Frogs need forest
You correctly reported a major finding of our study 鈥� that the negative effects of road traffic on some frog and toad populations exceeded the negative effects of the loss of forest and wetland (8 July, p 18). But we must stress that this research should not be used to suggest that the loss of forest/wetland is of minor concern to amphibians in North America.
For many species, such as spring peepers and wood frogs, forests are of vital importance. Research by one of my collaborators, Stephen Hecnar of Lakehead University in Ontario, has shown that wood frogs disappear completely from regions with very low forest cover.
The traffic result cannot be generalised to all of North America 鈥� it is probably only applicable to the north-eastern US and eastern Canada. Finally, only three out of six species were much more affected by traffic than by forest/wetland loss in our study, so even in our region, loss of forests and wetlands is a major threat to the persistence of many frogs and toads.
Bats suffer too
Ill-planned wind turbines have destructive effects on bogs and birds (8 July, p 36). Bats suffer too: a wind farm on Backbone Mountain near Thomas, West Virginia, in the Appalachian mountains, was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 2000 bats over two summers. It appears that the problem occurs mainly along wooded ridges, as another wind farm in a similar situation near Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, was also linked to significant bat mortality.
Bats do not reproduce nearly as quickly as birds, and this degree of mortality is likely to have a serious impact on bat populations in the vicinity of wind farms on wooded mountain ridges.
Global warming and the insidiously destructive practice of mountain-top removal coal mining in West Virginia and Kentucky cry out for alternative energy sources. The problem is that we seem to rush into new technologies in the hope of a panacea, and the trouble with panaceas is that they usually have negative consequences as well as the intended positive effect.
Wind power does offer a very viable alternative, and renewable, source of power to an increasingly technology-dependent world. But we need to approach its development with knowledge, and perhaps with an eye out for potential problems.
From Jason Hart
In 25 years, when the wind turbines that you talk about are at the end of their design life, I shall be 58, active and still in need of electricity. What will happen to these turbines then? I suspect (and hope) that they will be replaced by new ones, on the same site, using the same foundations. The ecological cost of these second-generation turbines will be dramatically less than the initial cost of turbines and foundations.
I even hope to see a third generation of turbines installed on the same spots. My children may well see the fourth and fifth generations; their children will see more. This long-sighted view should be used to gauge the ecological impact of these projects, not the lifetime of a few bearings. We are, after all, trying to keep this planet going into the unforseeable future.
Wymlondham, Norfolk, UK
From Wilf Wilson
There is a solution so simple I can only I assume I have missed it being suggested: cover the area where the turbines spin with a metal mesh. The same idea works for household fans to protect children芒聙聶s inquisitive fingers, so why not implement this on a larger scale to save some birds?
Perth, UK
Valuing water
Reverse osmosis offers hope for cities running out of water (1 July, p 30), and there are many places where desalination looks to be the only way forward. The willingness to invest in desalination is also coupled with an awareness of the value of water and careful management of its use.
The technical challenge and exciting size of desalination projects do, however, result in water companies making eye-catching proposals for desalination in places where there are cheaper but less dramatic solutions. The article notes the proposal for a plant for south-east England. This is not usually seen as an arid area, but as one where most consumers still regard water as nearly “free”.
More effective solutions in countries like the UK are likely to come from consumer action, and from giving customers real incentives both to manage demand and to contribute to the solution themselves by collecting rainwater. A 100-square-metre roof combined with 2000 litres of storage will collect enough water to cut a family’s demand from the public water supply significantly. Advice is available on the web, but the incentives are missing and the hardware is difficult to find.
We should not blame the water companies for proposing desalination plants, but we should insist that regulators make it easy for consumers to compete for the opportunity to match supply to demand.
Tanks, pumps and controllers should be easily available, as they are in Australia where I am writing this letter. Fitting these to new houses should be mandatory. And a water company proposing new supply capacity should be required to show that the project produces a better return than distributed investment in demand management and rainwater harvesting.
Neglected allergy
As a survivor of sesame-induced anaphylaxis, I was interested to read your report on allergies (24 June, p 40). Sesame allergy, which is characterised by severe allergic reactions often leading to anaphylaxis, is increasingly reported in the scientific literature, but unlike peanut and nut allergies it has received scant press attention in the UK.
In 2004 a survey of schools in London revealed that 2 per cent of children aged 5 to 18 had peanut allergy, and 1 per cent had sesame allergy.
Not, sadly, the first
Your news item claims that Sophia Mirza’s death was the first in the UK to be ascribed to chronic fatigue syndrome (24 June, p 7). Untrue. My wife died of CFS in January 2003, in north Wales, and the coroner entered CFS as the cause.
From Sue Waddle, Invest In ME
Following your excellent article on the death of Sophia Mirza from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), otherwise known as chronic fatigue syndrome, I have been contacted by a number of people from all over the world to tell me that they know of deaths from ME. I am informed that, in some cases, ME/CFS has actually been recorded on the death certificate as a cause of death.
While I am very saddened to hear of these tragedies, it provides powerful evidence of the need for ME to be treated seriously for the real, physical illness it is. Coroners are now providing incontrovertible statements that ME can lead to death. This is something that sufferers and carers have known for many years. Is it not time that the UK’s Medical Research Council dedicated money for biomedical research into the causes and cure of ME, to ensure that the death toll does not keep rising?
Waterlooville, Hampshire, UK
Unlikely…
You headlined an article “Road crash could set off nuclear blast” (8 July, p 12). The likelihood of the event is, you report, 2.4 per billion annually. Perhaps you could run articles about other fears we might have that have similar probability. “Elvis Presley may still be alive” or “Prime minister could be an alien” come to mind.
Where rare is usual
Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls rare events “black swans” (1 July, p 50). I often see swans on the waterways and they are always black 鈥� but I am in Australia. To me, a black swan is a joyous, and common, sign of a healthy ecosystem.
For the record
鈥� The second researcher mentioned in the report “Universe weighs in surprisingly light” (8 July, p 14) is Michael Heyl of the German Aerospace Centre in Bonn, and not “Martin Heyl, at the University of Bonn”.
鈥� In our item on eye implants (15 July, p 28) we relocated Brown University to New York. It is and remains in Providence, Rhode Island.
鈥� The article on damage to coral reefs (8 July, p 29) referred to a “34 to 37 per cent” ocean salinity range. That would definitely be damaging: we should have said 3.4 to 3.7 per cent.
鈥� Our correction of a figure for the amount of water on the planet (15 July, p 23) was itself missing some zeros. The UN Environment Programme estimates that there are about 1400 million cubic kilometres (see ).
Green futures
Your editorial “Cities are the future” shows a remarkably myopic view of Greens: “Greens are prone to idealising the past” (17 June, p 5). Green groups around the world have been arguing for at least two decades for measures to make cities greener, and in many cases leading the way by personal example.
Initiatives of Green groups that have been resisted by the inertia of governments and the short-term self interest of business include: reducing the emphasis on cars and encouraging public transport, cycling and walking; reducing waste, reusing and recycling; reducing pollution; reducing CO2 emissions; making buildings more energy efficient; and establishing greenery and wildlife habitat in cities.
The only surprise to Green groups in the “radical vision” of green cities is that governments are finally starting to take a serious interest.
The Green label covers a huge diversity of groups with their own flavours and interests. To be sure, some want nothing to do with cities, but the editorial’s treatment just reinforces the line pushed by those not interested in the future脗聽– that “we can ignore the greenies”.
Divine debate
On the one hand, Lawrence Krauss advocates a type of science so “hard” that it can never truly establish anything (8 July, p 20). On the other, his approach to religion is so soft-edged that it cannot be questioned at all.
The matter of the existence or otherwise of God is, he says, a “metaphysical question which is, for the most part, outside the domain of science”. Why? Either God exists, or She/He/It/They do not, just like the Higgs particle. Even if there is some middle ground, in which God in some way sort-of exists 鈥� perhaps as virtual particles do 鈥� how can this be forbidden ground where rational investigation must fear to tread?
Krauss is, ultimately, arguing for a return to a past regime, in which science and religion tenaciously pretend 鈥� at least when in each other’s company 鈥� that they “respect” each other. In recent times this nonsense has started to dissipate, and the camps are becoming more honest about their mutual antipathy.
And they are right to be so. Both science and religion claim superiority in the fundamental search for truth and the nature of reality. They encroach absolutely on each other’s territory, as they battle for the minds of the populace. There is no reason to be abusive to each other, but to deny that a conflict exists at all is naive, and confusing for honest seekers after truth encountering the matter for the first time. It is these undecideds and newcomers 鈥� especially children 鈥� to whom both sides owe honesty.
From Gary Betcherman
While I agree with the spirit of Krauss’s essay and most of what he says, I must take exception when he says that “scientists go too far when they attack more generally any belief in divine purpose” (my emphasis). The monotheistic religions, and more specifically the Abrahamic ones, put forward a God that participates in history.
The 17th-century Jewish-Dutch philosopher Spinoza discredited the notion that God can be both outside the universe and within it at the same time. I think scientists can justifiably argue the same. Not only can various statements in the Bible (the age of the Earth, the duration of creation, the sun standing still) be addressed scientifically, but also the possible nature of a divine entity and thus its purpose. Science cannot disprove the existence of God, but it can certainly disprove the existence of some of the gods put forward by religion.
The Abrahamic God is great for children, but adults must use that notion as the first step towards a deeper understanding of what a divine entity could possibly entail. It is only when considering this deeper understanding of divinity that science must make way for faith.
London, UK
From George Chaplin
Much of the furore about intelligent design has been presented as a debate between science and religion. This premise is incorrect, as Krauss ably points out.
Science based on materially observable phenomena has little to say about spirituality and has long eschewed metaphysics. Intelligent design, on the other hand, is bad religion. To say that a creative intelligence designed an ad hoc system capable of producing something as poorly designed as the human eye, with its blood vessels in front of the retina, is to deny the creator’s omniscience. Surely, a blasphemy?
Intelligent design sets itself against the “null hypothesis” that we can understand the creation 鈥� an assumption it would consider blasphemous. Its alternative hypothesis 鈥� that what we cannot understand is the mark of the creator 鈥� is also an error, because this defines the creator in terms of our own ignorance. This is an unstable definition at best.
Fundamentalism in all its guises is nothing more than a political movement that appeals to simpler times and that is embodied in beliefs about that “old-time religion”. It is a reaction to the poor job done by scientists, science educators and politicians in reassuring the public that there are adequate safeguards to ensure that the ever-increasing rate of scientifically based progress is in the public’s best interest. We should move on from this dispute to public outreach, education in science literacy and the implementation of open safeguards.
San Francisco, California, US
From George Taylor
A colleague happened upon a recent copy of New 杏吧原创 on my desk. I explained briefly that the cover story sheds new light on human evolution out of Africa. His comment was: “That’s the problem with science, it changes all the time. At least you can depend on the Bible, it is always the same.”
This seems a perfect example of Krauss’s message that it’s not a good idea to try and discredit religion using science.
Mount Hunter, New South Wales, Australia
From Ben Schiller
I am a little shocked that a such a renowned thinker as Lawrence Krauss would make such a fundamentally flawed analysis of science and religion. His arguments contain a seed of truth, but blatantly obscure the relationship between religion and God. To suggest that the only purpose of religion is to understand God is seriously to misrepresent the situation.
Religion is much more than that. Many religions do not even hold the existence of a single God (or even multiple gods) as their principal belief. Religion makes testable prediction, testable claims about the past, and moral, ethical, and social judgements. The utility and wisdom of these can be challenged in the more general domain of philosophy if not within science, psychology, sociology or anthropology.
Taking potshots at God may demonstrate bad aim, but taking potshots at religion is entirely justified. The atrocities that religion, religious groups and religious people have committed against science and those who practise it should not be quickly dismissed. Nor should the current global revival of fundamentalism.
Obfuscation of scientific principles, and policies that challenge the validity of the scientific process, should not be tolerated by those who consider themselves scientists. Historically and now, science not only does itself a service in discrediting religion, but improves the human condition.
Claremont, California, US
From Trevor Hussey
Lawrence Krauss may be right to recommend to scientists a more emollient attitude towards religion, but problems remain. His argument appears to rest on two questionable assumptions.
First, he seems to assume that it is possible to make a clear demarcation between the scientific realm, where things can be empirically tested, and a religious realm where they cannot脗聽– assertions about divine purpose and design being in the latter. But if such assertions are about the physical universe why are they not testable? If they are compatible with whatever science discovers, in what sense are they informative or useful?
When religious people pray to God, whether to give thanks or to ask for assistance, they are assuming that God interacts with the world脗聽– and is this not an empirical claim?
Second, while Krauss rightly dismisses the ludicrous beliefs of the fundamentalists, he seems to assume that we can distinguish clearly between those and the beliefs of the more enlightened, liberal religious thinkers. But what is the rational decision procedure that enables us to decide when one religious assertion is true and the other false, or even when one is preferable to another?
Krauss wants to rule out a “God of the gaps”, once used to plug the holes in scientific knowledge, but only at the price of allowing God a metaphysical gap all of His own.
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK