Letters: Audacious or naive?
It was encouraging to see some long overdue criticism of current models
of the Universe (Comment, 4 June). It seems that astrophysicists can get
away with practically anything in their quest to explain the ultimate structure
of reality, while scientists dealing with closer-to-home subjects may suffer
the wrath of all for advancing an unusual hypothesis. Why should the ‘audacious
hypothesis’ of dark matter be an overnight success, while the theory of
morphogenetic fields be widely denounced as naive mysticism?
Peter Webster Cannes, France
Letters: Theme park fun
I feel Fred Pearce is being unfair to Center Parcs in his article (‘Theme
park at the heart of rural Britain’, 11 June). My family and I have enjoyed
many holidays there in England and abroad.
One of the things we most enjoy is the wildlife. Because of the way
the villas are laid out, it is possible to lie in bed in the morning and
watch the birds and mammals feeding. I have seen birds I have not seen
anywhere else.
Of course it is not quite natural. The animals are attracted by the
food put out for them by the visitors. They seem to have little fear of
people, and we have had to shut the patio door to keep the squirrels out.
How are we to teach our children the value of our wildlife unless they come
in contact with it?
I feel strongly that building more Center Parcs will do much to conserve
our countryside and our wild life.
Derek Moreton Stoke-on-Trent
Letters: Long-term problem
The suggestion by Birger Johansson (Letters, 14 May) that comets be
diverted from the Oort cloud and used for terraforming Mars has got one
detail incorrect. The time it would take for the comets to reach Mars would
be more than just centuries, but at least 20 million years (New 杏吧原创,
Science, 9 April), so even if there are any people still around, they will
be unlikely to remember to adjust the course of all the comets about to
rain down upon them.
Stuart Henderson Farrer, Australia
Letters: Dangerous date
Comets have always been taken to portend wars or epidemics, and they
appeared at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the destruction of the Second
Temple, the Norman Conquest, the First World War, the Yom Kippur war, Chernobyl
etc.
Remarkably, Shoemaker-Levy’s impact on Jupiter on 16 July corresponds
this year to the ominous Jewish date 9 Av, a day of fasting and mourning
for Jews. On 9 Av occurred God’s decree that the generation of the Exodus
were to die in the wilderness of Sinai, the destruction of the First and
Second Temples, the fall of Betar, the royal edict for the expulsion from
England, the expulsion from Spain, the First World War, the return from
the first Moon landing in 1969, and according to the Talmud, the birthday
of the Messiah!
Indeed the Zohar (IV:212) foretells that the appearance of a huge comet
in the heavens will portend the destruction of Rome, world calamities, earthquakes,
fighting around Jerusalem and the advent of the Messiah. ‘A star will step
forth out of Jacob’ (Numbers 24:17); ‘If the Jews merit it, the redemption
will arrive like a comet’ (Rabbi Chayim Attar, 17th century).
Amnon Goldberg London
Letters: Eurocentric?
Lewis Wolpert would like his Fairy Godmother to grant him the wish for
‘science to be recognised as part of our culture’, although he does not
specify whose culture he is talking about (Science and Fiction, 4 June).
From clues in his article it is clear he means the Eurocentric culture he
refers to in his book The Unnatural Nature of Science.
In that book he asserts that ‘science’ has only been developed once,
by the Greeks, at the dawn of Western civilization. Technological achievements
made by the Chinese or any other civilization are described as primitive,
based on trial and error and unscientific because they lack the Western
theoretical framework in which man is separated from nature. However, it
is precisely this schism that has created some of the ecological and ethical
problems that Western civilization now faces.
Wolpert ignores the Sinological scholarship of Joseph Needham who, in
his monumental work Science and Civilisation in China, shows that not only
did the Chinese practise accurate observational astronomy (the results of
which are still used by present day astronomers) but that in other fields
experimental science was carried out with accurate and systematic observation,
with the manipulation of variables and the use of controls, and with the
meticulous recording of results. Although their theoretical frameworks may
have been different, according to Needham what the Chinese carried out was
science.
Furthermore, Paul Feyerabend has argued that there is no seamless scientific
method that scientists must adhere to and that the history of science is
littered with examples of people who broke ‘the rules’. This implies that
a much wider definition of what constitutes science is feasible.
However, by specifying that science must always include an abstract,
‘objective’ mathematical framework, Wolpert steers dangerously close to
a view that excludes the scientific contributions made by other cultures
in the past and in the present. Unfortunately, such a view is easily associated
with a racist ideology that would seek to create divisions and hierarchies
between cultures and individuals.
Wolpert hopes that ‘science can be seen as exciting and fun’. Perhaps
he would like to explain how this can be achieved in today’s multicultural
classrooms without denigrating alternative cultural heritages or how he
would show the native peoples of the world, with their ‘primitive technology’,
the fun they can have exploring the ‘intellectual side of civilisation’.
Reg Dennick Nottingham
Letters: Eurocentric?
Wolpert’s wish that ‘science can be seen as exciting and fun’ for everyone
is a common one amongst those who already appreciate the thrill of science
and are labelled ‘spods’ or worse by their non-scientific peers. However,
this implication that the nonscientific component of society makes up a
disadvantaged underclass would not appeal to those friends of mine who,
although having no scientific training beyond a long-forgotten O-level grade,
play a full part in this technological society via equally intellectual
pursuits (some of which I find very dry indeed). Does nonscientific mean
nonintellectual? Scientific snobbery serves only to distance those whose
talents and interests lie elsewhere.
We will never live in a society of scientists. Thankfully different
people have different interests and skills to contribute to a balanced community.
An increased understanding of general science is desirable, as is an increased
understanding of social humanitarian topics, to avoid our culture becoming
even more anti-intellectual than it already is. In short, I would modify
Wolpert’s wish: I would wish that education be seen as exciting and fun.
Allison Cook Birmingham
Letters: Informed choice
Cathy Read says protagonists of the tamoxifen trials have assumed it
is acceptable to cause one disease to prevent another (Review, 11 June).
She is wrong.
The organisers of the British trials make no such assumption. This
trial is not about assumptions. It is about choice – the choice for women
at high risk of breast cancer to say ‘yes’ to an opportunity possibly to
halve their risk, and the choice to say ‘no’.
Every volunteer will have full information. In addition to discussion
with her doctor, she will have a leaflet stating clearly the pros and cons.
Highlighted among the cons is the statement that the normal risk of endometrial
cancer is increased from 3 per 10 000 to between 6 and 9 per 10 000 per
year as a result of the trial.
All the women taking part will need to weigh this risk against their
risk of developing breast cancer, which will average more that 40 per 10
000 per year during the 10 year period of study.
For many, this risk will be acceptable; for some it will not. That is
their choice. We are carrying out this study because we must do everything
we can to reduce the anguish and deaths caused by breast cancer. It is very
important that women are given the chance to take part if they wish to do
so. They must be neither persuaded nor discouraged but provided with all
the known facts in a realistic way, so that each individual can make her
own decision, which she will be more than capable of doing.
What is already abundantly clear is that many volunteers are expressing
their views and, knowing the choice, wish to take part.
Margaret Turner-Warwick United Kingdom Co-ordinating Committee on Cancer
Research London
Letters: Scottish schooling
I disagree with both Christopher Roper and Abigail Stewart. A Levels
and undergraduate science courses aim to impart a fundamental understanding
of a subject or subjects. To achieve this the principal facts of the subject,
as currently understood, and the basis of the scientific method must be
taught.
In addition, practical scientific skills must be taught. A scientist
who doesn’t understand the basic principles of measurement and who cannot
calibrate an instrument is quite useless in the ‘real world’. You cannot
ask appropriate or original questions if you lack a basic, factual understanding
of your subject, nor can you seek an answer if you lack the necessary skills.
As far as computers are concerned, they are a useful tool, but all too often
they promote number crunching as a substitute for original thought.
Stewart contends that A levels are far too rigid and do not allow for
individual flair and originality. This applies as much to the arts as the
sciences but it is less obvious in the arts. Of the four A Levels I took
(French, English, economics and zoology), zoology was easily the most interesting
and English the least.
A. K. King University of Lancaster
Letters: Case for cats
Though Ian Anderson gives opposing sides of the cat argument, he does,
I feel, lean towards the anticat lobby gaining momentum in Australia (‘Should
the cat take the rap?’, 21 May and Letters, 18 June). Mention is made that
cats could predate European settlement, but he fails to mention reports
from early explorers of large feral cat populations in the Simpson Desert,
Nullarbor Plains and Cape York Peninsula in the early 19th century.
Such populations almost certainly indicate cat colonisation of Australia
prior to 1788, and if such inhospitable environments were settled, wouldn’t
it be fair to assume cats are not a recent arrival in bilby habitats in
the Diamantina River? Has cat distribution, population and impact already
stabilised in Australia?
The rabbits’ contribution to land degradation is well documented. Rabbits
comprise in excess of 80 per cent of feral cat diet in rabbit areas. What
would be the effect of cat eradication (were it possible) on rabbits and
other feral animals?
Outside rabbit areas, very little work has been done on cat diet, impact,
or even population density. Some bird species, for example the galah, have
undergone huge population increases since European settlement. The effect
of feral cats on avian and mammalian species is an open field for study
in Australia – there is too much anecdote and not enough substantiation.
What concerns me is the high moral ground assumed by the anticat lobby
– typical of many movements in today’s society. Licensing of cats and regulation
of their movement is a fair requirement, but banning cats outright is both
an infringement of personal freedom and a denial of facts.
Human/cat relationships predate history – they are not ‘fad’ animals.
Pet ownership has tangible benefits for individuals and can result in substantial
health savings for the community (‘Secret power of pets’, 9 October 1993).
Keith Noble Charters Towers Queensland, Australia
Letters: Desirable diesel
I read with interest the piece on diesel engine emissions by William
Bown (Forum, 4 June). He does not mention one area in which the government
could act immediately to make improvements. Biodiesel (produced from oilseed
rape or other vegetable oils) used in place of or as a mixture with mineral
diesel produces significant reductions in particulate emissions. The single
trial carried out by Reading Buses and the Transport Research Laboratory
raised a question mark over this assertion, but all other trials worldwide,
including substantial fleet trials in the US, have shown reductions in particulate
emissions.
Biodiesel is also biodegradable, can be used in existing engines with
little or no modification and is nontoxic. However, at current levels of
diesel use in Britain, and with agronomic and land use restraints, biodiesel
will not replace more than a small proportion of mineral diesel sales. It
should, therefore, be targeted at areas where there can be maximum health
and environmental gain.
Why is biodiesel not readily available now? The government chooses
to ignore or question the environmental benefits, and then do nothing. A
tiny shift in emphasis of taxation on diesel fuel in favour of biodiesel
would see production start in Britain.
Tim Brown National Society for Clean Air Brighton
Letters: Scottish schooling
As a fifth-year student in a Scottish school currently sitting her higher
exams, I have been following the debate on science teaching in English
schools with interest (Letters, 7 and 28 May).
In Scotland, the education system is quite different from that in England.
We study seven standard grade subjects (the Scottish equivalent to GCSEs),
then up to five highers. The Certificate of Sixth Year Studies carries study
to a higher level still, and in science subjects includes a project for
a considerable number of marks.
As in England, the system is not perfect; there is concern that the
transition between S Grade and Higher is too difficult, and studying for
five Highers in one year is especially stressful (that much I can testify
to!), but the advantages of the extra choice are considerable. In my school,
there are many pupils who study higher science subjects, and the Scottish
system turns out linguists who are scientifically literate, doctors who
can speak foreign languages, scientists with an understanding of history
and lawyers who can count their own money . . .
Perhaps if English pupils were given more choice, more of them would
choose science and a whole new world would open up to them.
Rhona Briggs Lanarkshire, Scotland
Letters: Daring pilots
Robert Buderi discloses some useful details about the V-1 raids and
how the menace was countered (‘The V-1 menace: secret weapons that saved
Britain’, 4 June). But I was surprised to read that they were powered by
a jet-like engine. The pulse-jet principle used was in fact a jet engine
and the duration of the flying bomb’s flight was governed by the quantity
of fuel it carried. It must have been an interesting job working out how
many litres of fuel to load to be sure it hit the target, taking into account
headwinds and so on en route. The same sort of engine was used later by
the Americans in their search for still higher speed aviation records after
the war.
Your writer failed to mention that some daring fighter pilots used to
swoop down on the low-flying pilotless missiles and position themselves
so that a wing of their aircraft (Spitfire or similar) was beneath the wing
of the V-1. Then they would perform a banking turn away from the V-1 with
the result that the rising wing of their fighter aircraft would tip the
wing above it the other way, so forcing the missile to bank away, and with
luck, fly back the way it had come – or at any rate, away from the target
in its previous straight and level flight path.
The V-1 was subjected to cannon fire and also rockets from the fighters
in their diving attacks. However, such firing from above in a steep dive
could only be undertaken when the missile was flying over the countryside.
Your writer’s last sentence was odd – ‘The reign of terror was over’
– because it was only over on a temporary basis. There followed the reign
of terror wrought by the dispatch of the V-2, the first ICBM used in any
war and later the vehicle for the initial American space programme.
War – let’s sincerely hope we have no more of it.
David Bullivant Helsinki, Finland
Letters: Heterodoxy heresy
Georgina Ferry’s article about Stanley Prusiner’s prion ‘heresy’ represents
just one more expression of the now orthodox view that the essential difference
between normal and aberrant forms of the prion protein (PrP) is conformational
(‘Mad brains and the prion heresy’, 28 May). I suppose I should consider
it flattery that my alternative hypothesis, based on amino acid differences
brought about by frame-shifting mistranslation, should still be considered
so heterodox that it does not warrant a mention.
Certainly, in the hundreds of apparently comprehensive reviews and papers
which have been written by Prusiner’s San Francisco group, the frame-shifting
mistranslation model has never been acknowledged to exist, in spite of the
ten or so papers I have published on the topic in journals ranging from
Microbial Pathogenesis to The Journal of Theoretical Biology during the
last decade.
There are serious quantitative problems with the conformational transition
model of prion replication which have never been addressed since I first
set them out in 1988. The activation barrier for the conformational transition
would have to be about 90 kilojoules per mole and then the aberrant form
of the protein would have to be capable of abolishing the barrier completely.
For strains to exist, there would have to be quite distinct barriers which
different aberrant forms were able to abolish with near-perfect specificity.
The frame-shifting mistranslation model is able to explain the existence
of prion strains with ease. The possibility of strains is part and parcel
of the model because higher order units of structural information (octa-codon
repeats) in the gene encoding PrP are identified as germane to the process
of prion replication. The orthodox conformational transition model has to
invoke an ad hoc auxiliary hypothesis to account for strains, detracting
from its plausibility.
The main problem with the idea that different forms of PrP have slightly
different amino acid sequences is a lack of supporting evidence. In fact,
recent amino-acid sequencing data make it look less likely that the hypothesis
is correct. On the other hand, the amino acid sequence experiments reported
to date are not precise or accurate enough definitely to exclude mistranslation
as a mechanism of prion replication. Ferry was cautious enough to say that
the two forms of PrP seem to have identical amino acid sequences.
Only empirical investigations will be able to elucidate the manner in
which prion protein manages to pass itself off as a carrier of biological
information, but until all the evidence is in, alternative hypotheses should
be considered carefully. Now that they have managed to turn their heresy
into a major scientific industry, the doyens of prionology would do well
to be a little more open-minded, especially towards other heretical outsiders.
Peter Wills The University of Auckland New Zealand