Public says no
William Cullerne Bown takes a rather hackneyed view in seeing debates about science as being “pro” or “anti” (30 April, p 21). Numerous studies of public attitudes have shown that there is no anti-science culture, rather there is considerable public questioning about who is developing what, for what purposes, for whose benefit and with what consequences. When the sums add up, as with the use of mobile phones, people are happy to engage. When they don’t 鈥� as they most clearly don’t with genetically modified organisms 鈥� generally people don’t want the product.
Powerful links
In his letter about the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), Steve Lonergan says the original article was correct in its assertion that the assessment “had no direct link to the people in power” (14 May, p 28). Nothing could be further from the truth. The MA was first called for in 2000 by the UN secretary general in his Millennium Report to the General Assembly. Governments involved in four international conventions (covering biodiversity, desertification, wetlands and migratory species) took decisions supporting the creation of the assessment, requested specific information from it, and appointed representatives of the conventions to serve on the MA board.
The MA is unique among international assessments in that it has strong and formal ties to governments through these international conventions, but also involves the private sector, NGOs and indigenous groups in the governance of the process. In considering the strengths and weaknesses of this arrangement, the members of the MA board concluded in January 2005 that it was premature to state whether an exclusively intergovernmental process was preferable to a multi-stakeholder process with intergovernmental authorisation.
Based on the experience of the MA, at least one new global assessment 鈥� the International Agricultural Science and Technology Assessment 鈥� has been designed with a mix of intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder oversight.
Governments are not the only institutions taking decisions on environment and development issues, and indeed are sometimes not even the most important institutions in this regard. The UN can strengthen its own role by embracing processes that seek to involve all the key decision-makers, not just governments.
Live long and prosper
Mary Midgley suggests that increased longevity will result in overpopulation (30 April, p 28). Not necessarily: long-lived honey bees tend to produce fewer young, whereas short-lived fish breed faster (30 April, p 18). It is the short-lived, fast-breeding “minisleepers” mentioned on the same page who will use up the world’s food, mineral and energy reserves.
From Mark Bruce
Mary Midgley and Chris James show highbrow disdain for us “immortalists”. I think I speak for many so-called immortalists when I say that I would be more than happy to be sterilised if this was the requirement for an indefinitely prolonged life. The overpopulation problem would thus be solved.
Adelaide, South Australia
Gigantic gas leak
The strategy of underground carbon dioxide sequestration seems like it is an accident waiting to happen (30 April, p 26). I can see the day coming when, after years of pumping CO2 underground, an earthquake liberates the stored gas and suffocates all plants and animals in its vicinity.
Leukaemia double
The study showing that children who attend day care are less likely to develop leukaemia did not examine the effects of proximity to nuclear sites (30 April, p 14). Clusters of childhood leukaemia cases are related to three UK sites: Sellafield, Dounreay and the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. I suggest that the two possible causes mentioned in the article, radiation and infection brought in by migrant workers, are not mutually exclusive.
As Mel Greaves of the Institute of Cancer Research in London says, leukaemia is caused by a “double whammy”. The first, DNA mutation, could result from exposure to radiation from a nuclear facility. This could cause genomic instability in a parent which is then transmitted to the offspring, or radiation could directly affect a fetus, the tissues of which are highly radio-sensitive. An infection could then be the second whammy.
Promise me a rose
Patricia Churchland claims that there is no theoretical barrier to science explaining consciousness and that philosophical arguments to the contrary are bunk (30 April, p 46). Yet she fails to explain fairly the nub of the philosophical problem and why it is wrong.
Consider trying to tell a person who has been blind from birth what it is like to see a red rose. Intuitively, no set of statements captures the peculiar property of “what it is like”, otherwise known as the qualia of a conscious state. It is uncontroversial that neuroscience may one day give us an extremely comprehensive set of statements about what goes on in our brains when we see and feel things. This is not the point. As anybody who has had an orgasm, seen a red rose or stubbed a toe will know, there is a very real difference between a set of statements about that experience and actually experiencing it.
Before we dismiss our intuitions, Churchland has to explain why science will one day allow, among other things, such a blind person to know what it is actually like to see a red rose, rather than just know a complicated set of linguistic and mathematical propositions about our brains.
Gift economy
You offer a male perspective on gift giving, in which males offer gifts of higher value to the “other woman” (2 April, p 19). I suggest considering the described behaviour from the female’s position.
The value of offerings is likely to be a direct result of female choice when females demand gifts as a prerequisite to mating. The gift of a beetle may be acceptable from her long-term mate, but from a paramour she might sulkily hold out for a plump vole (chocolate-covered, preferably).
The reduced benefits of mating with a transient male, as compared to the male who helps to rear his offspring, suggest that females should demand gifts of higher value from males other than their long-term partners. Or: “diamonds from the lover, daffodils from the husband”.
Mighty mimic
In the feature on superatoms 鈥� clusters of atoms of a particular chemical element that can take on the properties of different elements 鈥� I am surprised Philip Ball did not mention the possibility of creating superatoms (16 April, p 30) which mimic the properties of the theorised superheavy element 114 (17 July 1999, p 12).
At the very least the technique could hint at the chemistry such an element would have, and what technical applications could follow. Given that the most stable form of the element has not even been generated yet, I would think the superatom method should have been considered.
To err is AI
I am not sure it is such a good idea to allow web users to contact AI program Cyc to “contribute to its fund of knowledge by submitting questions and correcting it if it gets the answers wrong” (23 April, p 32). The web is populated by many assertive but not necessarily knowledgeable or truthful people. After a while Cyc would decide, on the basis of the responses, that evolution is only a discredited theory, Elvis is alive, you can sell your soul on eBay, and so on. Mind you, perhaps it will gain sufficient artificial stupidity to be really human.
Trail blazers
You reports that kids in Japan will soon be wearing blazers fitted with GPS transceivers, “allowing parents to track their whereabouts on a laptop” (23 April, p 26). I am confident that even the dullest student is sufficiently bright to reach the conclusion that it is the blazer that is being tracked, not the wearer. I expect this to lead to an explosion of entrepreneurial juvenile “blazer-minding” services, thus perverting the original good intent, as is every young person’s duty.
For the record
鈥� In the 9 April issue, p 15, we used a photograph depicting five young Welsh fans at a recent rugby match to illustrate a story about the general behaviour of sports team supporters. We may have given the impression that these fans had, in some way, been involved in violent behaviour. They had not, and we would like to make clear that those depicted were well-behaved fans enjoying, and contributing to, a vibrant atmosphere during a trouble-free international. They have no links to any of the antisocial behaviour by supporters discussed in the article, which took place years earlier at other sporting events.
鈥� In the story entitled “Black or white, the reaction is the same” (14 May, p 9), we refer to Implicit Attitude Tests (IATs). It should be Implicit Association Tests.
Computer work offer
The IBM-supported distributed computer organisation World Community Grid is looking for new research projects that can run their computer program on Windows PCs (and soon on Linux X86 systems). Since November 2004 the World Community Grid and have been jointly running the Human Proteome Folding project. The WCG administrator announced on 3 May that the project might be finished as soon as August 2005 and that an active search is under way to find more computer projects to run: see
Better chatbots
Discussing the failures of artificial intelligence, Justin Mullins completely leaves out the thriving world of chatbots beyond ALICE.
I created the Personality Forge at , which allows anyone to create their own chatbot. After a few years of evening and weekend work, many people agree that some of the bots thus created are as good as, if not better than ALICE. Each Personality Forge bot is a completely unique personality with its own emotional reactions and memories.
Universe's radius
I write further to Patrick Johnson’s letter (16 April, p 29) that questioned the accepted idea in your feature covering the “horizon problem” that the radius of the observable universe is about 14 billion light years (19 March, p 30).
Charles Lineweaver and Tamara Davis, astronomers from Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra, Australia, support Johnson’s view and in March contended that the expansion of space itself means that the most distant objects we can see are actually about 74 billion kilometres distant.
It may be true to say that an ancient galaxy may now be at that distance, but does this mean we can “see” that far? Not in my opinion. What we are actually seeing is not the galaxy as it is (it may even no longer exist), but as it was when it was 14 billion light years away.
I think, therefore, that this new idea for regarding the width of the observable universe as much extended is in error.
Greats play again
The idea of recreating the playing of great piano players of the past is fascinating (23 April, p 27). This could be extended in many ways. For example, an obvious next step would be to work backwards from the notes played to the physical movements required to play those notes; this would allow a 3D computer-generated model of the deceased musician to “play” the music, particularly if the model could be informed by video of the musician in question, to capture their body language and playing style.
Also, I see no reason, in principle, why this concept couldn’t be extended to other musical instruments, and even to other media, such as paintings. One could imagine “repainting” the Mona Lisa using a paint-based digital equivalent to MIDI, after analysing the original painting to determine the exact mixtures of paints used, the exact direction and pressure of each brushstroke, and so forth. This could allow us to see ancient works of art as they were when they were freshly created, before ageing degraded them. A truly remarkable idea.
From Alan Chattaway
I was glad to see this news, as it’s a first step toward something I hope to live to see: restoration of classic films by digital re-enactment. The scheme I have in mind is to use advanced software to analyse the original (possibly black and white) movie to deduce 3D models of the set and of the actors’ movements, then re-enact the entire film on digitally perfect simulated sets with simulated actors and transfer it to high-definition video discs, possibly in colour and 3D.
As for the work of Zenph studios, in principle it is straightforward to extract the frequency (note), velocity and timing information from a recording, but how do they extract the use of the foot pedal from a piano performance?
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Mick Hamer writes:
鈥� Zenph can detect pedalling. The sustaining pedal raises all the dampers on a piano, leaving all the strings free to vibrate in sympathy with any note that is played. So the frequency spectrum of a note played with the pedal will be different from the same note played without the pedal. The differences will be small, but in principle they can be detected. Our ears can do it, after all.
Life and liberty
Roger Hicks and Sean Williams welcome the idea of a national DNA database (30 April, p 28). Are we all to be doomed to repeat the lessons of history because the likes of Hicks and Williams will not learn them? As Mark Griffith pointed out in the same issue, contrary to Hicks’s assertion that DNA profiles will reliably reveal the identity of a criminal, their use will lead to many gross miscarriages of justice once the courts start to rely on their infallibility and the criminals get wise to the possibilities afforded by used condoms in the street. Faced with DNA evidence, it is most unlikely that the police will even look for the real rapist in such a case.
It is 60 years since my father was a guard at the Belsen concentration camp. The inmates were there in part because the efficient and admirably apolitical German civil service had, with the best of intentions, carefully and conscientiously collected, correlated and filed data on everybody. That enabled the legally elected government to round up gypsies, Jews and other “Untermenschen” with ease. Think what the Gestapo could have done with a DNA database.
It couldn’t happen here? During the 20th century governments, most of them legitimate, have slaughtered at least 30 million of their own people. If there is one lesson to be learned it is that governments cannot be trusted. Even if you can trust the present government, what about the next one?
It is not concern for any namby-pamby civil liberties that leads me to oppose DNA databases and ID cards, but for my life.
From David Pollard
Roger Hicks wishes to volunteer his DNA profile, arguing that a national database will reduce horrific crime. I disagree.
Those who are mad and deranged are unlikely to be deterred from criminal acts. Those who are just bad will adapt and learn to evade the DNA trace 鈥� by safely disposing of bodies, for example.
But there is a deeper issue. Deterrence is at best a second-rate solution to the problem of crime. Retributive justice does little more than to ensure that the cycle is continued, by the same players or others. The real task is to encourage moral behaviour in its own right, irrespective of penalties. One of the most difficult requirements is that the ethical and moral standards and accountability of state and society should be at least as good as that required of individuals.
Oxford, UK
From Michael Corey
Your article asking whether DNA profiling will fuel prejudice is both cowardly and illogical. Hardly anything could be more beneficial to a suspect who is actually innocent than such databases, which are vastly more likely to exonerate than to cause undue suspicion, and must already have saved thousands from the anxiety of a police visit.
There have been national databases of fingerprints for years, now searchable by highly sophisticated automated algorithms, yet no one considers that everyone in these databases is a suspect. Any system can be abused, and more powerful systems are subject to more dangerous abuses. That is a very good reason to have laws, oversight and public input, but a very poor reason to suggest that the technology itself is inherently prejudicial or totalitarian.
Bellevue, Washington, US