Editor's pick: The trouble with the sacred
I agree with Mary-Jane Rubenstein that we do not need to choose between God and the multiverse and that we should think differently about what is sacred (19/26 December 2015, p 64).
The problem, it seems to me, is that to define what is sacred defines, by default, what is not sacred – what is profane or mundane. Surely, it is that which has contributed so largely to our sad, violent history, and given us a licence to exploit our world with no sense of respect; which in turn has led us to our current ecological crisis.
But whether we look at it from a scientific or Western religious perspective, it has never made sense to split up the universe in this way. Perhaps the most basic assumption of science is that the universe – everything – is one coherent whole. The body of scientific knowledge we have built sees any potential divergence from that as a problem.
Religion, too, holds that the universe is God's creation. So, logically then, everything is sacred, and it would be a travesty to deem anything as not sacred. (Mystics enthusiastically tell us this, and I must say that I see their point.)
The worst we can do is redefine the sacred – we should give up the whole idea. Which leads me to the question: why do some of us feel the need to deem anything sacred?
Detecting the 'Wow!' signal
You report a suggestion that the “Wow! signal” picked up on 15 August 1977 at the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University might have come from one or more passing comets (16 January, p 12). I was the chief observer at Big Ear from 1989 until it was dismantled.
Big Ear used dual feedhorns to collect radio waves. As Earth rotates, radio images drift past the receivers. In conventional radio telescopes with one feedhorn, each source creates a single “bump” every day, if it appears day after day.
However, with the dual feedhorn receiver system at Big Ear, a source detected by one feedhorn would be picked up by the other about 168 seconds later, recorded as a “bump-bump” each day. The Wow! signal caused only one “bump”. A slow-moving comet would create a “bump-bump”.
I don't have strong feelings about the source of the signal – there's not enough information. Its lack of Doppler shift strongly suggests that it was a point far away – well beyond geostationary orbit. How far away it was, though, is hard to tell.
First class post
Single underlying problem: treating the atmosphere as an open sewer
the climatic causes of the recent flooding in the UK (9 January, p 11).
Tax and dividend carbon plan
William Hughes-Games referred to your leader on carbon pricing (17 October 2015, p 5) and the support given to the tax-and-dividend carbon plan (Letters, 21 November 2015). I invented and published this plan in November 1973, during an energy crisis. Carbon emissions are what economists call an “externality” – a cost to society not included in companies' accounts.
Simple taxes on these, as proposed by economist Arthur Pigou in 1920, have three major drawbacks: almost everything we use would increase in price, so there would be massive inflation; such taxes would hit the poor harder than the rich; and large sums would be taken out of circulation and put at the disposal of the government to build, for example, bridges to nowhere.
The variation I proposed was the “revenue-neutral” application of “fees”. These are not taxes, because they don't go to the government.
They would be introduced gradually under the guidance of a governmental committee, deposited in a trust fund, and distributed monthly equally to all legal adult citizens. Cost of living indexes would be adjusted for these “rebate” payments to eliminate inflation effects.
The poor would benefit, getting the same rebate as the rich while incurring far fewer fees.
Quantum reasons for needing sleep
After reading “A bit in two minds” (5 December 2015, p 28) it occurred to me that Matthew Fisher's estimate of the time the Posner molecule maintains quantum coherence – about a day – might be the very reason that brains would have evolved to use this molecule, since it fits in handily with the day-night cycle.
Speculating further, it seems likely that the daily rough and tumble would cause a build-up of “decoherence”, necessitating a period of coherence-building rest. This is as good an explanation as any of the need for sleep.
A malfunction leading to full or partial “decoherence” might also be responsible for the vegetative state. I look forward to hearing more of this exciting idea as techniques and tests are developed. These thoughts came to me the morning after reading the article, awaking with a fully coherent brain following a good night's sleep!
That's one more darkling ecosystem
Anil Ananthaswamy says that beneath the Antarctic may lie a second chemosynthetic ecosystem existing in complete isolation from solar energy (12 December 2015, p 40).
This may in fact be the third, the second being the Movile cave system in Romania, sealed for 5.5 million years and discovered in 1986. Movile boasts at least 44 species, including insects, leeches and spiders. It is entirely possible that there may be other terrestrial ecosystems dependent on chemosynthesis dotted around the globe.
Uppsala, Sweden
The editor writes:
• Ah, yes: we should have referred to our report on the Movile cave system (27 April 2013, p 36).
Blinding marine life for science
Deep sea submersibles have provided some amazing images recently (for example, 8 August 2015, p 14). They plunge into the twilight zone, showing the rich and often completely unknown life present at such depths.
Many of the creatures living down there have eyes adapted to gather the tiniest amount of light, often only faintly glimmering bioluminescence. Notable among these are the amazing eyes of deep-water sharks and cephalopods. What I would like to know is: what effects do the extremely bright lights of the submersible have upon these very sensitive eyes? Surely it can't be very good.
With a few thousand times normal illumination blasting at you, your eyes would be severely affected. At the very least an after-image would persist for some time, making it impossible to see clearly. At worst, you would suffer permanent eye damage.
In the UK flash photography of seahorses, a protected species, is forbidden by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, because the bright light can harm and even kill them.
So what of the poor light-sensitive-deep sea species?
Just trust in Open Source software
Lee Tien and Jeremy Gillula raise important issues about trust in the “internet of things” that the software industry will have to grapple with (12 December 2015, p 26). But they do not mention the largest economic and social movements to create transparent, user-controlled software.
The Free and Open Source movements offer a legal framework with a strong social charter of user rights. It is not just economically viable but also more effective than the proprietary software model favoured by some large technology companies.
Teach me where this quote's from…
One article in your entertaining Christmas/New Year magazine particularly interested me: the feature in which psychologist James Pennebaker is quoted as saying, “Language might dictate perception and behaviour” (19/26 December 2015, p 56).
About half a century ago, I came across the quote: “Teach me a man's language, and I shall know how he thinks.” Since then, I have tried many times to find its source and even mentioned it in these pages (Letters, 26 May 2012). Can anyone tell me who said this, and when? Full reference details would also be greatly appreciated.
Hair today
Adrian Barnett suggests that the current trend for beards is an assertion of masculinity in the face of feminism (19/26 December 2015, p 67). Is it not, then, time for women to claim the same rights?
If facial hair is a sign of adulthood in men, why can't leg hair carry the same badge of honour for women?
Social pressure imposes clean-shaven legs on Western adult females, despite the fact that this renders them permanently pre-pubescent.
When I question this I am told that men do not find hairy legged women attractive.
Are we to conclude that men prefer women who resemble under-age girls? Why can men decide to reclaim masculinity yet definitions of femininity remain so misconstrued and distorted?
Reasons for our lack of success
Your review of the book The Secret of Our Success (12 December 2015, p 44) prompted me to wonder why the genus Homo was so uniquely unsuccessful. Of at least 16 Homo species that existed over hundreds of thousands of years, all but one went extinct, and we probably only managed to slip through the door to survival by the skin of our teeth.
Given our spectacular success why did all those other smarter-than-animals Homos go over the cliff?
For the record
• Strictly speaking, the oestrogen production that falls off around menopause occurs in egg follicles (2 January, p 8).
• We should have said that almost every antibiotic comes from 1 per cent of microbes (2 January, p 36).
• The male spiders that Jürgen Otto and David Hill observed playing a “peek-a-boo paddle game” appear to be doing it to gauge a female's interest in mating (16 January, p 18). Interested females mate within minutes: those that have already mated can carry on with the game for hours, never falling for the male.