Open letter to all UK chiropractors
This is an invitation to all UK chiropractors to stop the confusions, misunderstandings and animosities that arose during the recent debate about the effectiveness of chiropractic for non-spinal conditions such as asthma and otitis. I herewith invite all of you to state clearly where you stand.
Many of your websites promote chiropractic as a treatment of these conditions, and the ‘s own survey of 2004 shows that 57 per cent of you believe that asthma can be “treated or managed by chiropractors”.
For other non-spinal conditions, the figures are similar. I have seen no convincing evidence that chiropractic or chiropractic spinal manipulation is effective for these conditions. For asthma, the evidence I have seen is even squarely negative ().
However, the same survey demonstrates that 90 per cent of chiropractors support evidence-based practice principles and that 99 per cent of you use spinal manipulation 鈥� producing a somewhat contradictory overlap.
I therefore invite you to let the British public know, through your professional organisations, which of these three possible explanations is correct: you no longer hold that chiropractic is an effective treatment for non-spinal conditions like asthma, you admit that the inclusion of treatment of non-spinal conditions in chiropractic means that it can no longer be considered an evidence-based profession, or you can provide good evidence that chiropractic can treat non-spinal conditions.
I await your response with interest.
Ancient secrets
Andrew Robinson tells us the Etruscans were a “prehistoric civilisation that arose in western Italy 鈥� in what is now Tuscany and parts of Umbria” (30 May, p 24). In fact, the great Etruscan civilisation 鈥� the Etruscan Federation 鈥� arose in today’s northern Lazio, including Rome itself, as my husband and I detail in our book Northern Lazio: An unknown Italy.
The Etruscans’ great towns and infrastructure were remarkable. The Romans, who might have been an Etruscan tribe that overpowered the others, built on Etruscan technologies, but always bypassed the old Etruscan centres where they could.
Their language remains inscrutable but the old local language might provide some helpful clues to its comprehension, as is the case in other parts of Italy. “Lingua Toscana in bocca Romana” (the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth), seen as the ideal for spoken Italian, has long been recommended for the educated in an Italy full of local languages. What was the “lingua romana” that the educated should avoid: was it something which might still resemble Etruscan? Or did it resemble Romanesco, the dialect still used in Rome today?
I was taught Italian in the Roman market place of San Cosimato. I was firmly told never to name vegetables in other markets: “always point, the names would probably be obscene”. Perhaps they were Etruscan?
Andrew Robinson’s article on decoding antiquity does not mention the Lemnian language (30 May, p 24).
The inscription found on a funerary stela on the Greek island of Lemnos and fragments of inscriptions on local pottery are indicative of a spoken language. The inscriptions portray an alphabet similar to the Etruscan language. According to Robinson’s classification system, this ancient script should fall into the category of a known script of an unknown language.
Does the author consider Lemnian similar to Etruscan, or is it just a simple omission in this vast field?
We have some interesting undeciphered texts in the UK. The Ogham alphabet was developed in the post-Roman period in Ireland for writing inscriptions in Goidelic, the ancestor of modern Irish.
However, there are around 30 Ogham inscriptions from Scotland that seem to be in an unknown language. The language may be Pictish, which was spoken by tribes that lived in Northern Britain after the late Roman period, but subsequently disappeared after the Viking invasions.
鈥� The field of undeciphered scripts is huge. The inscription from Lemnos is indeed written in an alphabet and language akin to Etruscan, but it is not the same. I would have liked to include Ogham, although it cannot be considered one of the world’s great undeciphered scripts.
Circus cruelty
You report on a study of animal circuses by the University of Bristol, UK (23 May, p 5). The British government is still stalling over a pledge made three years ago to stop wild animals appearing in circuses. This timely study shows why it must follow through on its commitment.
It shouldn’t really take a scientist to make it obvious that a travelling circus, by its very nature, cannot meet the needs of animals. The inconstant conditions, brought about by weekly relocation, mean that animals often don’t have access to exercise or grazing and are confined to cages or small stalls. A few minutes in the ring will not provide sufficient enrichment, particularly if training is carried out with force or cruelty.
UK circuses still use elephants, tigers, lions and even a red fox. A ban can’t come soon enough for these animals. The same ethical objections apply to domesticated animals used for entertainment; they endure the same welfare and confinement problems as the non-domesticated species.
The Captive Animals’ Protection Society, working with other charities, is lobbying hard for the government to bring animal use in circuses to an end. In the meantime, we encourage people to visit only those shows that rely entirely on the skills of human performers.
Flat Earth
In discussing whether the universe is flat, Eugenie Samuel Reich compares this premise to the myth that once upon a time, we believed the Earth was flat (16 May, p 15).
However, if the BBC’s QI programme is correct, and its entire stall is set out on reporting the truth, there is no evidence whatever that people ever believed the world was flat. Chaucer didn’t, and Columbus believed it was pear-shaped. It quotes “leading Medievalist” Terry Jones as pouring cold water on the theory, and where Jones goes, I tend to follow. So, the gauntlet is down: can you cite any evidence that our forebears believed in a flat Earth?
鈥� Terry Jones specifically addresses what was known in the Middle Ages. Many ancient cultures, such as that of ancient China, did indeed think the Earth was flat.
The two vectors
C. P. Snow correctly identified the self-segregation of our intellectuals into two mutually isolated cultures (2 May, p 26), but he did not understand the reason behind their mutual contempt, which is their “vector disparity”.
Any thought process can be classified into one of two modes, either analytical/investigative or creative/constructive. Both cultures include examples of both modes of thought, but they differ in the vector relationships between them.
In science, we have analytical activities such as chemistry and physics, and constructive activities such as engineering and medicine. The creation of a building depends on the underlying physics, and achieving a medical cure depends on the underlying biology.
In the humanities we also have analytical activities, such as history and musicology, and creative activities such as composition, performance, statesmanship and military command. But here the vector operates in the opposite direction. For example, the historian is dependent on the actions of politicians and generals.
Unconsciously, each culture has developed a yardstick for its own activities and then applied it inappropriately to the other. In science the yardstick says that analysis is primary (creative, good) and construction is secondary (derivative, less good). In the humanities, on the other hand, construction is primary (imaginative, good) while analysis is secondary (pedantic, less good).
It is the inappropriate use of these yardsticks that has caused Snow’s “two cultures” to drift into mutual incomprehension. A physicist, for example, may think of a sculptor as a “mere manufacturer” while the sculptor may think of the physicist as a “mere dismantler”.
Perhaps if our educators were to teach this disparity in vector relationships, the two cultures might learn to get along with each other a little better.
Ballast buoyancy
I think Feedback and Paul Spicker took a poorly aimed shot at the advertisement for “5 star Luxury European River Cruises” when remarking on its assertion that the cabin windows don’t sink below water level “even when passing under low bridges” (30 May).
Our vintage paddle steamers on the Murray river often need to adjust their ballast water to ensure safe clearance under the lowest bridges. I suspect that the cruisers in the ad also have such a facility. The fuel saved by keeping the vessel as light as possible outweighs the cost of increasing the draught occasionally.
Black Sea life
In his review of Alanna Mitchell’s Seasick, Fred Pearce states that the Black Sea “has been lifeless for thousands of years” (9 May, p 45). This is not true: the upper levels of the Black Sea have lots of aquatic life. It is only the lower level which is anoxic.
For the record
鈥� In our story on premature babies’ posture and IQ, we should have said that researchers filmed the babies 11 to 16 weeks after their expected birth date, had they reached full term, rather than after their actual birth date (13 June, p 12).
鈥� The correct link to the work by Mark Bulmer of Towson University, Maryland, on using glucose to combat termite troubles is (13 June, p 14)