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Canine calculus
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As a mother’s age increases, the likelihood her offspring will survive or be healthy decreases. She is also likely to be less able to care for more young children. The reproductive viability of later offspring is thus likely to decrease. If this fall-off with mother’s age at conception is sufficiently steep, those who continue to conceive successfully as age increases will be selected against because their later offspring will not reproduce. Other factors would also need to operate to push reproduction into a younger age group, so that a greater proportion of a women’s offspring will end up reproducing. Those identified by Cant would be such a possible driving force. Wellington, New Zealand From Carole Karan As a woman of happily postmenopausal age, I can think of several additional things that encourage menopause. Anything a new birth does that increases the likelihood of one or more previous children dying would encourage a cut-off of late fertility. For example, the higher rate of defects in births from older women would mean wasting resources on some pregnancies that will never lead to another adult at the expense of older offspring. Older women are also much more likely to be widowed, and the food that mates supply should not be underestimated. Mebane, North Carolina, US
little faster than a 1980s model running pre-Windows software. The assumption that Moore’s law will compensate for inefficiently designed systems leads to Prior’s conjecture: sloppy software losses will negate Moore’s law gains. Malvern, Worcestershire, UK
in the west was the narrow interpretation of religious texts. Only when Greek texts rescued and translated by the Arabs from the moribund Byzantine empire found their way to the west, and the shackles on learning were eased, did advances become possible again. Lincoln, UK
Greeks’ gifts
From Stuart Leslie Jo Marchant asks why the Greeks did not use their science to create useful technology (13 December 2008, p 36). Could it be because Greek civilisation was based on slavery? Plato and Aristotle both wrote that civilisation was impossible without slaves. This implies the answer to her second question: to what better use could technology be put than understanding and demonstrating the nature of the universe? I suggest that improving the lot and lessening the suffering of human beings takes first place every time. Dorrigo, New South Wales, Australia
From Nicholas Dore You speculate on what the Greeks might have achieved had the Romans not supplanted their culture (13 December 2008, p 5). This rather misunderstands the role of the Romans, who were great admirers of the Greeks and eagerly adopted much of Greek thought and culture. The Romans might not have been particularly original thinkers or inventors, but adapted and used whatever they found in the societies they conquered. The failure of the Greeks to take their technology further was more likely due to the chaotic rivalry between their city-states. This effectively crippled them, both in their resistance to Rome and in adapting technology to everyday life. Even so, much knowledge might still have survived to allow further advances had the rise of
Less is Moore From Andy Prior Scientists and engineers have indeed done an impressive job in realising Moore’s law over the years (6 December 2008, p 35). What a pity that the average PC user has not seen the equivalent leap in “user experience”. A combination of operating system bloat, poorly configured and maintained networks, and overzealous virus checkers means that for many, PCs today seem www.newscientist.com
Christianity not got in the way. From the outset, Christianity regarded learning, in particular inquiry into the nature of the physical world, as positively dangerous. All that passed for learning for over 1000 years
Dangerous sex in a pill From Tessa Kendall Bernd Brunner is “terrified” by Clare Wilson saying an “intelligent and well-informed” gay man “sometimes” has unsafe sex. He sees this as a contradiction, and believes this kind of behaviour to be unusual (20/27 December 2008, p 18). If his reasoning were correct, then intelligent, informed people would never smoke, take drugs, drink to excess or be overweight. Smart people do dumb things, especially for sex. Human nature often contradicts common sense. London, UK
Canine calculus From Mike Legge Marcus du Sautoy opines that we have the innate mathematics skills needed to survive things being thrown at us and gauge
enemies’ sizes (29 November 2008, p 44). My dog can compute the trajectory and velocity of an object far better than I can. Does this mean that she is better at mathematics than I am? In contrast, small yappy dogs seem not to realise how small they are. Are they therefore both vertically and mathematically challenged? Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
Gunner Copernicus From Andrew Brooker Copernicus may have expelled us in principle from the centre of the universe (15 November 2008, p 32), but I am reminded of an incident in Spike Milligan’s memoirs of the British army: Officer (shouting): “You there, what are you doing over there?” Milligan: “Uh, everybody gotta be somewhere, sir.” Bristol, UK
For the record ● Scud missiles are not intercontinental ballistic missiles: they have a range of only 1000 kilometres and are classed as intermediate-range ballistic missiles (13 December 2008, p 26). Letters should be sent to: Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Fax: +44 (0) 20 7611 1280 Email: [email protected] Include your full postal address and telephone number, and a reference (issue, page number, title) to articles. We reserve the right to edit letters. Reed Business Information reserves the right to use any submissions sent to the letters column of New Scientist magazine, in any other format.
17 January 2009 | NewScientist | 17
As a mother’s age increases, the likelihood her offspring will survive or be healthy decreases. She is also likely to be less able to care for more young children. The reproductive viability of later offspring is thus likely to decrease. If this fall-off with mother’s age at conception is sufficiently steep, those who continue to conceive successfully as age increases will be selected against because their later offspring will not reproduce. Other factors would also need to operate to push reproduction into a younger age group, so that a greater proportion of a women’s offspring will end up reproducing. Those identified by Cant would be such a possible driving force. Wellington, New Zealand From Carole Karan As a woman of happily postmenopausal age, I can think of several additional things that encourage menopause. Anything a new birth does that increases the likelihood of one or more previous children dying would encourage a cut-off of late fertility. For example, the higher rate of defects in births from older women would mean wasting resources on some pregnancies that will never lead to another adult at the expense of older offspring. Older women are also much more likely to be widowed, and the food that mates supply should not be underestimated. Mebane, North Carolina, US
little faster than a 1980s model running pre-Windows software. The assumption that Moore’s law will compensate for inefficiently designed systems leads to Prior’s conjecture: sloppy software losses will negate Moore’s law gains. Malvern, Worcestershire, UK
in the west was the narrow interpretation of religious texts. Only when Greek texts rescued and translated by the Arabs from the moribund Byzantine empire found their way to the west, and the shackles on learning were eased, did advances become possible again. Lincoln, UK
Greeks’ gifts
From Stuart Leslie Jo Marchant asks why the Greeks did not use their science to create useful technology (13 December 2008, p 36). Could it be because Greek civilisation was based on slavery? Plato and Aristotle both wrote that civilisation was impossible without slaves. This implies the answer to her second question: to what better use could technology be put than understanding and demonstrating the nature of the universe? I suggest that improving the lot and lessening the suffering of human beings takes first place every time. Dorrigo, New South Wales, Australia
From Nicholas Dore You speculate on what the Greeks might have achieved had the Romans not supplanted their culture (13 December 2008, p 5). This rather misunderstands the role of the Romans, who were great admirers of the Greeks and eagerly adopted much of Greek thought and culture. The Romans might not have been particularly original thinkers or inventors, but adapted and used whatever they found in the societies they conquered. The failure of the Greeks to take their technology further was more likely due to the chaotic rivalry between their city-states. This effectively crippled them, both in their resistance to Rome and in adapting technology to everyday life. Even so, much knowledge might still have survived to allow further advances had the rise of
Less is Moore From Andy Prior Scientists and engineers have indeed done an impressive job in realising Moore’s law over the years (6 December 2008, p 35). What a pity that the average PC user has not seen the equivalent leap in “user experience”. A combination of operating system bloat, poorly configured and maintained networks, and overzealous virus checkers means that for many, PCs today seem www.newscientist.com
Christianity not got in the way. From the outset, Christianity regarded learning, in particular inquiry into the nature of the physical world, as positively dangerous. All that passed for learning for over 1000 years
Dangerous sex in a pill From Tessa Kendall Bernd Brunner is “terrified” by Clare Wilson saying an “intelligent and well-informed” gay man “sometimes” has unsafe sex. He sees this as a contradiction, and believes this kind of behaviour to be unusual (20/27 December 2008, p 18). If his reasoning were correct, then intelligent, informed people would never smoke, take drugs, drink to excess or be overweight. Smart people do dumb things, especially for sex. Human nature often contradicts common sense. London, UK
Canine calculus From Mike Legge Marcus du Sautoy opines that we have the innate mathematics skills needed to survive things being thrown at us and gauge
enemies’ sizes (29 November 2008, p 44). My dog can compute the trajectory and velocity of an object far better than I can. Does this mean that she is better at mathematics than I am? In contrast, small yappy dogs seem not to realise how small they are. Are they therefore both vertically and mathematically challenged? Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
Gunner Copernicus From Andrew Brooker Copernicus may have expelled us in principle from the centre of the universe (15 November 2008, p 32), but I am reminded of an incident in Spike Milligan’s memoirs of the British army: Officer (shouting): “You there, what are you doing over there?” Milligan: “Uh, everybody gotta be somewhere, sir.” Bristol, UK
For the record ● Scud missiles are not intercontinental ballistic missiles: they have a range of only 1000 kilometres and are classed as intermediate-range ballistic missiles (13 December 2008, p 26). Letters should be sent to: Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Fax: +44 (0) 20 7611 1280 Email: [email protected] Include your full postal address and telephone number, and a reference (issue, page number, title) to articles. We reserve the right to edit letters. Reed Business Information reserves the right to use any submissions sent to the letters column of New Scientist magazine, in any other format.
17 January 2009 | NewScientist | 17