For the record
鈥� In our feature about metallic glass (2 April, p 35), we were wrong to say that the first steel glass, which is non-magnetic, was one of the first non-magnetic steels. And contrary to what we wrote, objects made of it would be detectable by radar. In addition, in the film Terminator 2, the liquid metal robot morphs into the shape of a helicopter pilot rather than a helicopter.
鈥� Steve O’Shea, who we quoted in a story about walking octopuses (2 April, p 19), is at the Auckland University of Technology.
鈥� In the “Superorganisms” item of “Life’s greatest inventions” (9 April, p 26), we described the organisms that form the Portuguese man-of-war as single-celled “siphanophores”. They are actually multi-celled polyps and medusae, and are siphonophores.
Creating life
By arguing that life can create itself given sufficient time, Erik Foxcroft is confusing a quantitative change with a qualitative one (2 April, p 29). Reducing the intelligent input to the attempts to synthesise life would indeed increase the time required for success, but intelligent input cannot be removed altogether without introducing a qualitative change. This thought experiment is therefore a false argument. It involves a discontinuity in the logic at the point where the intelligent agent is removed, so the scientific model and the point he was attempting to make are both lost. What is left is a theory that depends on the unsupported assumption that life can arise without intelligent input.
A further difficulty with this idea is that it ignores the evidence that life, on certain levels, is irreducibly complex, as noted by Michael J. Behe in Darwin’s Black Box and A. E. Wilder-Smith in The scientific alternative to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory.
The previous week Matt Whiteley, writing on the same topic, argued that the researchers attempting to create life are trying to reproduce an event that took place over hundreds of millions of years (26 March, p 31). Does he mean that the first living organism was hundreds of millions of years in the making, or that after a suitably large number of unsuccessful attempts during those hundreds of million years it finally succeeded?
Whiteley is appealing not to science but to probability. Postulate infinite time and the probability of any event is unity, in other words, it is certain. Allow a long enough time and unlikely events become proportionally more likely. The problem is that the laws of probability apply only to events that are possible, and nobody knows for sure that abiogenesis 鈥� the production of living organisms from non-living matter 鈥� is possible. It must be assumed that it is before turning to probability, and the assumption must be declared if the labels “science” and “reason” are not to be misused.
From John Hastings
People who believe in a “Creator” do not come to that belief unless they have evidence in which they have confidence, although it will not be “scientific” evidence. Science tests theory by experiment and observation, but these methods cannot be applied to the question of a creator. The essence of experiment is control of all conditions. Clearly one cannot expect to be able to control a supernatural creator. Observational evidence would have to be of some supernatural event involving suspension of at least one natural law 鈥� in other words, a miracle. Such events could not be a regular or predictable occurrence or they would be considered a manifestation of a natural law.
A comprehensive programme of systematic observation scarcely seems feasible, but there have been studies which indicate that religious belief and/or prayer have a positive effect on health. Otherwise we have to rely on chance eyewitness accounts or historical records of miracles. For the Christian, the defining miracle is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, UK
This correspondence is now closed-Ed
Fact and frenzy
I imagine there must have been other responses to Jeremy Leggett’s essay on the myths created by Michael Crichton around global warming than those by Peter Wilkins and Kim Russell, so perhaps it was not entirely innocent of New 杏吧原创 to publish letters which so aptly demonstrate the problems that Leggett draws attention to (5 March, page 50 and 2 April, p 28).
When I read the essay, I admit that I was unaware of anything so extraordinary as a frenzy in Leggett’s argument, or any feeling in myself that merely because he says something unpalatable it couldn’t therefore be true. Leggett attended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conference. He spoke to several Americans and heard their opinions. Peter Wilkins, on the other hand, was not there. Wilkins’s letter is an excellent example of “high emotion, assertion, indignation and condemnation, with not a real fact in sight”. The contrast with Leggett’s essay is clear enough.
Kim Russell, on the other hand, seems to think Leggett’s “frenzied” attack unnecessary. Michael Crichton was writing fiction. What he writes is therefore untrue, even though I am fairly sure that there really was an IPCC conference (I don’t rely only on Leggett’s testimony) and the end notes are not part of the novel but, I suppose, an attempt to justify it. Fiction is a legitimate means of attacking something of which the writer disapproves, and demonstrably influences its readers. Fiction accompanied by scientific statements is clearly designed to do so.
In the end, Leggett is being attacked because he is resisting an attack, but why should he put up and shut up? Increasingly, the distinction between terrorism and peaceful, reasonable, even legal protest is being wilfully eroded by supposedly democratic governments. We do not need Crichton to assist in the process. We need to protest against anything that erodes our proper freedoms, and if a person who was really there cannot be allowed to protest against what he believes to be lies and distortions, who can?
Life's top 12
Evolution’s greatest inventions? You’ve missed the one that enabled the development of the eye and the brain (9 April, p 26). Without it we would still be among those slimy things that populated the Precambrian.
The system of genes that defines front, back, top, bottom, left and right in organisms and oversees the folding of tissues into organs is surely among the top 10. It gives us all of the relationships that make evolution so obvious in the animal kingdom.
From Mike Cotterill
There is a glaring omission from your list, namely nitrogen fixation. There would probably be no land plants and few land animals were it not for bacteria capable of converting inert, triple-bonded, atmospheric nitrogen gas into organic compounds, making this essential element available to other life forms. Surely the importance of this ranks next to photosynthesis?
Freshwater, Isle of Wight, UK
The editor writes:
鈥� “Life’s greatest inventions” was our pick of the 10 evolutionary innovations that truly transformed life on Earth. In whittling it down to a mere 10, there were inevitably many important ones that we had to leave out 鈥� such as the two suggested here.
Treating sepsis
Sepsis is indeed a monster, but it need not be a killer (2 April, p 38). What is so frustrating about it is not that “treatments currently available are inadequate”, but that most doctors are not aware that an extremely effective treatment is already available. It is hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and peer-reviewed reports of its success in curing severe sepsis date back at least 40 years.
Original gas man
Contrary to the claims in your cover story regarding the need for gas-filled cavities in the Michelson interferometer (2 April, p 30), the paper first reporting this discovery was by Kirsty Kitto and myself. It was published in Apeiron (vol 10, p 104).
Most significantly, the speeds of some 8 kilometres per second from various Michelson interferometer experiments reported in your article arise from analysing the observed fringe shifts using a Newtonian theory. That theory is invalid as it does not take account of relativistic effects or the effect of the gas present, which is necessary for this device to function as a detector of absolute motion.
In all, some seven experiments have detected absolute motion, starting with the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887. The understanding that is now emerging is that both absolute motion and relativistic effects are real and related phenomena, a proposal made by Hendrik Lorentz in the 19th century, and in clear disagreement with the Einstein postulates.
Roundup roundabout
In response to my finding that the herbicide Roundup may be lethal to amphibians (9 April, p 5), Monsanto has created a web page criticising my study at . Readers may like to know that there is also now a web page that addresses Monsanto’s concerns at .
Canine teenagers
I must challenge the concept that adolescence is confined to humans (5 March, p 38). As a breeder of German shepherd dogs for 20 years I have observed the same kinds of changes between the ages of 16 and 22 months. They are well known to all dog breeders. Growth spurts lead to gangly, unsightly dogs, and they begin to misbehave after previous obedience. After 24 months, body conformation returns to the classical appearance, and behaviour and obedience are again normal. Sadly I cannot pronounce on canine sex education.
Prophetic patent
You report that Sony have applied for a patent for a device that stimulates the brain by ultrasound (9 April, p 10). The Sony spokesperson is quoted as saying: “This particular patent was a prophetic invention.” There used to be a word in the computing industry for those types of invention 鈥� vapourware.
Dogged device
I was intrigued by the concept of the electronic nose that museums can use to detect fungal attacks on valuable artefacts (2 April, p 42).
However, in place of several “e-noses” at 拢10,000 each, I would like to offer an alternative device. This sensory apparatus has a number of advantages over the e-nose: it can learn to recognise a very wide variety of airborne odours; it comes equipped with its own locomotion and control apparatus, which means that the device can not only alert museum staff to the presence of fungi, but can locate the precise source, thus saving the staff time and bother; it can learn to map the area it is required to protect, thus needing no supervision while it performs its functions; it can double as an intruder alert, and may even be able to repel said intruders. And it can, subject to a certain procedure, reproduce itself if required.
This device is known as a “dog”. It would not cost 拢10,000, and only one per museum would be needed. No manufactured device ever made can match the olfactory sensitivity and flexibility of the dog. And it would always be pleased to see you.
Vietnam scuppers study
Your report on the US’s proposed study of the effects of Agent Orange contains comments attributed to me implying something that is not true 鈥� that the cancellation of this study was in any way related to the ongoing litigation (19 March, p 7).
The study was cancelled solely because 18 months after it had been approved for funding by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, we were still unable to obtain approval by the Vietnamese government, which resulted in an inability to initiate the project and hire Vietnamese staff to work with us. There was no relationship whatsoever to the litigation, even though the study would have had the potential to answer one of the major questions about the health effects of dioxin.
Virus-free Macs
There were some interesting figures in your piece on the report from antivirus company Symantec on internet security risks (2 April, p 7). The article seemed to compare new vulnerabilities discovered in a 6-month period for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser with the total known vulnerabilities in the entire Apple Mac OS X operating system 鈥� hardly a fair comparison.
There is also a big difference between vulnerabilities and exploited vulnerabilities. A company recently offered a $25,000 bounty for the first person to write a successful OS X virus, though this has now been withdrawn for legal reasons.
The Symantec report has been widely criticised, and a quick web search will find many pages refuting the claims. Of course, it is just possible that while Mac users have not in the past had much use for antivirus software, spreading, uncertainty and doubt might frighten a few into buying some.
Driving genes
Kids take after their same-sex parent in their driving style, according to new research (26 March, p 14). But your article seems to jump to the conclusion that the link is environmental: that kids are watching their parents and imitating them.
What makes the researchers think this is not genetically based? One would expect many underlying factors, including aggression and risk tolerance, to have genetic components, and I see no reason why these could not be sex-linked to some degree. After all, there are many other ways in which boys resemble their fathers and girls resemble their mothers, many of which are presumably genetic.
Too many farms
The recent study of the environmental impact of certain genetically modified crops did not give the full picture (26 March, p 6). It only considered the impact on wildlife within the area under consideration and did not take account of differing crop yields.
As conventional farms are likely to produce less per hectare than GM farms, and organic farms around 20 per cent less again, in order to produce the same amount of food, land elsewhere must be cultivated. A full environmental impact study would take into account the greater amount of natural habitat lost when low-yield production methods are used.
The total global demand for food is rising because of population increase and higher living standards. The biggest threat to biodiversity, and the main cause of the increase in extinctions, is loss of habitat. The greatest reason for loss of habitat is land being converted to farming. Therefore low-yield farming methods could have a serious impact on global biodiversity, and there are genuine environmental benefits in using high-yield farming methods such as GM.
Too many mouths
I appreciate the warnings about the damage that human activity is doing to the planet’s ecosystem, but wonder why the issue of population is so seldom mentioned in this connection (2 April, p 8). Even if it is, it is usually just to say that population is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050.
There is nothing inevitable about that figure, however. It is the medium of three projections by the United Nations Population Fund and can only be an estimate. The low projection for that year is 7.4 billion falling slowly, and the high projection is 11 billion rising rapidly.
If the high figure turns out to be the case then the world will be in deep trouble, but if the low figure prevails then all the measures you describe will be that much more effective. We can not afford to neglect population.
Large minority
Comment on Reproductive Ethics
A. C. Grayling predictably asserts the virtues of libertarianism in the field of assisted reproduction (9 April, p 17). But pigeon-holing opposition as a religious minority does no credit to his arguments.
The UK House of Commons science and technology select committee did indeed consult broadly on the issues of IVF treatment and embryo research, but the subsequent report is disputed vociferously by half its members on the very basis that it in no way reflects public opinion. An analysis of the evidence, which is all available to the public, shows that between 82 and 84 per cent of respondents have remained conservative on reproductive ethics and have not altered their stance significantly since the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was passed. On the specific issue of sex selection, recent television, newspaper and online polls showed that between 84 and 87 per cent of the British public were not in favour.