Irresponsible behaviour
In the Feedback column a fortnight ago you irresponsibly discussed planting “earworms” such as the Ghostbusters theme tune and then charging people to have them removed (4 February). That an oracle of science such as yourself would disregard epidemiology and act as a nexus for a virus is abhorrent, particularly since I now find myself unable to stop humming the Ghostbusters tune.
For the record
鈥� In our report on Lake Victoria (11 February, p 12) we identified Daniel Kull as a hydrologist with the UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in Nairobi, Kenya, and as the author of a report released by the California-based environmental lobby group International Rivers Network. This may have created the impression that Kull wrote the report in his capacity as a consultant to the UN. We would like to clarify that Kull wrote the report for IRN as a private citizen, and we regret any confusion caused.
Testing Heim's theories
I was glad to see Haiko Lietz’s article on Burkhard Heim’s theories (7 January, p 24). I do not believe the American military industrial complex of the 1950s ignored his work.
Heim presented his theory at two International Astronautical Federation (IAF) congress sessions: 1952 in Stuttgart, Germany, and 1954 in Innsbruck, Austria. Andrew G. Haley of the American Rocket Society was IAF vice-president during both of Heim’s presentations. Frederick C. Durant III was the IAF president during the 1954 session. Durant was a member of the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence. Considering the nature of the cold war paranoia of that period in history, it is reasonable to assume Durant was compelled to notify policy-makers and researchers in America about Heim’s claims.
A few years after Heim’s IAF presentations, one of the largest aerospace firms in the US initiated contact with him for gravity propulsion research. The New York Herald-Tribune (20 November 1955) and The Miami Herald (30 November 1955) reported the completion of contractual arrangements between Burkhard Heim and the Glen Martin Aircraft Company Research Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS) in Baltimore, Maryland. The creator of RIAS, George S. Trimble, told astronautics historian Lloyd Mallan his two goals were: “Space flight and the control of the force of gravity itself for propulsion.”
The second agency interested in Heim’s work was the Gravity Research Foundation of New Boston, New Hampshire. In 1956, Heim sent the Gravity Research Foundation a 17-page progress report. It summarised his philosophy (syntrometry) and his theory (principle of dynamic contrabarie) for coupling general relativity with quantum dynamics for propulsion applications. Sample calculations for an expedition to Mars appeared at the end of the report.
By an apparent coincidence, the US air force immediately acquired an intense appetite for general relativity and quantum dynamics research. During September 1956, the General Physics Laboratory of the Aeronautical Research Laboratories (ARL) at Wright-Patterson air force base in Dayton, Ohio, hired Joshua N. Goldberg. He was to direct a strong in-house programme that coordinated support of research into gravitational and unified field theories. The ARL programme generated more than 70 papers that were published in peer-reviewed journals, and compiled 18 technical reports. None cited Heim’s work, but it is possible that the undocumented purpose for creating Goldberg’s programme may have been to reconstruct or replicate Heim’s work from fundamental principles.
The literature evinces formal interest in Heim’s work by the Gravity Research Foundation and RIAS. ARL possessed the resources during the paranoia of the cold war to study Heim’s theory. Subsequently, I believe at least one of those agencies must have thoroughly examined Heim’s theories.
Business interests
I choose not to eat genetically modified products not because I am afraid of “Frankenstein foods” but because I object to every single aspect of my life, possibly including my genetic make-up, becoming subject to patenting and big business interests (4 February, p 25). The object of business is to promote its products and reward its shareholders, not to better humanity.
Though there is much trumpeting about better crops for developing countries, most commercial food research seems to be aimed at industrial-scale agriculture, where the profits are. The same sad trend can be seen in drug research, where devastating tropical diseases, some still treated with remedies 50 years old, are almost ignored in favour of research into diseases of affluence.
Forest confusion
The article on the disappearance of the Arctic tundra challenges basic perceptions of the environmental benefits of forests (21 January, p 15). We are told that the change from barren tundra to bush and forests will increase heat absorption and so accelerate global warming. Maybe so, but to dismiss the creation of vast new forests when so much time is spent lamenting the loss of the Earth’s existing forests does seem a bit ironic.
What of the loss of rainforests to make way for farming of soya and the like? Will interested parties soon be telling us that chopping down these forests is helping to fight global warming? I don’t know, but am willing to bet that farmland absorbs less radiation than rainforest.
By all means discuss such matters openly, but scientists must present a consistent message if they are not to confuse the public and thereby risk diluting growing awareness and support.
Hunting lions
Hunting is merely one of many issues regarding the conservation of lions discussed at the World Conservation Union/Wildlife Conservation Society workshops (7 January, p 12, and 21 January, p 6). And the Lion Conservation Units (LCUs) are unquestionably not “parks for sustainable hunting”.
LCUs are the most important areas for the enduring conservation of lions. In most cases, they incorporate existing parks in which hunting will never be an option, nor should it be. For example, the Serengeti-Mara LCU includes the world famous Serengeti National Park and Masai Mara Game Reserve.
LCUs are inclusive in that they incorporate areas outside existing parks and reserves which are important for the conservation of lions. In some cases, these include areas in which legal trophy hunting of lions currently takes place. In that context, hunting is merely one management tool among many which may foster the conservation of lions outside protected areas.
Don't believe Buddha
Bob Park has done a grand job debunking all kinds of nonsense over the years, and I was delighted to read he is planning a book on the conflict between religion and science (4 February, p 54). But I do hope he will debunk the view that all religions can be tarred with the same brush when it comes to unquestioning adherence to revealed truths.
In the Kalama Sutta, dating from around 588 BC, the Buddha specifically requests potential followers to eschew blind faith in anything, including his own teachings. As the Latin tag puts it, Nullius in verba (“Don’t take anyone’s word for it”) 鈥� which just happens to be the motto of the UK’s Royal Society.
Dancing spit
You mention that researchers have been able to form highly mobile droplets from numerous liquids placed on hot surfaces, and that some even moved uphill on their own (21 January, p 14). In addition to nitrogen, methanol and water mentioned in the text, I suggest that the same experiment be repeated with saliva.
Since I was a kid, I have enjoyed placing various liquids on hot frying pans or the bottom of a hot iron, and making them “dance” by rocking the surface back and forth. While tap water works fairly well, I have had the most success by spitting on the said surfaces. Saliva tends to form the most durable as well as the most robust hot droplets.
Microwave menace?
The possible risks posed by cellphones and their base station transmitters have been the subject of much research and many studies (4 February, p 8). Surely one conclusion that can be drawn is that if they do pose a risk it is very low, and that parents and other concerned parties would be better off trying to reduce other risks in their lives: some of the many hazards posed by cars, for example?
From John Woodgate
You could have pointed out that people who worry about radiation from base stations while continuing to use their phones should be reminded that the field strength from the base station antenna is thousands of times less than that from the phone. Unless, of course, they climb up a mast to prove me wrong.
Rayleigh, Essex, UK
From Bill Tate
Birds, particularly starlings, routinely rest overnight on cellphone masts, up close to the transponders. Given the lower bone density and close proximity, and consequently higher exposure, is there any evidence of cancers in this population?
Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, UK
Blanket of jets
The article about clouds blocking the sun reported that Philip Goode’s team had found that since 2000 increased high cloud had led to increased reflectance of the sunlight away from the Earth (28 January, p 5). They noted that, paradoxically, this has not led to cooling of the Earth because high clouds like these act as a blanket, increasing the amount of heat trapped.
In 2002, you reported an analysis by David Travis of cloud cover in the three days without jet airliners following the 9/11 attacks (10 August 2002, p 24). Travis found a marked reduction in high-level cloud over this period.
If it is beyond doubt that jet airliners add to high-level cloud, it is possible that the ever-growing level of air travel is, in addition to its carbon dioxide emissions, adding to global warming by producing a heat-retaining blanket of high cloud. If so, serious consideration should be given to limiting this type of transport.
Animals can't choose
As practising veterinary surgeons, we feel the letter from Jacqueline Obando and others does not adequately explain why they decided to abandon evidence-based veterinary medicine 鈥� the application of treatments of known efficacy and safety 鈥� in favour of the use of the discredited modality of homeopathy (21 January, p 20).
The fact that not all animals are cured by conventional medicine is not sufficient. No one claims conventional medicine cures everything. However, there is no evidence that homeopathy cures anything at all. They are correct in saying that “good studies do exist”. They fail to point out that the findings of well-designed studies are overwhelmingly negative.
The authors also assert that an individual veterinary surgeon and the animal’s owner should be allowed to decide on any treatment they want. This misses the point that it is not the owner who is being treated, but the animal, which has no choice in the matter of compromising its welfare by its treatment with ineffective remedies.
Religion's beginnings
Evolutionary psychologists such as Robin Dunbar take an unnecessary step in presuming that religion must have a functional advantage in order to have evolved (28 January, p 30). You could say the same about, for example, prostate cancer. Both of these may be inadvertent consequences of other things that do have a benefit.
I would suggest that religion is the cancerous consequence of humans having evolved language, group cooperation, a tendency to believe what you are told, and a liking for patterns, all of which have been useful. Religion is often associated with such human features as morality or singing, but is not their cause.
From Justin Bailey
Dunbar’s primary argument seems to be that religion was invented to provide the endorphin rush that grooming once did, in order to hold the community together. If all that was required was something to replace grooming behaviour after it became impractical, why is there any need to invoke the supernatural? He has not provided an argument, based on fitness, that results in the development of religious belief. He has only provided an argument for the development of social norms 鈥� laws, for example 鈥� which maintain the group.
Dunbar appears to be of the view that since there is no God, we had to invent Him. If you start with that axiom, you can come up with a lot of wild theories. Maybe the answer is simpler: God is really there.
Portland, Oregon, US
From John Worley
It is a scandal that honest, rational readers of New 杏吧原创, “goats” in Clare Wilson’s parlance, are excluded from the social and health benefits of religion enjoyed by sheep (28 January, p 37). It needn’t be that way.
If goats need something more credible than God to believe in, why not turn to Gravity? Gravity was there before the big bang, it shaped and formed the universe, and it enjoys a central role in our everyday lives. Hymns might be adapted to the praise of Gravity, for holding the sky and sea in their place, making the rain to fall and smoke to rise. We could pray to Gravity for our weapons to find their mark, and for our foes’ to miss theirs.
There should be more than enough mystery and controversy surrounding Gravity 鈥� is it mediated by gravitons or waves, of constant or changing values? 鈥� to allow satisfactory factions to develop. Can you see Saltationists, believing in a Gravitational constant which changes in catastrophic jumps, hating the Constantists and the ordinary Gradualists? Fundamental Gravitists might get pleasure from demanding no enjoyment of Gravity (skiing, bungee jumping, etc) until marriage.
As good people flock to the new religion and temples and cathedrals become vacant, there could be no better place than amongst their soaring columns and arches for Gravitists to contemplate humanity’s proper relationship with Gravity.
So will anyone join me? What are you doing next Sunday?
Havant, Hampshire, UK
From Peter Still
The capacity to believe is inherent. The form of what is believed is cultural. Children are incapable of disbelieving anything told to them by a parent or adult. Thus, a child believes in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, Jack Frost, the Easter bunny and God with equal sincerity. In time, when children challenge the beliefs imposed earlier in their lives, those about Santa Claus etc are permitted to slide. When they challenge the existence of God they are confronted with threats of death, hellfire and parental rejection.
As the history of religion has been, and still is, the history of the slaughter of millions of non-believers, perhaps over millennia the genes required to challenge irrational childhood beliefs have been largely culled from the population. Believing has definite survival value, whereas disbelief brings ostracism, rejection and death.
When parents stop threatening children with death for challenging the existence of a God, perhaps the relevance of religion will be assigned a status similar to that of Santa Claus. However, as a method for a ruling elite to manipulate a largely ignorant population, religion has no equal. The altruistic values espoused by religion clearly (I believe) have a genetic origin. Otherwise they would not persist in unbelievers and believers alike. Religion is an incorrect parental response to questions about the origins of life and the universe. The correct response is: nobody knows.
Boronia, Victoria, Australia
From Mark Levine
I was brought up in a traditional but not specifically religious Jewish household and continued my general lack of interest in my religion until I was about 30. All of a sudden I decided to get involved by attending synagogue and studying my faith. I don’t know why this sudden change occurred in my life. I got considerable enjoyment out of weekly synagogue attendance even though I found it difficult to accept the English translation of the prayers at face value. For the next 10 years or so this situation continued but I found that instead of finding the prayers and rules more acceptable I was beginning to reject them.
I was prescribed a course of antidepressants in late 2001, having suffered from depression for most of my adult life. As the drugs began to work I found that I needed the crutch of religion less and less. Eventually my participation in my religion ceased and I would now classify myself as a reluctant atheist.
I am now free of antidepressants and no longer suffer from the darkness of depression. I am also free of the need for religious practice, although community and family ties won’t let me break the bond completely.
Edgware, Middlesex, UK