Correction
Due to changes introduced in editing, the letter “The pheasant factor”
(6 November)
stated in error that “deer are implicated in cases of Lyme
disease in humans” in the US. In fact, scientists still do not know whether the
presence of deer affects the risk of humans contracting Lyme disease.
Letter
The author of the study on how prayer affects patients’ recovery, William
Harris, is quoted as claiming that his study is as rigorous as most drugs
trials. If he believes this, it also means he is deeply ignorant of
pharmacological practice.
One of the glaring flaws in his study is that nobody observed the
intercessors, or recorded their prayers. So there is no evidence that prayers
were actually said鈥攐ther than log sheets filled in by the intercessors
themselves. Or that prayers were said for the intended beneficiaries in such a
way as to identify them and only them. Or that the intercessors did not spoil
their prayers by asking to win the lottery (or anything else that might anger an
interventionist deity).
In other words, there were no attempts to control the delivery of the
supposed therapy. Using Harris’s drugs trial analogy, this would be like giving
a course of drugs to a courier and assuming that it was delivered to the right
person, who administered the whole course correctly, regularly, and did not take
any other substances which might have affected its efficacy.
Governments are too open
Ross Anderson points out several subtle problems that arise
when governments hold the keys to decoding encrypted, sensitive information
(6 November, p 48), but I think there is a simpler human point.
The security of the system will depend on whether a third party can gain
unauthorised access to either government records or the procedure by which the
government acquires keys. Should I believe that the government will achieve and
maintain a security level that matches any halfway decent encryption?
Healing thoughts
You say that “sceptics are far from convinced” that prayer can help patients
recover even when they are unaware that people are praying for them
(13 November, p 24).
I am not surprised. Although I firmly believe in the power of
prayer, it seems clear that we cannot reduce it to a formula such that if
x people pray for y hours the result must be an improvement of
z per cent in the patient.
That prayer is much more complex than this is exemplified by the experience
of many thousands who have prayed fervently with no apparent response, and of
those who have prayed with little faith only to encounter an immediate answer.
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), we read
that “they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead”鈥攁
hypothesis that Jesus himself proved to be true a short while later.
No relation
A commission of the US Department of the Interior recently found that the
closest modern relatives of 9300-year-old Kennewick Man are Polynesians and the
Ainu of northern Japan, and that links with European or modern Native American
populations are “remote”
(23 October, p 5).
But skulls from the same period as
Kennewick Man can be seen as representing a different evolutionary stage from
later specimens. They nearly all fall outside the modern range, and show a
greater resemblance to peripheral populations like the Polynesians and Ainu than
to modern skulls of their own region. The close morphological affinity of skulls
of that age to skulls of certain modern populations doesn’t reveal much, if
anything, about possible ancestral relationships.
Tricky treats
Feedback was dismayed by a warning issued to adults to check that their
children’s Halloween treats had not been tampered with
(30 October). Only one
instance of poisoning of Halloween trick-or-treat candy has ever been verified.
In 1974, Texas optician Ronald Clark O’Bryan put cyanide in his son’s Halloween
candy, to collect on $31 000 life insurance. O’Bryan, known as “the Candy
Man” on death row, was executed by the state on 31 March, 1984. There are no
documented cases of razor blades, needles or other sharp objects turning up in
Halloween trick-or-treat candy. O’Bryan’s crime may have become an urban
legend.
Letter
You question why we should need to X-ray gifts from our neighbours.
Unfortunately, it seems such precautions are necessary. On 5 November the
following headline appeared in our local newspaper, The Watford
Observer: “Pills discovered in Halloween treats”. According to the article,
“A sinister trick was played on children from South Oxhey when pills were put
into their sweet collection鈥�” . It was only because some of the pills had
“250 mg” stamped on them that they were discovered. The article concludes,
“Parents need to be made aware that times have changed and they need to be more
vigilant and less trusting.”
One for the pot
Feedback says “no such thing” as a non-drip teapot spout exists today
(9 October).
Here’s news for you: I have one on my kitchen table, only the second
I’ve ever seen.
After studying the first one which belongs to a relative, many years ago, I
figured out the secret. The spout’s lower lip must curve down slightly, enough
to prevent tea from running down the outside of the spout. The lip must also be
too small to accumulate enough tea to drip off. Tea that doesn’t go into the cup
or run back into the pot simply hangs on the lip and evaporates.
Uncommon talent
I was surprised to read that anyone had ever presumed that savant skills were
“the sole preserve” of the autistic
(6 November p 15).
I had thought that it
was fairly widely known that plenty of non-autistic people possessed such
skills. One of the best examples was Leonhard Euler, perhaps the most prolific
mathematician ever. In Calculus, Howard Anton wrote of him:
“Early in his life [Euler] memorised the entire Aeneid by Virgil and
at age 70 could not only recite the entire work, but could also state the first
and last sentence on each page of the book from which he memorised the work. His
ability to solve problems in his head was beyond belief. He worked out in his
head major problems of lunar motion that baffled Isaac Newton and once did a
complicated calculation in his head to settle an argument between two students
whose computations differed in the fiftieth decimal place.”
Far being from autistic, I also understand that Euler was known to be quite
gregarious.
Economical truth
When it comes to free Web services in exchange for personal information
(6 November, p 3),
the consumer’s problem is a surfeit of honesty. When supplying
details about oneself, the challenge is to construct the personal profile which
elicits the least tempting responses.
I suggest the following. For income, check the lowest figure. For occupation,
Unemployed William Hague Impersonator is always one to try. For interests, claim
indifference to all the normal options suggested. Then fill in at least two
others that harmonise well, such as a fascination with the role of the Oroladian
dynasty in the Atlantis legend, and the relative frequency of electron capture
decay mode in the 4n+1 series.
Count any responses. If you get any at all, remember to try harder next
time.
Shaded view
David Harris’s report that tinted lenses resulted in an average increase of
15 per cent in the reading speed of dyslexics may be very conservative
(30 October, p 17).
For the past two years, Thames Valley University has offered a
free colour screening service to students and staff during enrolment. The pilot
study was targeted at those who are dyslexic and/or suffer from migraines.
Selected tinted overlays in the 11 dyslexics tested produced an average
increase in reading speed of 50 per cent, while for the 17 migraine sufferers
the increase was 15 per cent.
But these averages are very misleading. For
example, the range for dyslexics was from a 6 per cent increase to a whopping
162 per cent. The figures for migraine sufferers were less extreme鈥攆rom
鈥�1 per cent to 43 per cent.
I now have no doubt that scotopic sensitivity syndrome really does exist and
that for some people, tinted overlays and lenses bring about genuine
improvements in reading speeds. However, I would caution against simplistic
interpretations as dyslexia varies considerably.