Measuring happiness
Your issue of 24 May contains two delightful examples of the way in which evidence from physical sciences is now taken to settle questions that visibly need evidence of a quite different kind.
In his article on happiness Owen Flanagan writes that, as a result of certain brain scans, “we can now hypothesise鈥hat those apparently happy, calm Buddhist souls鈥eally are happy” (“Watching him watching you”). So, had those results been different, would that have proved that they were not happy? Or again, if the tests had shown some unmistakably miserable people to be happy, would that constitute a proof that they were so? Or would it just show faults in the tests?
The article about whether chimps should be put in the same family as humans because of the similarity of their DNA concludes that “reclassification would inflame the moral and philosophical debate” (“Rival males are the ultimate turn-on”). But how could discovering similarity of DNA affect our duties to any being? If we were dealing with aliens, would their unrelatedness mean that it did not matter what we did to them? No calculations about DNA can ever tell us about these things.
The reason why we should consider such creatures as chimps is that they are complex, sensitive social beings. We know this directly through the social perceptions with which we, as similarly complex creatures, are equipped. Those perceptions are central to our moral capacities. They also enable us to judge the happiness of others.
Dolphins in danger
Small size isn’t everything. To say that “the great whale debate ignores dolphins’ plight” (24 May, p 11) misrepresents the latest excellent action plan from the World Conservation Union’s Cetacean Specialist Group.
It is a gross oversimplification to say that we shouldn’t worry about Japan’s so-called scientific whaling just because “there are at least 260,000 minke in the Southern Ocean”. To take one aspect of the debate: without adequate regulation, whaling even on abundant species provides a cover for the sale of meat from endangered species. DNA analyses of whale meat on sale in Japan have identified a range of protected species, including meat from the highly endangered western Pacific grey whale, which may number fewer than 100 individuals.
Despite 10 years of such market surveys, Japan and Norway still refuse to contribute DNA samples from each whale destined for the market place to an internationally held register. Meanwhile Japan continues to allow various dolphin hunts around its own shores, despite international concern that the populations in question are being seriously over-exploited.
The conservation of whales and dolphins requires international expertise, international collaboration and an honest use of the international forums that have been set up for this purpose, namely the International Whaling Commission and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The IWC has an active small-cetacean subcommittee within its scientific committee, but the whalers refuse to accept that the IWC has a key role to play. At CITES, it is the whalers who disrupt the business of the convention with controversial proposals to resume international trade in whale products, despite the lack of any regulatory regime. When they don’t get what they want, they trade anyway.
The whaling countries’ cavalier attitude to international order must be addressed with respect to both the great whales and small cetaceans. Only then will progress be made in the conservation of dolphins and great whales alike.
Letter
Groups such as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society have been working on small-cetacean conservation initiatives for some 15 years with particular attention to several threatened river dolphin species.
WDCS has conducted this essential conservation work on small cetaceans alongside campaigning against whaling, be it commercial or so-called scientific. Both issues are worthy of our attention and, indeed, we believe that a future world that has moved to endorse any form of commercial whaling actually makes other conservation initiatives harder to attain.
The article is wrong to present a current population estimate for Southern Ocean minkes. The IWC has not endorsed any such population estimate and this is an issue of ongoing conservation concern because the population may actually have significantly declined.
Myopic education
Matt Ridley gives a misleading view of gene-environment interactions in myopia (17 May, p 38). There are, in fact, rare forms of inherited high myopia that would cause myopia in almost any environment.
With school myopia, Ridley claims that “reading causes short sight only in those with susceptible genes”. But in Singapore and Taiwan, over 80 per cent of school-leavers are now myopic, up fourfold over the past three or four decades. There is a good correlation between myopia and educational level.
There is no convincing evidence for susceptibility genes. Ridley’s discussion of heritable myopia is flawed. In an illiterate society, myopia may be clearly inherited, because all myopia results from rare genetic disorders. As educational pressures increase, some become myopic because of differential education, particularly if they have a genetic background that makes their eyes longer than average. In a highly literate society, almost everyone becomes myopic because their eyes elongate beyond the threshold for myopia. Thus the impact of genes disappears, although it might still be seen in eye length and the severity of myopia.
Myopia provides an example of a problem based on a purely physical characteristic 鈥� eye length 鈥� where caution in interpretation is needed. The need for caution is obviously that much greater when analysing complex social and behavioural characteristics.
Great brain robbery
How sad to see a letter about the brain drain without any mention of the far more significant great brain robbery (24 May, p 26). While I have every sympathy with many individual colleagues from the developing world who increasingly fill our scientific and medical career vacancies, surely it is just as alarming that so many of our best scientific brains have been trained at the cost to the taxpayers of some of the poorest countries of the world.
Paraphrasing the words of Fabio Fabbi that you quote: “We are experiencing a high gain in human potential at the highest skill level. It’s not just short term. Long term, people who come seldom seem to go back.”
Disappointing digital
The Amherst Alliance is unwise to look to the UK as an example of how to do digital radio (31 May, p 9). Although DAB can provide reasonable sound when properly implemented, UK broadcasters have chosen quantity (number of stations) over quality (bit rate). The result is that most stations sound better on FM. At best, DAB is inferior to CD sound. At worst, DAB is little better than AM.
Although sales of portable DAB sets are rising in the UK, I suspect that owners will hit two problems: short battery life, and low signal strength from local stations. In many areas a loft or roof-mounted antenna is needed to receive interference-free digital radio, so a portable set doesn’t have much chance.
A whole generation of engineers, politicians and consumers have been taught to recite “digital is good; analogue is old-fashioned”. Digital does have advantages, provided it is properly implemented, but it is foolish to assume that it will always be inherently superior to more mature technology.
Take the trolley
The article by Bennett Daviss on electric buses and the potential for other electric road vehicles reminds me of an earlier project in Los Angeles in the 1980s that used wire coils in the roadway rather than metal plates to transmit electric power to passing buses (24 May, p 32). This system was technically viable.
There is however another electric bus system which has been in use for over 80 years, with nearly 100 systems operating worldwide. The trolleybus uses bipolar overhead supply cables with the power transferred through trolley booms. Indeed Boston used to operate such vehicles and Seattle still does. Up to 1962 London had the biggest network in the world with nearly 200 electric buses. The cost of the overhead cables is low, there is little interference with television and other radio transmissions, and the technology is mature.
We certainly need more research to develop transport powered from renewable and non-polluting energy that will persuade people to drive their cars less and use sustainable alternatives more.
For the record
鈥� In our report on acoustical engineering and railway safety (3 May, p 20), we said buckled rails were thought to have been the cause of a fatal train crash in Sydney. However, the inquiry into the incident continues and the cause has not yet been determined. Transcripts of the hearing are available at
鈥� Feedback reported that authors Glenn Fleishman and Jeff Carlson had to pay $15,000 for excess bandwidth when people downloaded their free book from their website (17 May). We now discover they “slipped in under the excess threshold” and “will not owe a cent”. Donations they received are being passed on to Project Gutenberg, which turns public domain titles into electronic books.
Votes for human chimps
You refer to the continuing and burgeoning debate over whether chimpanzees and humans belong in the same genus because they share this or that percentage of DNA (24 May, p 3 and p 15). Perhaps a more provocative question is whether viable offspring, even infertile hybrids, could ever result from a union of egg and sperm from the two species.
The idea is not original. I recall two television dramas in which human/gorilla hybrids were produced. Human/chimp reproduction would appear rather less problematical, given that the two are more closely related to each other than to gorillas.
Assuming a successful outcome to the experiment, your series on human nature (17 and 24 May) might then be expanded to include half-human, half-chimp admixtures, so that we can look forward to further profound commentaries.
Experts in philosophy, biology, ethics, the law and many other related fields can expound on whether such progeny should be allowed to vote, run for public office, be subject to jury duty, be allowed to join the armed forces, take up their seat in the House of Lords, and countless other matters. This could open up vast new vistas of litigation, race relations, constitutional reform and discussions at the UN, White House, Vatican, among other interested parties, to say nothing of letters to editors. The scope is limitless.
Exterminate!
I dimly recall that in early episodes of Dr Who, the daleks’ weapon was a jet of gas that caused things to explode on contact. Now the reason for its destructive power is clear: the weapon must have been a Plasma- Taser (24 May, p 19). Let’s hope they never turn up to claim their intellectual property rights.
Side effects or no effect?
Feedback talks about the side effects of various medicines being the same as the symptoms of the disease they are treating (31 May). Maybe the drug companies are just covering their backs in case the medicines don’t work? You have the same symptoms, blame it on the medicine.
Oh, and my tablets for epilepsy “may cause seizures”. Among about 75 other possible effects.