Letter
Dougie Walker was indeed cleared by a British panel of knowingly taking
nandrolone or its precursors. This had little bearing when his case was
subsequently heard by an IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation) panel,
however. The international rules explicitly state that it is the presence of the
substance, not the intent or knowledge of its presence, which is illegal.
Athletes consider their diets with such care that it is disingenuous to
suggest that particular substances could be consumed unknowingly in sufficient
quantities to register a positive result of the magnitude observed in the cases
of Walker and Linford Christie. The rules are clear. It is the responsibility of
the athlete to ensure that dietary supplements do not contain prohibited
substances.
Nowt so queer
Gail Vines’s article about “queer” creatures failed to make clear the
distinction between homosexuality and homosexual behaviour
(7 August, p 32).
Homosexuality is surely the exclusive attraction of an individual to its own
sex, whereas homosexual behaviour can be exhibited by bisexual individuals. The
examples given in the article, although interesting, were all in fact bisexual,
and fit relatively easily into evolutionary theory as methods of bonding,
gaining status or whatever. Finding a homosexual animal would be a far greater
challenge.
Letter
Is it legitimate to apply the terminology of homosexuality to nonhuman
species? What about orientation? Do king penguins do it for pleasure, or because
they are attracted to each other? Does sexual attraction in animals mean the
same thing as in humans?
It is important that these behaviours be discussed rather than concealed or
ignored as they have been. But let’s talk about them in ways that make sense of
the data, instead of borrowing a paradigm that might not actually fit.
Letter
Imagine our delight on reading your article about Bruce Bagemihl’s book
Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity.
Disappointment, alas, followed when we saw that you had credited the US edition
which is not available for sale in Britain and Europe.
Rather than depriving your non-American readers of the opportunity to buy
this “huge study of homosexuality that challenges our notions of gayness”, we
would prefer you to make amends by allowing us to offer New 杏吧原创
readers the British edition at the special price of 拢20, post free
(recommended retail price 拢25)
Gail Vines writes: In his book, Bagemihl deals extensively with the issue
of parallels (and lack of them) between human and animal sexual behaviour.
Good breeding
So, according to John Beringer “conventional breeders produce new hybrids
containing thousands of new genes”
(14 August, p 47).
No we don’t. The vast majority of new plant varieties (including hybrids)
contain, through controlled pollinations, new combinations of the allelic form
of a few tens or hundreds of the same genes. No new genes鈥攍et alone
thousands of them.
Now, genetic modification does involve the insertion of new genes. It is
worrying if the former chairman of the government’s Advisory Committee on
Releases to the Environment doesn’t appreciate the difference.
Letter
Beringer states: “We know almost nothing about these genes”. But surely this
must count as an argument against GM technology, not one in favour of it?
At the very least, we should be extremely cautious about inserting genes from
entirely different species into our plants and animals. The truth is that we
cannot fully predict what will happen when we do this. Side effects may be very
subtle, such as changes in allergenicity, or resistance to disease.
Letter
Helen Wallace’s argument, supposedly against GM crop trials, threw forth as
pretty a crop of logical fallacies as one could wish. The one that caused me to
inhale a cup of tea I was unwisely drinking at the same time was: “We already
know that contamination of other plants and crops by cross-pollination from
genetically modified crops is inevitable and irreversible.” Doesn’t that rather
beg the question of why we’re having this debate about crop trials?
Can somebody from the anti-GM camp please present some competently expressed
arguments? The poor standard of debate is giving the GM camp an easy victory.
But who needs to win debates when one can fall back on “direct action”?
Proof disproved
Your correspondent Don Jewett was reminded of the story of a computer proving
the equality of the base angles of an isosceles triangle
(7 August, p 52).
Unfortunately it was just that鈥� a story.
According to Douglas Hofstadter in his book Creative Analogies there
are two holes in the claim. First, the computer program in question did not find
the proof鈥攔esearchers using it realised that it would find the proof if
asked a particular question. The second hole in the claim is worse, though.
Pappus of Alexandria got there first, about 1700 years ago.
Take it easy
Rebecca Ferguson’s disturbingly long list of things to be avoided by pregnant women
(7 August, p 52) misses out one important item鈥攚orry.
Perhaps she would be better advised to ignore most of the advice and relax
mentally as well as physically.
Long view
Your correspondent Dominik Wujastyk suggests that we start using 5-digit year
dates to avoid the roll-over problem from 9999 to 10 000
(14 August, p 57). He
might be interested to know that we at the Long Now Foundation have been doing
this for some years鈥攕ince 01994, I think.
As mentioned in your interview with Stewart Brand (26 June, p 48), we are
currently constructing a clock and library designed to survive and function for
the next 10 000 years, so that roll over will be well within our domain.
Check our website (www.longnow.org) for further details.
Smile please
The Cheshire Cat question posed in an A-level General Studies paper
(Feedback, 26 June)
reminds me of an exam I sat a few years ago while doing my
English GCSE. We were given three pieces of writing, each with a set of
questions attached, and were asked to “Choose one of the three exercises
below”.
While we were all sweating out pages and pages of answers, a friend of mine
simply wrote “I choose number two”, and did nothing for the rest of the exam.
Since he had, technically, fulfilled the requirements of the paper, he had to be
given full marks.
Almost all GCSEs I’ve seen since then have the instruction “Choose and
complete one of the following”.
Cash and run
Your editorial claims “our expectations are putting athletes in an impossible
position” as the public demands that sporting records be broken
(14 August, p 3).
Your argument misses the biggest factor in sport: money.
In the past, drugs use was fuelled by the Soviet bloc’s manipulation of sport
for illusory political gain. Today drugs use reflects greed for the new big
prize: the billions unlocked by sport’s professionalisation and privatisation,
as it is destroyed and reinvented as mere satellite TV entertainment.
Don’t blame the public for drugs in sport. The fundamental transaction in
sport is the marketing of its audiences to companies. Despite denials, the
unspoken pressure for drug-enhanced performance is coming from within sport’s
commercial interests, from advertisers, television and governing bodies.
No free lunch
So we have another save-the-world, genetically modified wonder food, iron-enriched rice
(14 August, p 12). True observation: “At least a quarter of
the world’s population suffer from anaemia as a result of iron deficiency.”
False connection: these people are not, of course, all rice eaters.
As New 杏吧原创 reported years ago, the most significant reason for
global iron deficiency is those other save-the-world foods from the Green
Revolution (30 March 1996, p 32). These high-yield crops do not take up vital
micronutrients as effectively as indigenous varieties.
So why no mention of the downside of GM rice? There is bound to be one. When
will save-the-world scientists show an awareness that there is no such thing as
a free lunch?