Letters : . . .
Iluka, New South Wales
You don’t have to be gullible to believe Richard Dawkins’s explanation of the
development of the eye if you understand that this explanation is a hypothesis
which is open to experimental verification. If evidence is brought forward to
disprove this hypothesis, then it will be modified or may be rejected.
This is the big difference between scientists and creationists. 杏吧原创s
believe they can advance knowledge by creating models from which they extract
hypotheses which can be tested by experiment. Creationists believe that if
reason is not anchored in the truths of scripture it fails to be truly
objective.
The fact that evolution has occurred is accepted by Bradbury, as it is
accepted by most others. It has moved beyond the level of hypothesis. How
evolution has occurred is still in the hypothesis stage. We seem to have some
strong hypotheses here, but the necessary evidence is still coming in.
Creationists tend to confuse these two ideas.
Letters : Fish tale
Lysekil, Sweden
I refer to your Editorial of 23 November, which contains summary critiques of
the UN system. This includes a remark about fisheries, which is simply not true:
“The FAO鈥攖he agency which failed to warn the world about the crisis…in
the ocean fisheries in the 1990s…”. As head of the Fisheries Department of the
FAO from 1986 to 1992, I am disturbed by your lack of information.
The FAO has had and continues to have an important role in the development of
fishery science and in pointing out the dangers of an unlimited increase of
marine fisheries. This has been discussed in regular meetings of the Committee
on Fisheries, and in the five regional marine fishery management bodies for
which the FAO provides the secretariat, as well as in the material prepared for
FAO Conferences.
Documents like Agriculture towards 2000 (1993, pages 175-196),
Review of the state of world fishery resources (1992) and Review of the
state of world marine fishery resources (1994), all point to the dangers in
open access fishery and the huge overcapitalisation in marine fisheries.
The main problem is that warnings have not been taken seriously, neither on a
global scale, nor regionally, as, for example, in the North and Central
Atlantic. Fisheries expanded quickly while other considerations than limits of
biological production had more weight.
It is a pity that the work of the highly competent staff of the FAO is
endangered by the heavy slimming process which is under way at the request of
member nations. The technical competence of the Fisheries Department, which is
the real asset of the organisation, is in danger.
Letters : Nodding defences
Weymouth, Dorset
I notice with interest in Fred Pearce’s article on erosion of the coasts that
one of the reasons for not building more sea defences was cost (“Crumbling
away”, 21/28 December, p 14).
Some time ago I read an article on the damage done by waves that stated that
the peak wave energy determined much of the damage done. Thus some 70 per cent
of the damage was due to the top 5 per cent of the range of wave energies
encountered, (these numbers are from memory, in other words wrong). So if the
peak wave energy could be reduced even a fraction this would result in a large
reduction in the damage done.
Concurrently, numerous studies by the CEGB and other, government sponsored,
bodies have stated that electrical generation by Salter’s duck is just short of
the economic break-even point. Since the nodding duck generates electricity by
extracting some energy from each wave the waves beyond must have lower
energy.
Has anybody redone the calculations with a factor for the saving of
expenditure in repairing coastal defences resulting from a reduction in the wave
energy if pontoons of nodding ducks were used as part of the sea defence system
as well as to generate electricity?
Better yet, has any study that you are aware of included in the calculations
both the indirect benefits that such a system could produce and the indirect
costs that other systems have, such as pollution from coal-fired ones, and
cleanup for nuclear?
Letters : . . .
Barry, Glamorgan
I refer to “the hard and soft option”, concerning rising sea levels and
coastal erosion (Forum, 23 November, p 50). The country is running short of
sites for rubbish dumps. In places where sea walls are deemed necessary to
protect farmland, could this material be used behind them to give ever
increasing defence in depth? It would also keep scavenging seagulls where they
are supposed to be.
Letters : Countering cats
London
As the minister responsible for Britain’s Dependent Territories, I read with
interest the article by Michael Brooke about the feral cat and rat problem on
Ascension Island (Forum, 7 December, p 52).
I completely refute Brooke’s allegation that the government is “wriggling
out of its responsibilities” or “seeking to obstruct nongovernmental
organisations”.
We very much share the NGOs’ concern to protect the unique bird life of
Ascension. As the article points out, the bird population, including the sooty
tern (or wideawake), has suffered for many years from the predatory activities
of cats and rats, which had jumped ship in previous centuries.
You also acknowledge that a feasibility study to eradicate these pests was
initiated and jointly funded by the Foreign Office in 1995. The study
recommended a project costed at 拢1.5 million. We are discussing with NGOs
how best to take this matter forward, but we want to ensure that the project
remains cost-effective, has a sustainable impact and is environmentally
appropriate. This latter aspect is crucial in any project which relies at least
partly on the use of poisons.
Our Administrator on Ascension Island, Roger Huxley, has drafted a
conservation management plan for the island which he has passed to appropriate
NGOs for comment. He awaits their response. In addition he has taken a number of
concrete steps to protect bird life on the Island. This includes the neutering
of domestic cats, an enhanced trapping campaign against feral cats, and the
promulgation shortly of legislation establishing two nature reserves.
He has also tightened up local legislation to ensure that the unique green
turtle nesting sites remain undisturbed and protected and he has initiated work
on a project to limit the spread of the Mexican thorn, another introduced pest
which threatens the local flora and fauna. We have agreed to fund a pilot
project using bio-control methods, in this case beetles which feed only on this
species of thorn.
Letters : Your fraud is noted
Pacific Palisades, California
There are two unfortunate themes in Vincent Kiernan’s report of scientific
misconduct: the mentor as helpless victim of an evil trainee, and the analogy of
scientific fraud to aeroplane crashes (Forum, 14 December, p 48).
Attention might be more usefully drawn to preventive techniques for seeking
to prevent such behaviour. Aeroplane crashes are frequently attributable to
pilot error or a failure of proper equipment maintenance.
Similarly, trainees (both graduates and postdoctoral students) may not
receive adequate supervision in the laboratory from the mentor, thus making it
easier to engage in misconduct.
In addition to frequent meetings with, and verbal reviews of the research of,
such trainees (as well as research presentations by trainees to their peers in
lab meetings), one suggested technique is the random audit of lab notebooks.
Trainees often fail to appreciate the need for maintaining contemporaneous
entries in bound databooks, if only for the purpose of what has been called “the
responsible custody of scientific data”. An announced policy of periodic but
unscheduled review of such notebooks might give mentors advance warning of
potential problems, including poorly maintained notes or the opposite鈥攁
notebook that looks too perfect to resemble the typical trainee’s daily bench
experience.
This can be done in a non-confrontational manner as part of the regular lab
experience, and while not foolproof, can make it more difficult for a trainee to
commit fraud.
Letters : Chronicled
Shoeburyness, Essex
Having read Fred Pearce’s mention of the volcanic eruption of Mount Changbai
(“Lure of the Rings”, 14 December, p 38) which darkened the skies and plunged
the world in a wintry gloom, and noting the precise dating of the event to the
year 1032, I turned to a translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. An
extract from The Laud Chronicle reads:
“1032. In this year wildfire appeared such as no man remembered: it did
damage everywhere, and in many places besides. “
One definition of wildfire is “lightning without thunder”. This would be
consistent with some abnormal atmospheric condition occurring in Anglo-Saxon
England at that time.
Letters : Cables continued
Rochester, Kent
K. C. Gale is surely guilty of oversimplifying the situation with speaker
cables (Letters, 30 November p 54). Any distortions created by the cables are
not strictly within the feedback loop and not totally controlled by it. The
reason for this is simple鈥攖he amplifier takes its feedback from its own
output terminals. The speaker and cables form a passive system which is outside
the loop鈥攖he only guarantee is that any distortions fed back to the inputs
will get damped by the amplifier.
But consider the case of an inductor in series with a resistor across the amp
output. This simple circuit will show its classic frequency dependent gain curve
at the junction between the two鈥攈owever good the amp. Just replace the
resistor with a cable, the inductor with a speaker and you have the real
amp/cable/speaker system.
Some years ago I built an amp that could be switched to take two feedback
signals from the two LS terminals. It sounded better to me (but then it would,
wouldn’t it?). I don’t use it any more for the same reason I suspect it has
never caught on commercially鈥攖he feedback isn’t very secure and wiring
faults would expose the system to severe risk of damage.
While I suspect that much rubbish is talked about cables, I was once able to
audition some true top-flight audio kit built by the kind of people who promote
expensive cables, etc (Krell class A amps, Apogee ribbon speakers and so on),
and it was mindblowing.
So who’s right? Beats me.
Letters : Unseparated
London
Your issue of 28 September has just been brought to my attention. Anthony
Cottingham’s statement (Letters, p 63) that Holland Park School is bringing back
separate sciences is not correct.
All Year 11 pupils at Holland Park School have been entered for GCSE double
award science examinations since 1988. In the summer 1996 examinations over 50
per cent pupils gained A to C grades at GCSE Science, which is above the
national average. Our A level results in physics, chemistry, biology and
psychology are excellent. For example, in physics in summer 1996 students
obtained 3 A, 3B, 4C and 1D grades (100 per cent pass).
We have no intention of abandoning our successful double award science course
to return to separate sciences.
Letters : Old probes
Glasgow
What interests me about Frank Tipler’s self-reproducing von Neumann machine
space probes is that they are not original to Tipler, though he does not
acknowledges this anywhere (“Is there anybody out there?”, 23 November, p 32,
and Letters, 21/28 December, p 80).
They were first thought up as an exploratory device by Michel Michaud and the
concept that aliens may have used them millions of years ago to explore the
Galaxy appeared in the book Extraterrestrial Encounters published by
David & Charles in Britain in April 1979 and some months later in the
US鈥攃oincidentally around the time that Tipler was starting his research
paper which “first” mentioned the concept.
Letters : What's in a name?
by e-mail
You point out that when Motorola announced the reduction in the number of
satellites from 77 to 66, they did not announce any intention to change the name
of the system from Iridium to Dysprosium (Feedback, 14 December).
One wonders how much this decision was based on a recognition that, while
“iridium” means “rainbow-coloured”, which seems to relate little to a
communications system, “dysprosium” would be a singularly inapt name, since it
means “difficult to get at.”
Letters : Lacking balls
Trowbridge, Wiltshire
Glasgow Museum’s experience is nothing new (Feedback, 4 January). There must
be hundreds of schools across the country suffering from the same problem
(stolen mouse balls) with the consequent frustration of finding many
manufacturers will only provide replacement balls at high price, or not at
all.
In recent years, our local computer shop seems to have obtained a supply of
balls for “generic” mice, from somewhere, but the best solution is to prevent
the balls being taken in the first place. We now routinely super-glue the base
plate in place. This can cause some minor problems in cleaning out the dust that
accumulates, but nothing like the original problem of having anything up to a
dozen computers in a room of twenty out of use because of this irritating
problem.
It’s amazing that noone has invented a tamper proof mouse, given the extent
of this problem. Surely there’s an opportunity there for those firms selling
into the educational market.
Letters : Just mating
Stroud, Gloucestershire
Your lion photograph purports to show a lioness repelling a rogue male (“All
for one, one for all,” 14 December, p 33). But actually it is quite evident to
any leontologist that in fact she just mated with him.
It should be evident too that lions, which live in prides of close relatives,
give no support to proponents of group selection.
Letters : . . .
Bougy, Switzerland
The lioness is reacting normally to the climax of copulation. Maybe she is
momentarily telling the lion to back off, but within 15 minutes she will be
inviting him for a new encounter, and will do so dozens of times a day during
her oestrus.
Letters : Bible warning
Cambridge
Andrew Bradbury has stated that not only does an accurate translation of
Genesis allow for an indefinitely ancient Earth, but also that adaptive
radiation of a few progenitor species from Noah’s Ark could account for the
current diversity of species (Letters, 4 January, p 44).
If most of the adaptation of terrestrial life could have occurred in the last
5000 or 6000 years, why does he deny that all the rest could have taken place in
the unspecified millions of years he admits may have gone before? As usual, the
eye is singled out as a case against evolution, despite the fact that various
forms, from simple flat light-sensitive spots, to sensitive pits, to “pinhole
cameras”, to increasingly good lens cameras, are exhibited by extant species,
proving the functional value of the necessary intermediate stages in the
evolution of the human eye.
It occurs to me that evolutionists should copy American creationists, who
successfully campaigned to have all evolutionary texts printed with a warning
that evolution is only a theory, by campaigning for a mandatory addendum to the
Bible stating: “The account of creation in the book of Genesis is an
unsubstantiated theory, of uncertain origin, translated several times with
mistakes and alterations, which is believed by a minority of people to explain
life on this planet.”