Torture and terror
Dan Jones presents a rather optimistic view on the possibility of more “humane” interrogation of detainees (6 March, p 40). Detention and interrogation, even when they do not involve violence, are inherently coercive and potentially traumatic. A fifth of suspects detained for ordinary police interrogation experience abnormally high levels of anxiety, and some develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
Individuals strongly committed to a cause or belief are resilient to any form of psychological manipulation, including torture. To suggest that “persuasion” techniques drawn from theories of social psychology developed in western cultures might work with such individuals is rather naive.
I find the whole debate on whether torture is effective disconcerting, because it implies that torture might be justified in certain circumstances. A more effective strategy against it would be to clarify misconceptions about what constitutes torture and to emphasise its illegal and immoral nature.
On a more positive note, focusing on the root causes of terror is likely to do more to prevent it than searching for more effective interrogation methods.
From Ruth Lacon
As an amateur historian with an interest in early modern European witchcraft, I suggest that those interested in interrogation could do well to look at history. The methods of “witch-finder general” Matthew Hopkins in 17th-century England were remarkably similar to those recently employed by American interrogators. The apparent confessions he obtained point strongly towards the sort of confabulation Dan Jones described.
Edinburgh, UK
Down to earth
The Stockholm Environment Institute’s assessment of the Earth’s life-support systems seems to have failed to examine the issues closely enough. Your article (27 February, p 30) did not mention soil loss or degradation, though it did deal with land use.
Many soils can sustain agricultural use for many years 鈥� if they are treated properly. Unfortunately they have not been, as economic pressures have led to poor agricultural practices.
We will all pay the price as oil becomes more expensive and the declining quality of the soils depresses crop yields. Add to that increasing population, climate change and demand for biofuels, and the pressure on existing soils becomes unsustainable.
Modern agricultural techniques generally cause tropical soils to erode much faster than temperate soils 鈥� often 1000 times faster. Unless appropriate cultivation and soil conservation methods are found, we will be faced with the same problem that destroyed all past civilisations. This time we have nowhere new to go.
Infinitely false
Amanda Gefter repeats a common fallacy about infinite universes: the assumption that “everything that can happen will happen 鈥� an infinite number of times” (6 March, p 28). There are many 鈥� possibly infinitely many 鈥� ways that this might not be true, given our limited knowledge about what constraints apply to how universes might form.
If the fundamental constants that characterise a universe can vary continuously 鈥� if they are strictly “real” numbers 鈥� there would be an uncountably infinite number of configurations of physical laws and no two universes need contain the same families of fundamental particle, let alone be replicas of each other.
Other more subtle possibilities exist. There might be merely a countable infinity of distinct actualised universes out of an uncountable infinity of possible universes, just as the infinite set of whole numbers (integers) is an infinitesimal fraction of the real numbers. Alternatively, actual universes might be some special subset of a countable infinity of possible universes. If it turns out that space-time is quantised, this could be the more likely case.
If the multiverse arises from universes spawning further universes, each with slightly different physical constants, the population of universes may explore only a fraction of the possible “ecological niches”, even after infinitely many repetitions.
You quote Andrei Linde of Stanford University as asking “How do you compare infinities?” The answer, as Georg Cantor demonstrated more than a century ago, is “very carefully”.
Gods and little fishes
There seems to be no consensus among theists as to why we should believe in their various 鈥� and largely mutually exclusive 鈥� deities (6 March, p 26). Without this, it is hard to pin down what it is that atheists are “resistant” to.
One phenomenon I’ve noticed in discussions with theists is a selective form of “confirmation bias” regarding their religion. Some are willing to attribute pleasant feelings 鈥� but not unpleasant ones, unless they have “sinned” 鈥� to a sense of “communion” with their deity.
Others claim the Bible’s “prophetic accuracy” while creatively interpreting to make some prophecies “successful”, and to rework those that failed.
It could be worthwhile to examine whether atheists are generally less prone to confirmation bias. The other mystery is whether the theistic tendency to interpret data selectively is itself selective, affecting only matters of faith.
From John Baker
Lois Lee and Stephen Bullivant have no right to report about True Atheists. As the representative on Earth of the One and True Atheist Organisation I report a current membership of one, and declare that categorising atheists is like herding cats. Also, lumping atheists and agnostics together is just wrong. I fear that the authors are mistaking reported beliefs in a religion for belief in a god. It is said some vicars are godless, but they would presumably tick the “religious” box.
Notoriously, belief in religion is highly associated with where one is born and when.
Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, UK
From A. E. Prinn
The issue is more “Why do we think there is an answer?” For some reason, we try to explain everything. A superior entity offers a simple answer, but as education grows the “scientific” answer seems more attractive.
At the graduate level, most of the problems in a specific subject seem to be answered without recourse to blind faith. At the postgraduate level you start to encounter the fact that all our “explanations” are only good approximations.
Then, particularly in laboratory work, you meet problems that are unanswerable in terms of what you know, and that suggest a superior entity with a warped sense of humour.
Ballincollig, County Cork, Ireland
Fish figures
There is no doubt that the eastern bluefin tuna fishery in the Mediterranean was poorly controlled during the first few years of tuna penning and that urgent action is needed to ensure long-term sustainability of this fishery.
The scale of illegal fishing is, however, nowhere near what you imply (14 November 2009, p 44).
The 2007 estimate of 61,000 tonnes was to 34,000 tonnes. Papers on tuna traps in Morocco to the of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in 2009 reported a recent increasing trend in abundance of spawning stock and an increase in mean weight.
It is all too easy to list the species under the , but there is little doubt that this will spawn huge underground activity.
ICCAT has recently reduced the total allowable catch to less than half what it was two years ago. The purse seine fishing season was limited to just one month, and measures were taken to eliminate overcapacity in fishing fleets. The advice from ICCAT’s scientific committee is that this offers a 75 per cent chance that stocks will be stable and a reasonable chance of their improving in the next coming decade.
The vast majority of stakeholders realise the need for such strict measures and strictly adhere to them in search of a sustainable way forward.
Precision vs accuracy
When David Shiga wrote that the Absolute Color Calibration Experiment for Standard Stars will have “a precision of 1 per cent or better” and that this is “twice the accuracy of current measurements” (6 February, p 13) what was he trying to tell us? Precision and accuracy are two very different things.
Take the distance from the centre of the Earth to the centre of the moon: 240,000 miles would be an accurate but imprecise measurement; 289,562 miles would be precise but inaccurate; 238,857 miles would be both accurate and precise.
Will we ever learn?
Coming across a New 杏吧原创 dated March 1975, I read a letter entitled “Energy squandering” from L. M. Newell at the University of Essex, UK, bemoaning shops’ habit of keeping televisions on and the consequent waste of energy. No doubt the writer would have been even more appalled at today’s monsters, which can churn out more heat than a small electric fire.
The car industry made little progress on efficiency until it was obliged to reveal each model’s performance, and most “white goods” are also now required to show their energy efficiency.
Is it not time to extend this to televisions and other electrical equipment?
We learn a little
I am afraid that Derek Hallam (13 February, p 25) and Paul Parsons (16 January, p 38) are misquoting Alexander Pope.
The quotation correctly reads: “A little learning is a dang’rous thing” 鈥� a very different concept to knowledge.
The stanza continues: “Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:/ There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,/ And drinking largely sobers us again.”
For the record
鈥� The nominal domestic electricity supply voltage in Europe is at 230 volts, not 240 volts (13 March, p 20).
鈥� It would take 20 Oyster wave-power system to power 9000 homes, not just one Oyster system (6 March, p 18).