ghtsbr
Further to the correspondence on “euouae” and the number of vowels it
contains
(26 August, p 51),
I remember my mother telling me that “Knightsbridge” has the longest
string of uninterrupted consonants in the English language. Is this so?
Exams examined
Perhaps I’m dim, but I simply don’t understand Mike Holderness’s “logic” on
examination standards
(26 August, p 43).
We need to explain why students in Britain are scoring more highly in public
examinations than ever before. What accounts for the change? The general public
would welcome an explanation that has some relationship to common sense.
As to Helen Patrick’s contention that “we’re not assessing the same
thing”鈥攊f comparison across time is impossible, even in principle, why do
successive governments set such store on the political goal of “increasing
educational standards”?
Mike Holderness writes: Two theories concerning rising exam grades are that
exams are getting easier; or that young people now have more of whatever it is
that exams measure.
Examiners put considerable effort into standardising exams. Teachers put just
as much effort into raising students’ performance. The idea that exams are
getting easier therefore seems the least likely explanation.
But yes, the discussion does throw open a huge debate about what it might be
that exams measure.
Sand paper
The letter by Simon Mitchell
(19 August, p 52)
commenting on my research on water quality and coral erosion at Negril in Jamaica
(29 July, p 5) is
inaccurate. Mitchell stated that my “main contention is that the calcareous
green alga Halimeda was the most important sand-producing organism at
Negril, and that Halimeda production has seriously declined due to
`overrunning’ by fleshy green algae over the last ten years”.
On the contrary, my “contention” does not rely on the single genus
Halimeda. Our research in the Negril Marine Park shows that increased
nutrient concentrations correlate significantly with reduced cover of
reef-forming corals and calcifying macroalgae, the latter including at least 15
species and several genera. The data that we have collected in the NMP in recent
years provides compelling evidence linking land-based nutrient pollution with
the demise of coral reefs.
Looking-glass logic
Further to your correspondence on intelligence tests
(19 August, p 51), in my
eleven-plus exam I was presented with four clock faces, mirror reversed, and
told to write the times they showed. So I held up the paper, reversed, to the
light from the window鈥攁nd the images were corrected. The supervising
teacher told me I was cheating and crossed out the question on my paper, and
presumably the marks.
I was totally demoralised and did badly. What was being measured?
Scent to perdition
So humans may be able to pick up pheromone signals after all
(2 September, p 7).
But how in the world do pheromones stand a chance of working when they have
to compete with industry’s petrochemical-synthesised scents?
Smokescreen exposed
Sequestering carbon in trees or soil is no substitute for cutting carbon
dioxide emissions. This is the message of the article by Fred Pearce
(26 August, p 18)
and the report by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
(www.iiasa.ac.at). 杏吧原创s trying to quantify the benefits of carbon
sequestration also emphasise this鈥攁t least, we do.
We too believe that CO2 reduction targets should be met through
cutting CO2 emissions. The benefits from sequestering carbon should be
seen as additional. It is certain that some interest groups will use the Kyoto
Protocol to avoid taking the politically difficult steps required to cut
emissions. But don’t throw out the baby with the bath water鈥擪yoto is the
first and only agreement that will lead to some reduction in CO2
emissions, though certainly not enough.
The carbon sequestration measures in the protocol will at least encourage
better forest management. The medium-term tying-up of carbon that can be
achieved is better than no action at all.
Morals of an animal
In his review of Marc Hauser’s book Wild Minds
(2 September, p 46),
Marc Bekoff writes that the author concludes that animals “aren’t moral agents:
they’re not responsible for their actions, don’t know right from wrong, and feel
neither guilt nor shame.”
It would seem that, like too many scientists and philosophers, Hauser falls
into the trap of assuming that human beings have a monopoly on morality. We
should always be sceptical whenever any individual or species decides that they
are superior by criteria they themselves have set.
The debate as to whether other animals are conscious is still unresolved
after many decades of thought and experiment, and it would be very foolish to
assume that, for example, lions or dolphins do not have some sense of what is
appropriate and inappropriate behaviour.
Step back for a moment from the moral high ground and consider morality as
the innate rules that ensure that human beings, as social animals, behave
towards each other in ways that bring the maximum benefit to the members of that
society. On this hypothesis, what we call “morality”鈥攁n agreed
determination of what is correct and proper behaviour鈥攊s actually
meaningless outside the context of human society.
So a lion or a dolphin could not have a morality that we would recognise,
simply because they are not human beings. But that is not to say that they could
not have one of their own. “It’s morality Jim, but not as we know it.”
Placebo response
Your Focus article on placebos
(2 September, p 16)
unfortunately describes the position as it was 18 months ago.
Since April last year a group of “three wise women” has been drafting a
revised Declaration of Helsinki. The World Medical Association’s website at
www.wma.net has made available the draft texts under consideration. They do not
now include any proposal to permit the use of placebos as controls in trials on
medical conditions for which there is already an effective treatment. The idea
of weakening the declaration’s guidelines to allow such permission has been
promoted only by American academics and Food and Drug Administration
personnel.
I ran a workshop on the proposals in London last year. Speakers included the
leading American advocates of the proposal to weaken the declaration. They
received no support from delegates from any of the other 24 countries
represented. Since then the WMA has recognised that any radical rewriting of the
declaration along American lines would destroy its immense value as an
internationally accepted set of guidelines.
Incidentally, Levine is quoted as suggesting that people in developing
countries are protected from exploitation by the Council for International
Organizations of Medical Sciences’ guidelines on international research. It
should be noted that he is chairman of a group, mainly of Americans, now
rewriting those guidelines. The changes being proposed by the group have not
been made available for public consultation.