Tortoises and hares
The idea that fast evolution is the norm (2 April, p 32) doesn’t wash. Researchers in the field do consistently observe rapid evolution because that is all the evolution that can take place in the short time spans they are looking at. But a rapid-evolution model is not well suited to explaining the gradual divergence and specialisation of gene sequences, or the generation of completely new protein products and adaptations.
Both of these aspects are aptly addressed by the “slow” model of evolution. Most tellingly, the examples of rapid evolution cited involve deletion, reinstatement or duplication of existing traits and upregulation 鈥� the increased expression of an existing gene.
These constitute basic rewirings of the developmental genetic circuitry, but I believe that most biologists would be hard-pressed to count these examples of rapid evolution as genetic “innovation”.
In other words, slow evolution is still the norm; it just takes time.
From Ben Haller, McGill University
I’d like to praise you for your recent article on rapid evolution.
It was well written and interesting, got the facts right, didn’t lead with a “Darwin was wrong!” teaser and it quoted evolutionary biologists.
The cover picture was beautiful, too, although I can’t resist a little nit-picking; Stephen Jay Gould would have been displeased by its implication that humans are the pinnacle of evolution.
Montreal, Canada
Wedding rows
I first took Geoffrey Miller’s piece on the role of mating intelligence in the courtship of Prince William and Kate Middleton (23 April, p 36) to be a spoof.
Reading on, I realised it was an intentional panegyric, being highly selective with the attributes of both and stretching a point well beyond credulity.
It is not surprising that two individuals of privilege, meeting at an “elite” university and with sufficient in common, struck up and consolidated a relationship, however tortuous the process might have been.
Dunmow, Essex, UK
From Bob Fryer
I noted in your editorial on royal nuptials that the much-publicised wedding was of a “probable future king and queen of England”.
Does that mean that here in Scotland we shall be free to re-establish the Stuart dynasty, should we so choose?
Comrie, Perthshire, UK
Take a torch
Regarding the “Lonesome galaxy” feature (2 April, p 37). In terms of what you can see with the naked eye, for the most part the universe is already a dark, lonely place. The only reason we see anything at night this way is because we are located in a galaxy that is itself located in the middle of a group of galaxies.
Other than the stars in the Milky Way, without a telescope pretty much all we can see is four or five barely visible galaxies.
And the only reason we can see them is because they are part of the Local Group of galaxies, which are nearby and gravitationally bound to us.
If you were suddenly transported to a random spotin the universe, the chances are that the sky would be completely dark.
Don't call us
The hypothesis of competition for resources on a cosmic scale creating the conditions for the evolution of discreet extra-terrestrials (16 April, p 19), who lie low to avoid exploitation, is interesting but speculative.
There is another possible reason for ET staying quiet 鈥� our biologies could be different and contact could be a hazard. H. G. Wells, in 1898’s The War of the Worlds, suggested Martian invaders would be killed by terrestrial bacteria. But he hadn’t imagined there would be Martian bacteria. If two different biologies, each with its own bacteria, should meet, it’s anyone’s guess which one would survive.
Battle of wills
I accept Francis Crick’s suggestion that we “are nothing but a pack of neurons” and that free will is an illusion, as mentioned in New 杏吧原创‘s feature (16 April, p 32), yet I do hold people morally responsible for their actions.
This is because I care not so much about what free will means philosophically, as about practical consequences. If someone is considered not responsible then you do not punish them, yet punishment makes sense even without free will. Threats of punishment, reasoned argument and promised rewards are all inputs to the automaton that is the human mind. They can and do alter behaviour.
A society that relinquishes belief in free will can still justify its systems of law and order.
Roger Taylor
The universe is patently deterministic, though that knowledge gets us nowhere as the “chain” of cause and effect 鈥� including such “unfinished business” gems as the causes of quantum uncertainty 鈥� goes back to the big bang, or whatever it was.
Plus, chaos theory being what it is, we will have to know everything about every fundamental particle in the universe in order to predict its future state, so let’s hope there isn’t a solitary pi or root 2 knocking about anywhere.
So, while the universe is deterministic, free will is a good working approximation.
Wirral, UK
Iain Petrie
As far as I’m concerned, even when neuroscientists fully understand the function of every neuron in a brain and can explain and predict every firing and map every connection to every other neuron, we would still have no idea how consciousness is created. At present science cannot explain qualia, our subjective experience of colours, sounds, sensations. The workings of consciousness remain a mystery.
Only when neuroscience can tackle the hard problem of consciousness will its deterministic suppositions be even a remote threat to our understanding of free will.
Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK
Keep it low-rise
I enjoyed the feature on rebuilding civilisation from scratch (26 March, p 40). I applaud the idea that we would stop using expensively treated drinking water to flush away waste. I’d like to add another: I believe we waste energy in constructing and operating buildings more than, say, 10 storeys high. At the same time we are faced with energy constraints and increasingly obese populations.
Why transport all that material, fittings and furniture up to the clouds, pump water to the top, put us in boxes and spend the next 50 years winching us all up and down? Why not build on a human scale and use the stairs.
Your plate or mine?
With regard to the article “Rule book rewrite for megaquakes” (23 April, p 6), your diagrams seem to refer to the wrong plate. I thought Japan was part of the Eurasian plate, not the North American plate.
Edinburgh, UK
鈥� The editor writes:
Views on which is the correct plate differ among geologists. New 杏吧原创 went with the North American plate because that’s what the US Geological Survey indicates on its maps.
Blood money
Good to hear that scientists have caught on to the idea that paying for results can backfire (9 April, p 40), even if it is rather late in the day. The Gift Relationship by London School of Economics academic Richard Titmuss, published in 1970, gained classic status for arguing that blood donation is largely altruistic and paying donors could be counterproductive.
More recently, economist John Kay’s book Obliquity (Profile Books, 2010) compellingly showed that great financial success is often best achieved by aiming for something else, not least the thrills of invention and competition. The recent financial crisis has led to some soul searching; economics is not always the “monolith profession” that some would like it to be.
What a way to go
Having read about the success of cockroaches (16 April, p 40), can I suggest one method of control. Whenever I leave my glass with red wine dregs on the kitchen bench overnight, there is sure to be at least one drowned roach in it the next morning. The beneficial effects of red wine compared with white, which roaches avoid, are thus proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Swear it's true
The “um” and “er” hesitation sounds analysed by Richard Aslin (23 April, p 27) are particularly useful to polite speakers of English. The choice between “an” before a word starting with a vowel and “a” before a consonant is tricky for those still thinking about what to say, so polite people drop in such vowel-based hesitations, allowing them to safely plump for a preceding “an”.
The swearier among us, of course, would rather drop in a short expletive, which invariably starts with a consonant and therefore demands an “a”.
On the button
In his letter on the evolution of fingers and thumbs (9 April), Chris Owen describes how members of an older generation press doorbells with their index fingers, while those from “generation Y” almost universally use their thumbs. However, those of us familiar with the story of how guests on one floor in a Hong Kong hotel apparently infected each other with SARS via an elevator button, now push buttons with a knuckle or a prosthetic device such as a pen.
Chewing it over
In your article “Higgs could die a colourful death” (16 April, p 8), there appear to be two containers of captured technicolour particles that would make the Higgs unnecessary in the right foreground of the photo. Perhaps all the technical personnel are too focused on the Tevatron display to notice the target of their search under their noses.
鈥� The editor writes:
…or maybe they’ve all got a sweet tooth?