Debriefing works
In the side bar in your article about erasing memory, debriefing is described as a “controversial” method for treating exposure to a critical or stressful occurrence (3 December, p 34). This is misleading.
It may be true that debriefing a group of unrelated people can be counterproductive, for example members of the public who have been in involved in a bank robbery. But the situation is different for people who share a common link.
As an emergency-services worker I can attest to the benefits of group debriefing. Emergency workers form a unique group; they are men and women who share a close social culture, similar operational work experiences and an understanding of the nature of stressful incidents.
In this setting, debriefing allows people to discuss their involvement in a particular incident, how they reacted and how it made them feel. It also gives other, specially trained emergency-services workers and psychologists the opportunity to explain the possible symptoms they may experience over the following days and weeks, and helps prevent any feelings of guilt or inadequacy about the way people reacted to a particular incident.
The close culture of emergency workers affords a much greater ability to empathise with and understand any adverse reactions or feelings they or their peers may have had.
Frankenlabels
Your report on taxing farmers who grow genetically modified crops is misleading when it says that “a GM content above 0.9 per cent” means that a crop “cannot be labelled GM free” (3 December, p 5). In the European Union, a product containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or substances derived from GMOs must be labelled as such unless the GM content is below 0.9 per cent. Labels declaring a product to be GM-free are not provided for in the relevant EU directives and their legal status is uncertain.
This means that contamination is potentially a more serious threat to farmers’ livelihoods than your report implies. It is one thing for farmers to be told that their products cannot be labelled “GM free” if contamination exceeds 0.9 per cent, and quite another to be told that they must carry a label saying that they contain GMOs.
Viceless squad
It was interesting to read that the World Health Organization has decided to end the recruitment of smokers (10 December, p 7). Does this mean that they will no longer employ anyone who upholds a vice that is detrimental to their health? Where will they draw the line? Will it be people who spend too long in the sun? Will they refuse people who enjoy the odd tipple here and there? And if they also decide to exclude the clinically obese, they’ll be left with what can only be called a skeleton staff.
No special treatment
Larry Bernstein, president of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association suggests that scientific (double-blind) testing of homeopathy is difficult because “homeopathy is individualised to each patient” (10 December, p 9). But if this is so crucial, why not prepare an “individualised” homeopathic regime for each subject, then randomly substitute placebo regimes under a double-blind protocol?
This would have the added attraction that if the homeopathic regime performed better than the placebo in the trial, the placebo patients could be given their unused tailored homeopathic regime after the trial was finished.
Just a theory
Lawrence Krauss is quite right that we need to be much clearer about the role of falsifiability in making a theory “scientific” (3 December, p 23). Despite taking mostly science subjects at school and having intelligent, motivated teachers, I reached the end of my secondary education without the concept having been mentioned once.
However, I’m not sure whether Krauss’s attempt to clarify the word “theory” will do the trick. “Theory” is used both in normal speech and in science to refer to all varieties of idea, from wild speculation to well-tested systems. Krauss mentions falsifiable theories (such as Newton’s theory of gravity), unfalsifiable theories that are at least aiming to be falsifiable (such as string theory) and theories which do not aim to be falsifiable (such as intelligent-design theory).
I don’t think we will ever overcome the linguistic inertia that calls all of these “theories”. If we want to be clearer, we should either insist on saying “falsifiable theory”, no matter how cumbersome “Darwin’s falsifiable theory of evolution by natural selection” may sound, or invent some new words.
From Timothy Surendonk
Krauss’s recommendation that we remove the word “theory” from “string theory” is one that can only end in tears.
As he points out, it is a departure from the lay meaning of the word, and the confusion will only escalate when people hear the term used in scientifically allied fields such as macroeconomic theory, psychoanalytic theory and management theory 鈥� all with varying connection to the physical world.
Mathematical theories such as set theory, number theory and even computability theory don’t even pretend to talk about the “real” world, yet we are happy to consider them to be in many ways scientific.
I think it is time we faced up to it: intelligent design, like string theory, is a theory. The pertinent issue is that it is not a very good theory.
Perhaps if we gave teachers some credit in their role as educators and recognised that children can and should develop the skill of critical thinking, then we would see that this is something actually worth teaching.
Kellyville Ridge, New South Wales, Australia
From Nigel Seel
Seen today in the “Science fiction and fantasy” section of a bookshop in London Heathrow airport, next to Dune by Frank Herbert: The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, hidden dimensions, and the quest for the ultimate theory by Brian Greene.
Andover, Hampshire, UK
From Paul Mealing
When I was studying philosophy, a lecturer told me that people often conflate the words “theory” and “hypothesis”, which creates confusion, especially in relation to arguments concerning evolution and creationism. It was explained to me that a theory generates hypotheses that can be tested and that Popper’s criterion of falsifiability applies to the hypotheses and not the theory. A theory that is unable to generate falsifiable hypotheses is not a scientific theory. According to this logic, when one has God’s intervention as the only hypothesis to a theory (intelligent design), then it is not a scientific theory because its hypotheses are not falsifiable or testable.
String theory and all its variants are mathematical models attempting to resolve conflicts between quantum theory and relativity theory. Most science today is a combination of mathematics and empirical research, and when empirical results are thin or non-existent, mathematics becomes the only way forward, which is effectively what has happened in string theory.
String theory does generate hypotheses but we are not in a good position to test them, which is why Ed Witten said that string theory is 21st-century physics that accidentally found its way into the 20th century. You may wish to apply another moniker, but no one would suggest that string theory and ID have the same credence scientifically, if for no other reason than that one can be explored, albeit in the world of mathematics, and the other cannot be explored at all. ID (God made it so we can’t explain it) is a bald statement that neither results from exploration nor generates it.
Science is foremost about exploration, and a theory that can’t be explored has no currency, at least not in the scientific community. ID not only can’t be explored, but it stops exploration, which is exactly what the creationists want. Despite their claims of being fair and open-minded, creationists, including ID proponents, are fiercely anti-science. They see science as humanistic, if not atheistic, inherently unethical, and the root cause of amoral policies on issues such as homosexuality, abortion and stem-cell research. They righteously believe that society will only find its moral compass when religion replaces science in children’s classrooms.
One only has to look at the backlash George W. Bush has created in the US science community to appreciate how anti-science has already affected US policy and decision making, not to mention education.
Ivanhoe, Victoria, Australia
From Henry M. Harris
With all due respect to Krauss, I think his article is labouring under a false conception about language. Words do not have absolute meaning—they are context dependent. “Nerves of steel” does not mean your neurons are made of a carbon-iron alloy, and “sword of steel” does not mean your sword is hard but that it’s made of the previously mentioned alloy. Likewise, “theory of the automobile engine” doesn’t mean that automobile engines don’t exist, while “string theory” is about something that may not exist.
Pasadena, California, US
From Crispin Piney
Krauss suggests that scientists should somehow explain to non-scientists 鈥� and especially creationists 鈥� that the term “theory” has a special meaning in science. I fear that this is doomed to failure and reminds me of Humpty-Dumpty insisting that words mean what you choose them to mean. I would reverse the approach and adopt the “it’s only a theory” argument in the way the creationists apply it, and use it to encourage anti-evolutionists to experiment with the other “only a theory”: that is to say the theory of gravitation. This is a valid comparison, since both gravitation and evolution can be shown to work; what is in debate is some of the fine detail of how they work.
I would therefore suggest that anti-evolutionists act courageously on their belief that any “only a theory” implies a non-existent effect and ignore Newton’s theory of gravitation. Whereas it is less immediately dangerous to ignore evolution, the impact of ignoring the forces of gravity will possibly help convince them that an “only a theory” can be completely true 鈥� with the additional side effect of supporting Darwin’s theory by removing a number of gravitational sceptics from the gene pool once and for all.
Valbonne, France
From Geoffrey Mann
Further to your recent publication of my letter (17 December, p 23), there may be better formulations of Darwin’s “laws of evolution” but perhaps this is the simplest:
1. Evolution: All species tend to change over time.
2. Survival of the Fittest: The changes that survive are those that enable a species to reproduce more successfully.
Bookham, Surrey, UK
In love with a bot
One of the short stories by science-fiction writer John Wyndham in the collection The Seeds of Time is called “Compassion circuit”.
In it, a robot helps a less physically able woman move around the house, using “affective computing” software as featured in your article (3 December, p 42).
As the article indicated, there is a potential downside to this technology, in that the user may be deceived into thinking the machine is human.
This, too, was highlighted in “Compassion circuit”. Wyndham displayed considerable foresight 鈥� his story was written half a century ago.
May the best genes win
Millions of dollars are spent identifying gene therapies that increase human performance so that people can be prevented from using them (10 December, p 6).
How about we forget the drug-free ideal in sport, which seems to be a farce, and allow athletes to be sponsored by biopharmacy companies. Such a move would help ensure rapid development of beneficial therapies. May the best genes win.
For the record
鈥� We moved Richard Frost from the UK to the US when we published his letter (10 December, p 26). Fooled by the postcode “CA”, we gave his address as Whitehaven, California, US, when it should have been Whitehaven, Cumbria, UK.
That fridge light
There’s an easy way to find out if your fridge light goes off when the door is closed (17 December, p 23). Turn off the kitchen lights and/or otherwise arrange your fridge in darkness. Open the fridge door. Place an ordinary flat, transparent plastic ruler against the fridge front so the fridge door seal will clamp it flat between door and fridge body when you shut the door. Shut the fridge door.
If the light stays on, you’ll see it very easily through the gap opened up by the ruler. I have just tested the idea with a torch inside the fridge to simulate the light staying on. I suspect anything that will open a small gap between door seal and fridge will do 鈥� but careful you don’t deform the seal enough to damage it.
It strikes me that leaving out the ruler isn’t a bad way to see if your fridge door seal is sound or not. Turn off the lights, stick a torch in the fridge, shut the door normally. Do you see any light escaping? Yes? Well, that’ll be a dodgy fridge seal and it’ll be costing you money.
Poison plus antidote
You recently published yet another report detailing the dangers of paracetamol (acetaminophen) when taken even slightly in excess (10 December, p 19). This occurs when the liver is overwhelmed and damaged, often irreparably.
What is frustrating is that this problem, and an answer, have been known for decades. If the patient receives medical treatment promptly, damage can be avoided by providing replacements for amino acids whose metabolism paracetamol damages.
Back in 1990, New 杏吧原创 reported on the formulation and marketing of a modified drug that contained both paracetamol and an antidote in the same tablet (28 July 1990, p 22).
Under the headline “Tragedy highlights case for new paracetamol drug”, the article included these statements: “The death of a young man whose life could have been saved by an invention which the British Technology Group (BTG) has for five years been trying unsuccessfully to make available to the general public was shown in an ITV documentary last week…BTG have invented a form of paracetamol which contains an amino acid that acts as an antidote to paracetamol poisoning.”
It is about time this was readily available around the world.
String theory holds
Your editorial attack on string theory 鈥� and by implication its successor, M-theory 鈥� as going nowhere fast, cannot go unchallenged (10 December, p 5).
History has shown that rapid confirmation by experiment is a poor guide to the eventual value of a physical theory. Consider the following theoretical ideas that have yet to be empirically confirmed: gravitational waves (1916); the cosmological constant (1917); extra dimensions (1926); the Higgs boson (1964); supersymmetry (1971). All were dismissed in their time by impatient naysayers as theories going nowhere. Yet all of them are now the subject of immense experimental or observational scrutiny, and it would be foolhardy to consign them to the dustbin.
String/M-theory is much more ambitious and far-reaching than any of the above ideas. It is a bold attempt to fuse gravity with quantum mechanics and explain all physical phenomena. So it is unlikely that the time lag until experimental confirmation will be any shorter. The debate is not between those who believe that string/M-theory should be judged by its agreement with experiment and those who do not. The debate is between those who demand instant gratification and those who recognise that a theory of everything does not happen overnight.
Many pioneers of the incredibly successful standard model of particle physics, including Nobel laureates Murray Gell-Mann, Abdus Salam, Steven Weinberg and David Gross, turned their attention to superstring theory and continued to pursue its ramifications notwithstanding its lack of empirical support. They no doubt recalled the decades required to knock the standard model into a shape that could be confirmed by experiment 鈥� for example the 25-year time lag between the prediction and discovery of non-Abelian gauge bosons upon which the standard model is based.
It was only in 1995 that it was realised that the five 10-dimensional superstring theories and the 11-dimensional supergravity and supermembrane theories are subsumed by an all-embracing M-theory. M-theory solves, among other things, the 1974 puzzle posed by Hawking concerning the microscopic origin of black-hole entropy. Nor is M-theory incompatible with an accelerating universe as your article implied. This is hardly deserving of your description as a theory in “a sorry state”. The annual international string theory conference continues to attract an increasing number of participants, now about 500.
Up until 1995, theorists were toying with the smoother pebbles and prettier shells of superstrings while the great ocean of M-theory lay all undiscovered before them. Of course David Gross is correct when he is quoted in your editorial as saying that yet more fundamental new ideas will be required before we reach our destination, but gifted and inquisitive young minds can find no better ocean on which to set sail in the 21st century.