Too many kids
How comforting to see the governor of the most energy-hungry area of the world espouse the green cause (21 January, p 18). He says he does this for, inter alia, his four children. He seems not to have understood that unless the world addresses the issue of its exploding population, any measures to reduce emissions merely delay the inevitable.
The world population has doubled in my lifetime. Less than three centuries ago, the world population was three-quarters of a billion. We entered the 20th century with a population of 1.6 billion and ended it with 6.1 billion. Yet many of us still view families of four or even six children as not particularly large. Until that mindset changes, no Kyoto can save us.
Blue baby links
The article by Rowan Hooper on the environmental and health impacts of reactive nitrogen compounds from human activities was very informative (21 January, p 40). But on one point the article was confused and simply perpetuated an old myth 鈥� the link between nitrate in drinking water and “blue baby syndrome” or methaemoglobinaemia.
Last November, at a session entitled “The nitrogen cycle and human health” at the annual meeting of the Soil Science Society of America in Salt Lake City, Utah, there was heated debate on a different health issue, the matter of whether nitrate is linked to human cancers. But it was generally agreed that blue baby syndrome is not currently the big issue, largely because it is so rare.
We are not aware of any blue-baby deaths for over 50 years in areas such as Europe or North America where bacteria-free public water supplies are available. There is now considerable evidence that the syndrome occurs where water contaminated with human or animal excreta is used to make up baby formula.
This can occur if water is drawn from a shallow well close to a manure heap or disposal site for human waste. This appears to be the case in outbreaks recorded in Hungary and Romania, and also the well known cases studied in rural areas of the US in the 1940s. It may also occur in parts of Africa. The presence of enteric bacteria rather than nitrate per se appears to be the more important factor causing blue baby syndrome.
Why we believe
The evolutionary value of religion can easily be explained if the survival value of learned behaviour is recognised (28 January, p 30). The ability to predict is crucial to our survival. We learn to look for patterns or rules where one event follows another.
Some events just do not fit into a pattern. This creates an internal mental conflict. The easiest way to resolve this is to create a special category of events under the control of a deity where the “normal rules” do not apply, allowing the rest of existence to rely on prediction. Thus belief in a deity allows the brain to focus on what it does best more effectively than it can for those who have no belief.
The greatest problem for humans is the conflict between the instinct to live and the knowledge that death is inevitable. Religion helps those who believe to come to terms with that conflict. Happier and contented people survive longer.
From Trevor Hussey, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College
Robin Dunbar’s argument leaves an important gap. If, as group size increased, our ancestors needed new ways of ensuring group bonding, why did the new mechanisms involve specifically religious ideas and practices? If religion is defined in terms of belief in non-human agencies or spirits, why did the new social control mechanisms involve these ideas rather than others? This is puzzling especially as such beliefs are very likely false.
I suggest that the explanation is explanation itself. We have essentially two ways of explaining an event: in terms of physical causation and in terms of agency. In a pre-scientific age, causal explanations were both difficult to find and unsatisfactory. If we ask what caused a tree to fall and hurt someone and the reply is that the wind blew it down, we may reasonably ask what caused the wind to blow, but there will be no convincing answer. The explanation is incomplete. But if we ask why someone took up his spear and went out of the hut and we are told that he was hungry and had decided to go hunting, that is a satisfying answer because it appears to fully explain what happened.
By explaining most events in terms of agencies that have intentions and purposes, we not only offer explanations that satisfy, it also lets us employ all the apparatus of persuasion, pleading, flattering, rewarding and so forth, that works so well in human affairs. This means that if, for example, a child is ill, we can do something rather than being helpless. Since reliable causal explanations are difficult to find, false explanations in terms of agencies are better than nothing.
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK
Sheep and goats
Clare Wilson’s article on faith and gullibility is helpful, but its biblical terminology is inaccurate (28 January, p 37). Sheep, far from being the gullible ones who are eager to believe in the paranormal, are in fact people committed to compassionate action regardless of religious experience.
In the parable of the sheep and the goats attributed to Christ in Matthew’s gospel (chapter 25), a surprising turnaround takes place in this poetic image of judgment day. The sheep are people who, though unaware of Christ’s presence, nevertheless perform humanitarian acts such as feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Christ says that such actions are unknowingly done for him. The goats, by contrast, may very well imagine themselves as good religious people who enjoy splendidly mysterious “spiritual experiences”, but fail to demonstrate their faith through compassionate actions.
Here’s the point of the parable: it is failure to have compassion for the poor that makes one a doomed goat, not a lack of spiritual experience. The parable suggests that non-religious people who are actively caring human beings are the real sheep, whilst religious maniacs who sense presences and the like but don’t act for justice are the goats. So the parable makes the opposite point from that assumed by the researchers who borrowed its imagery.
From Alexandra Coe
I have long maintained that science would eventually discover that people who are attracted to tarot and astrology and such are merely people with highly developed information-gathering systems that others either don’t have or haven’t paid attention to. Their prognostications are based on sensitivity and intuition, rather than something objectively true that could be scientifically proven.
I have no problem with remaining open to what I don’t know and have always been mystified at people who want to shut down the discussion by “disproving” tarot or astrology or whatnot. They miss the point. Why the need to naysay what can’t be known yet? People confuse hardened scepticism for good science, when the really good scientists are the ones who always keep room for doubt.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
No free lunch
The contribution by Colin Osborne directing us to a US patent application for a perpetual motion machine without motion (Feedback, 14 January) reminds me of a brilliant and amusing science fiction short story whose title was, I think, something like Harley’s Helix. The story goes roughly like this:
An inventor devises a gadget (Harley’s helix) to get electrical energy from the ether or some such. It is free energy. In the story the inventor provides humanity with the device and prosperity blossoms around the planet.
Some time later (was it a year or 10?) an alien spacecraft arrives on Earth amid great excitement. The aliens emerge from their spacecraft and present the anticipating UN and other dignitaries with a document.
The document is…an electricity bill. All men and women who tamper with the fabric of the universe, beware!
I have made a cursory search through Google and Yahoo and have not been able to find the author of this short story. I read it in the sixties or seventies when I was but a tadpole. I would really like to know the author of this short story and would like to read it again.
For the record
鈥� Our news report on the first decade of genetically modified crops (21 January, p 10) reported incorrectly that cumulatively over the 10-year period, farmers growing GM crops reduced the amount of pesticides they applied by 172,500 million tonnes. The figure should have been 172,500 tonnes, an error resulting from misinterpretation of MT (metric tonnes) in the source material. In the same article, crops resistant to insects were mistakenly said to be resistant to insecticides.
鈥� In our article about “breathing” oxygen dissolved in the sea, we stated that a diver breathing air composed of 16 per cent oxygen could suffer reduced clarity of thought. While this is true at the surface, the increase in the partial pressure of oxygen as a diver goes deeper means there is a risk of oxygen toxicity, so divers breathe air with less oxygen at depth 鈥� for example, 13 per cent oxygen at 100 metres. Thanks to David Morris of Woodford Halse, Northamptonshire, for pointing this out.
鈥� Our feature on a possible creator’s signature in space contained a schoolboy howler (24/31 December 2005, p 32). Although it was carved by the Colorado river, what we called “Colorado’s Grand Canyon” is actually in Arizona.
Let sleeping dogs die
Your article about hibernation (21 January, p 28) reminded me of the procedure that veterinary surgeon and author James Herriott (real name Alf Wight) describes accidentally performing in the 1930s. Deciding that a dog is best put down, he administers a large dose of anaesthetic. The dog falls into a deep sleep but, instead of waking up dead, makes a somnolent but complete recovery to the bafflement of all concerned.
Toe story
David Jackson’s letter mentioning toenail growth (21 January, p 21) reminded me that a few years ago, very suddenly and unexpectedly I acquired ingrown toenails on both big toes simultaneously, and I eventually had the nails removed. I had never previously suffered the condition.
Months earlier at my dentist’s suggestion, I had deliberately increased the calcium in my diet to help bed in titanium dental implants. Could there be a connection along the lines that extra calcium hardens toenails?
From Gordon Ackerman
Jackson states that shaving his forearm did not cause thicker hair regrowth. I would beg to differ. I decided to perform a similar experiment on my chest when I was a teenager. There was no immediate thickening, but 10 years later when I started growing more hair on my front, the shaved areas grew in before other areas. As more hair has continued to grow these areas are still noticeably thicker than the rest.
Edinburgh, UK
Aged clones
I enjoyed your article on mitochondria and ageing (14 January, p 42). I always wondered why it was that cloned animals often seem to age prematurely or develop abnormally. It just didn’t seem to make sense to me until now. It seems that if you clone a sheep from a 6-year-old adult that you might get newborns with 6-year-old mitochondria.
We get our mitochondria solely from our mothers, and women are born with all the eggs that they will ever have (although some have debated this). Perhaps this is to preserve unmutated mitochondria and therefore ensure normal development. No wonder we have had such limited success with cloning.
Polar feedback
So the shrinking Arctic ice will make it easier for us to tap the Arctic’s oil and gas reserves (21 January, p 24). That’s oil and gas that we will burn, producing carbon dioxide that will cause the ice cap to shrink even further. Since less polar ice means less sunlight is reflected from the Earth’s surface, and hence more energy is absorbed, the melting of polar ice is already starting a positive feedback mechanism leading to global warming. Do we really need to add to the problem?
Quantum Buddhism
The excerpt from the Dalai Lama’s new book concludes with the wish that there were more scientists with David Bohm’s understanding of the nature of the universe and our place in it (14 January, p 47). I would direct readers to look at a wonderful small book published by Ulysses Press entitled Einstein and Buddha: The parallel sayings.
In it, Thomas McFarlane, a physicist with a master’s in mathematics and in philosophy and religion, pairs direct quotations from scientists and spiritual leaders to demonstrate that although they may use different wording, actually they are saying the same exact thing. In fact, quotations from the Dalai Lama are paired with Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Bohm.