Dogma and Dawkins
Mary Midgely, reviewing Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion, says that anti-religious movements gave birth to Nazi Germany (7 October, p 50). But the leader of Nazi Germany professed to be a Christian 鈥� a Catholic, in fact 鈥� as did many of his followers. That the erroneous “Hitler was an atheist” meme is repeated in reviewing Dawkins’s book simply suggests one more reason why I should buy and read it.
From Dennis Fox
It is ironic that John Richards’s letter about science and religion should be headed “Dogma is the Danger” (28 October, p 26). Indeed it is. Richards’s letter contained two whopping dogmatic assertions: “Science is the only tool which offers any hope of answering questions, large and puzzling or otherwise”; and “No religion has ever convincingly answered any question.”
The first is a statement of faith of the same kind as “Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life”. The second depends crucially on who has to be convinced. Clearly John Richards isn’t, but many others are.
Surely science by its very nature is provisional and we should not be caught following the gods and prophets into this kind of belief in absolutes. Richards’s letter is an example of what Robert Cailliau, on the same page, describes as people who have “painted themselves into the corner of their dogmas”.
Loughborough, Leicestershire, UK
Endangered islands
As the partner and manager of a company dedicated to responsible tourism in the Galapagos Islands, I was disappointed to see the article on “Darwin’s paradise” quoting the figure of 126,000 as the number of visitors to the islands (14 October, p 8). Anyone arriving on the islands who is not registered as a local resident is counted as a tourist, whether or not they visit the National Park. If I go to the islands 10 times a year working as manager of a cruise company in the Galapagos, I am registered as a tourist each time.
Like many commentators, your correspondent identifies “visitors” as the major threat to the Galapagos Islands. I disagree. It is an unpalatable fact that the main threat now, as in Darwin’s time, is from settlers.
As recently as the 1930s the islands were virtually uninhabited. Settler numbers have rocketed in the past few decades, to about 25,000 today. At any one time there are only around 2500 tourists on the islands, mostly on locally operated tour boats, while the settlers are there all year and have few of the scruples of tourists when it comes to rubbish disposal and not harming exotic species.
Perhaps it’s as well that more tourist money does not reach the settlers 鈥� or more would arrive, to escape poverty in Ecuador. No one can blame them, but if you want a sustainable Galapagos, you must tackle this poverty in Ecuador.
Settler activity is constrained by the presence of tourists. For instance, they have not laid siege to the Charles Darwin Research Station demanding relaxation of conservation rules for quite a while now.
Altered half-life
Though the experiments by Claus Rolfs and colleagues on changing the half-lives of radioisotopes are most impressive (21 October, p 36), this is not the first such result. In 1994 Otto Reifenschweiler showed that the radioactivity of tritium absorbed in titanium particles could be reduced by 40 per cent at temperatures between 115 掳C and 275 掳C (Physics Letters A, vol 184, p 149).
To explain these results, Reifenschweiler put forward the unorthodox hypothesis that tritium nuclei, when absorbed in the extremely small single titanium crystals, combined in pairs 鈥� and that the decay constant of such a pair is much smaller than that of free tritium. It seems that it is indeed time to explore this fascinating field.
From John Davies
Rolfs says that before his experiments “no one thought a nuclear property like the fusion rate could be enhanced by the environment”. Not so. Muon-catalysed deuterium-deuterium fusion was predicted in 1947 and there is superb accord between experiment and theory: a small temperature change considerably changes the fusion rate.
Hungerford, Berkshire, UK
The burden of choice
IVF and the prospect of designer babies raises a question (21 October, p 41): is there something in human nature that, although it wants the power to take decisions, hates actually making them?
For an example, consider what has happened to recorded music. Not so long ago portable players took only cassette tapes or CDs, and unless you were prepared to carry around a whole music collection you listened to the same album over and over. People complained that they couldn’t choose their music.
These days, you can carry hundreds or thousands of songs on a single player and listen to whatever suits your mood, whenever you feel like it. Now that we have this huge choice at our disposal, however, we put our players on “shuffle” mode, letting the machine choose songs for us.
When we can have complete control over what our children can look like and what they can do, will we actually want to make these decisions? Perhaps it is easier to leave it up to nature.
When looks can kill
Your article on the connection between cosmetic surgery and suicide captures a seriously under-reported reality (21 October, p 18). In my clinical work I come across many men and women who have had elective cosmetic surgery, having had little or no mental health screening beforehand.
Often the dash to surgery speaks to people’s misguided belief that changing their physical appearance in the short run will improve their psychological selves in the long run. I always ask patients what their lives would be like if cosmetic surgery were not possible for them, and how things might improve without surgery. Cosmetic surgery ought to be limited to the injured, the deformed or those who have basically good psychological health. Many years ago a patient told me how surprised he was that after surgery he still had to deal with his phobias and shyness, to go to work and wash his clothes. It is shameful that we are retreating from the more difficult work of developing stronger and well-balanced egos.
I often tell young ladies that the size of their bosom will not guarantee a solid relationship with a man. Even anabolic steroid use is a psychological variant of cosmetic surgery. So many people try to artificially maintain the rush of sexual stimulation or of feeling unique. How sad that they can’t find uniqueness, peace and joy in simpler relationships founded on interaction of substance. That so many people immediately look to cosmetic surgery to become what they are not means our society is slipping into a very dangerous mindset.
From Diana Zuckerman, National Research Center for Women & Families
In my work on cosmetic surgery I spoke with a physician involved with the Danish study you report, which “discovered that 8 per cent of women who had breast implants had earlier been admitted to a psychiatric hospital”. He told me that the women had an incentive for hospitalisation: to get free breast augmentation through the Danish healthcare system. In other words, some of these women may have exaggerated symptoms in order to qualify for free implants to improve their self-esteem or mental health.
Deliberate mistakes
Your article on planting copyright traps (21 October, p 62) reminds me of something I heard during maths lessons 45 years ago. The teacher informed us that the publishers of tables of logarithms always changed the last decimal place of one entry.
To locate the false entry you would have to calculate every one until you found a discrepancy with the published figure 鈥� by which time you might as well publish your own.
Ecstasy and Parkinson's
The effects of ecstasy on people with Parkinson’s disease have been known about for some time (28 October, p 17). In 2001 the BBC broadcast a Horizon television documentary called Ecstasy & Agony about the experience of Tim Lawrence.
Lawrence suffered from severe Parkinson’s symptoms and side effects from his medication, including paralysis, spasm and tremor.
While taking ecstasy as a recreational drug he discovered it eased his symptoms and allowed his behaviour to become more normal. Further information, including a transcript of the documentary, is available at .
Can it be coincidence?
In one news article you describe how cosmic rays can increase cloud cover, especially at solar minimum, as observed during the mid-1990s (7 October, p 13). Another announces that the upper layers of the ocean have cooled by 0.02 掳C between 2003 and 2005 (7 October, p 14). It notes that a similar cooling occurred between 1980 and 1983.
I propose a possible link between the two phenomena: namely that both are a consequence of the solar activity minima that occur approximately every 11 years. What a coincidence that these articles were on consecutive pages!
Making sense of scents
If sweet, musky perfumes remind us of breast-feeding (21 October, p 14), I wonder whether any researcher has ever looked for differences in reactions to perfumes between the breast-fed and the bottle-fed? As one of the latter, I find the natural smell of a woman far more attractive than most perfumes, many of which repel me. Till now I have always blamed the perfumers 鈥� but perhaps it is all my mother’s fault.
Sarcastic biofuel
Fred Pearce’s article on biofuels (25 September, p 36) has opened our eyes to what seems to be an inadequately discussed topic within the general community. Although promoted as the “clean, green” alternative, the production of this fuel sarcastically defies such a statement. The energy used and waste created in the current production process 鈥� from growing the organic matter, to its conversion into a useable biofuel 鈥� offsets the potential benefits gained.
There is an obvious need to improve biofuel technology with the discovery of bioethanol produced from cellulose-rich organic matter, offering what may be the perfect answer for our own home-grown needs. If we truly can produce a non-food crop that can tolerate dry saline soils, not only may Australia revel in the reduction of CO2 emissions, but our farmers may finally be able to cultivate a viable high-price crop which can withstand growth on our harsh lands. As the premature marketing and utilisation of ineffective biofuels are likely to adversely affect their reputation, let’s keep biofuels in the laboratories until such time as research and development have made them into the superior substitute that they have the potential to be.
For the record
鈥� On our map of the surroundings of the Bosporus (7 October, p 43) the label “Bulgaria” was accidentally moved north into Romania
Inside your head
Feedback wondered under what circumstances antiseptic cream could get on the brain (21 October). That’s easy: during a trepanning operation.
Obviously, this is usually done in hospitals by expert staff who may not need to be reminded of the necessary safety arrangements, but there is also a dedicated band of amateurs who need antiseptic.
Not me, of course. I need trepanning like I need a hole in the head.
How to brainstorm
For once the joke is on Feedback, appearing not to understand the principles of brainstorming (21 October). Far from there being “something not quite right” about the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators prohibiting discussion of ideas put forward in its pre-conference brainstorming session, the whole point of brainstorming is to encourage an outpouring of new ideas, however fantastical, unfettered by discussion of their merits or practicality. Critical examination comes later, but it has no part to play in the brainstorming session itself.
Quantum quibbles
Feedback ridicules the idea of a step smaller than a quantum leap (21 October). Surely the idea that led to the usage “quantum leap” is that of moving from state A to state B without any intermediate stages 鈥� just as an electron changes energy levels in an atom. In this situation smaller changes are possible, and may indeed be the usual case.
From Zbynek Stetina
Concerning the very small leap in German healthcare: would not a Planck leap 鈥� the smallest change of position definable in quantum mechanics 鈥� be smaller than other quantum leaps?
Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, UK
Statin statistics
So far we only have isolated case reports or uncontrolled studies suggesting that giving supplements of coenzyme Q10 can prevent or minimise adverse effects of statins such as induced muscle pain and fatigue (Web letters, 4 November). Medical authorities believe it is premature to support the widespread use of CoQ10 in patients treated with statins. Hopefully this issue will be addressed in a large-scale controlled study.
Phishing tips
I read with interest Will Knight’s piece about the percentage of those who fall for “phishing” scams by clicking on bogus links (Technology News, 20 October).
The identification of a bogus link is really pretty straightforward and (in my opinion) well within the capabilities of almost all computer users. One feature of the present Windows and Windows-like environments is that there is a wealth of information fed back to the user with little or no fanfare, and it becomes the responsibility of the user to be aware of the location and the significance of the feedback.
If using a browser like Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (provided it isn’t a crippled badge-engineered form such as that offered by AOL), all a user has to do is to hold (not click) the mouse cursor over the suspect link. At the bottom of the IE window, the true content of the link will be displayed. As a general rule if it doesn’t match the text of the link above then don’t click on the link.
Links that don’t match are readily identified. If the link in the main body of the window shows “www.newscientist.com” but at the bottom of the window the link is revealed to be “” it doesn’t take a genius to spot the difference!
There are occasions when the link text will be shorter than the actual link it represents, but the first section will match, and that includes the domain section, which is the most important. There are rare exceptions, but ultimately if the two don’t match, don’t click. This approach works in slightly different ways with other browsers and in most email editors that use HTML.
It’s said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. In my experience, a little raised awareness is usually sufficient.
Random access memory?
Keith Kendrick describes animals as having “only limited volitional control over calling up memories” and being “mainly locked in the present” (28 October, p 27). What is the difference between this and human memories? We have to have reasons to remember things, and everyone is “locked in the present” 鈥� that’s how time works.
We have both a more effective way of communicating our memories and ideas, and a greater range of stimuli than animals. We don’t know that animals have the same “developed concept of time” as we do, but do we know that they don’t? Some animals may not, but there is no reason for humans to be the only species that does, as far as I can see.
That sounds slightly… arrogant, maybe?