
in conditions where humans can survive.
I suggest that this change will occur only in pure tin. Very small amounts
of metallic impurities will inhibit the process to such a degree that, for
practical purposes, it will not take place.
I am interested in Ralph West’s account of ‘boils’ on organ pipes (Letters,
23 April). Metal organ pipes are almost always made of ‘organ metal’: 30
per cent tin and 70 per cent lead. This is easily worked, does not corrode
and is fairly inexpensive. The front row of pipes may have the proportions
reversed (70 per cent tin and 30 per cent lead) purely for appearance’s
sake. A cheaper pipe can be made of zinc, but this is more difficult to
work. Copper has also been used and a host of other (unsuccessful) experimenters
have tried almost everything else, including concrete.
Jim Tew Oxford
Letters: Our Mother . . .
How could you possibly dare to print such a sexist line from Malcolm
Dixon: ‘God doesn’t always shave with Occam’s razor’ (Letters, 23 April)?
Don’t you know that She doesn’t shave?
H. A. F. Rocha Catawba, North Carolina
Letters: All the rage
John Ashby spoke a true word either in jest or with tongue in cheek
when he suggested that cows in France succumb to madness for different reasons
(Letters, 9 April). That 1912 dictionary meant ‘mad cow’ as we use ‘mad
dog’, that is, rabid. Rabies is ‘la rage’ in French and so ‘enrage’ has
this very specific as well as general meaning. Vive la difference indeed.
Marjorie Cooper Kingsteignton, Devon
Letters: Correction
The map in Enigma 771 (Forum, 21 May) gave the impression that some
of the roads follow the coastline. In fact, as shown here, while the ports
East and West are on the coast, none of the roads run along the coast.
Letters: Snucks and snarks
‘It is widely known’ that Jules Verne gave a pretty accurate account
of the first manned Moon landing, says Lafferty.
Not to this reader it isn’t. The voyagers of De la Terre a la Lune are
shot from a gun (somehow remaining unflattened and unbaked) which is not
even placed on Mount Kenya, or another high-altitude, equatorial site,
but more or less at sea level. They do not land, merely circumnavigate.
Otherwise they are constrained by the demands of life and gravity, as were
the Apollo astronauts.
This canard I first saw propagated by the Brussels correspondent of
The Daily Telegraph, who had apparently been fed it by a French bureaucrat
as an example of the excellence of French scientific education. It is, in
fact, an excellent example of the limited learning, and less reading, of
journalist and bureaucrat. Myself a chemist, I am only too happy to add
physicists to the lists of the half-educated.
P. Urben Kenilworth, Warwickshire