Curse of giftedness
As an educator and a parent of gifted children, I thought your interview with Joan Freeman about the dangers of labelling children as gifted was unhelpful (9 October, p 30). Although its main focus was on non-gifted children who have been wrongly labelled as gifted, often by their dysfunctional parents, the overall effect was to feed the stigma already attached to gifted children and their families.
Most parents of gifted children do not fit the stereotype of pushy tyrants. Indeed, a report called by the Australian Senate’s Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education committee states that parents are more accurate at diagnosing their child’s special needs than teachers are. Even so, they still tend to underestimate their child’s ability rather than overestimate it.
Despite this, in many Australian schools giftedness is still strongly stigmatised by teachers and teachers’ unions. Parents who believe their child is gifted have to be prepared to fight the system to get their child the support they need.
Freeman’s assertion that “if you label a child as gifted when they are not… the child has the most terrible burden” is no doubt true. But so is the reverse: a gifted child left to struggle without having their special learning needs recognised and addressed suffers too.
Freeman also suggests that gifted children may end up isolated among much older classmates. Yet what children need are “mind peers” rather than age peers. Just like children with learning difficulties, gifted children can have trouble fitting in and often do better in special learning environments. Grade-skipping can benefit them both socially and intellectually.
Science of morality
In the opening article of your recent special on morality, Fiery Cushman suggests we should recognise that “morality is a property of the mind” (16 October, p 41). What is not clear is whether he thinks it is also a property of the world beyond the mind.
It is remarkable to think that our evolved minds could reflect the external world, but it seems they do. Take mathematics, which is presumably a property of the mind that is also present in the cosmos. Why could this not be true for morality?
From Martyn Todd
In your special on morality, the views of the philosopher David Hume and economist Adam Smith were mentioned.
It is worth noting that both were students of Francis Hutcheson following his election as professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow in 1729, and both corresponded with him about their own writings. It was Hutcheson who first used the phrase: “That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers”, which became the cornerstone of the utilitarian philosophers.
Hutcheson got into trouble with church authorities in Dublin as a young man when he proposed that there was innate goodness in people as well as innate evil, a view now gaining scientific support.
Saintfield, County Down, UK
From Bill Foster
When considering the judicial ramifications of understanding the neurology of crime, Martha J. Farah needs to consider whether the purpose of judicial punishment is deterrence or retribution.
Legal systems that have an emphasis on guilt appear to favour the latter. But no one should be punished for something for which they are not responsible. If morality is linked to brain function, as Farah states, then there is no free will so no one is responsible for anything. If that is the case, it is best to leave the question of guilt to the hereafter.
Considering punishment as a deterrent is more productive, as it prevents the offender from repeating their offence and deters copy-cat offenders. However, if anyone claims that they couldn’t help themselves, their punishment should be increased rather than reduced, as they obviously require more deterrence.
Crewkerne, Somerset, UK
From Lawrence D’Oliveiro
There were some interesting discussions about religion and morality in your recent opinion special. It should be remembered, however, that the conflation of religion and morality is something quite specific to monotheistic religions.
Older polytheistic/pantheistic traditions did not see the gods as guardians of morality. Instead, morality was a basic fact of nature, something that governed the behaviour of gods and humans alike. Granted, gods were powerful forces, capable of wreaking havoc on human lives, but they still had to face the consequences of their actions, just as humans do.
Hamilton, New Zealand
Make more land
Stopping sea level rise, using the ideas reported by Stephen Battersby (18 September, p 40), is not the only strategy for saving ourselves from the rising seas.
In the deltaic areas of Bangladesh, silt from rivers is directed to fill depressions, called beels, so that it eventually creates elevated land. The New York Times reported last year that about .
I have argued that atoll nations should think of sacrificing some islands now in order to raise the level of others 鈥� a strategy of “better to save some than not to have any” ().
A new method of large-scale modular planting of mangroves, complemented by the addition of sediments, is another option that should be considered. Mangroves can grow on non-muddy substrates, including sand, gravels, coral flats, rock surfaces and even on the boulders of some sea defences.
Placenta aplenty
It may indeed be odd to see placenta extract of “vegetable or animal” origin as an ingredient in a cosmetic product (Feedback, 2 October), but I was not altogether surprised by Richard Greenwood’s revelation.
When I was working as professor of nursing in a university in Ireland in 2003, and had strong links with the local hospital, I was told that it had only recently stopped collecting placentas to sell to the big cosmetic companies. I have no idea what ingredients were extracted from the human placentas, but I suspect this practice may have been a widespread in maternity hospitals in many countries.
From Peter Morgenroth
I imagine that Richard Greenwood is not a botanist. In the vegetable world a placenta is a sporangium-bearing surface, the ovule-bearing part of the carpel of a seed plant, or the point on a fern or fern-ally sporophyll at which sporangia develop.
I am happy with the idea of placental extracts of animal or vegetable origin, but am mystified by what could be extracted from an animal or vegetable placenta that might substitute, one for the other, in a cosmetic preparation.
Melbourne, Australia
Solar relay
Charles Choi reports on the theoretical Dyson-Harrop satellite, which is designed to capture energy from solar winds, and the problem of transmitting this energy back to Earth (25 September, p 26).
Rather than the concentrated laser beam suggested in the article, could this not be done using a ladder-like array of satellites to pass power back to the Earth? Obviously, the energy losses would be immense, but with the staggering power generated by the Dyson-Harrop set-up, this would not appear to be a problem.
Superionicity
David Shiga reports on simulations that suggest the extreme conditions within Uranus and Neptune could produce a layer of superionic water around their cores (4 September, p 15).
Simulations with molecules heavier than water, such as hydrogen sulphide or iron hydride, could be used to explore whether they undergo similar high-pressure transitions. These would be expected to occur at much lower pressures, perhaps even those found in the Earth’s core.
If they do, it would open up interesting possibilities for explaining poorly understood aspects of our own planet, such as the composition of the its core.
Chopping choppers
Paul Marks’s article on high-speed helicopters failed to mention the issue of noise (16 October, p 20).
In south-east England, noise from flying helicopters has increased dramatically over the past five years and has now reached unacceptable levels. As today’s machines fly very low, they are noisier and more intrusive than large commercial aircraft. A faster version would no doubt make this problem worse.
From David Markham
When referring to the problem of how to balance torque forces without a tail rotor, Paul Marks states that “Sikorsky solved this by adding two contra-rotating sets of rotor blades on top”. This is hardly a new idea. Both the American company Kaman and the Russian constructor Kamov have built helicopters in this configuration, dispensing with the tail rotor.
One advantage of this design is that the fuselage can be kept short, which makes the helicopter particularly suitable for maritime operations, where storage space on board ships is at a premium.
London, UK
Wandering winds
In the Instant Expert on extreme weather, Jeff Masters states that tropical cyclones get their spin from the disorganised air systems off the African coast, which then move eastward towards the Caribbean (2 October).
If that were true, these systems would have to cross the African continent before tracking across the Indian ocean, the Malay Archipelago, the Pacific 鈥� perhaps stopping off for a rest in Hawaii 鈥� before finally crossing the Yucat谩n peninsula and arriving in the Caribbean. Seems like the scenic route to me.
For the record
鈥� Contrary to what we stated, the alcohol limit for P-plate holders in New South Wales, Australia, is zero for the first year only (Feedback, 16 October). In the second year it rises to 0.02 millilitres per litre.
鈥� The capital of Nigeria is Abuja, not Lagos as we said in our UK-only graduate careers special (23 October).