- Email: [email protected]
No reason to be cheerful
Letters– Not just the IMF’s fault From Sean Harkin I was intrigued by your editorial linking increased incidence of tuberculosis in the 1990s in Eastern European countries to their involvement with the International Monetary Fund (26 July, p 5). It is true that the conditions on lending imposed by the IMF have often been far too austere, but it is important to avoid simplistic conclusions in economic analysis – attractive though they may be. The observed rise in TB was almost certainly due to cuts in government spending on health. However, these cuts might have happened even in the absence of IMF-imposed austerity programmes. Following the collapse of communism, much of Eastern Europe was left with decaying and hopelessly uncompetitive industries, shrinking GDP and falling tax revenues from which to fund social spending. Similar economic upheaval occurred in Latin America in the 1980s and prompted IMF intervention: economies stagnated, living standards fell across the region and the IMF has, in some quarters, been identified as the chief culprit. But Latin American governments had borrowed heavily in the 1970s to develop state-supported industries, and the hike in global interest rates from 1980 left them unable to support these debts. It is difficult to know how much of the social pain that was felt in these years was due to the delayed consequences of poor domestic economic policy and how much was due to the IMF. It is right to be critical of the blindly free-market policies of the IMF and the Washington consensus in general. However, we should remember that it will always be difficult to fund social services across entire regions in economic trouble, and we should be equally critical of governments that have failed their own people like this. London, UK 18 | NewScientist | 30 August 2008
From Mark Baraniecki A more rational analysis might suggest that economic stabilisation, investment and the enlightened support of individual autonomy, democracy and the rule of law has something to do with these Eastern European countries’ impressive rates of growth and well-being. If you are suggesting that they now abandon the “Chicago school of economics” to return to a centrally planned school of economics, then a simple experiment would be to ask a cross section of Eastern Europeans if they would like to return to communism (and a lower rate of TB). Calpe, Alicante, Spain
Wonderful cosmos From James Humphreys Lawrence Krauss states that if science “turns out to suggest that we are alone in a universe without purpose, we must accept that” (2 August, p 52). Science could suggest, then, that atheism is true. But if science could suggest that atheism is true, why could it not suggest that theism is? Krauss rejects this latter possibility, even in principle, saying that “any spiritual enlightenment provided by science is merely in the eye of the beholder”. In other words, the theist, unlike the atheist, cannot hope to base his belief on the objective nature of physical reality. But why should that be? The problem for Krauss, as I see it, is this: either he must provide an argument which demonstrates how it is that science can support atheism but not theism – and I do not think that he can provide one – or else his argument falls to the charge that it is fallacious, involving special pleading for atheism. Colchester, Essex, UK From Robert Bennie I am a born-again atheist. I was born an atheist, converted to Christianity before my eyes could focus and, as an adult, reverted to
atheism. I now live my life to exactly the same principles as I did when I was a believer. As a believer I tried to act as though God was always looking over my shoulder – whereas I now try to live my life as though my parents are looking over my shoulder. There is no discernible difference. Michael Whalley (9 August, p 20) requests details of the meaning or philosophical consolation being sought by religious believers. It is obviously the transcendence of death. There is only one significant difference between my believer knowledge and my rationalist knowledge, and that is the knowledge that my death will be permanent. I thank no rationalist for that knowledge. Ferntree Gully, Victoria, Australia
Blight here, blight now From Ben Raskin, Soil Association The problem of blight resistance in potatoes (2 August, p 30) will not necessarily be solved by using the myriad South American varieties, nor by genetic modification. It is not the lack of genetic variation which makes the crop vulnerable, but the fact that the blight pathogen did not co-evolve with South American potatoes, so they did not develop resistance to it. The evidence is that the countless varieties of potato grown in South America are all susceptible to blight – if they were not, we would already be growing them in the UK. Blight-resistant GM varieties do not offer the answer because this resistance breaks down
quickly. But conventionally bred, blight-resistant “Sárpo” varieties are already being successfully grown by organic farmers. Sárpo varieties’ resistance is less prone to breaking down and appears to withstand virulent strains of blight now in north-west Europe. Sárpos originated from varieties bred in Hungary for low-input Soviet agricultural systems. They also have some resistance to viral diseases, and work continues to develop them. Learning to grow and process varieties whose environmental benefits are clear is the way ahead for the potato industry. Bristol, UK
No reason to be cheerful From David T. McCanna A. C. Grayling, in his commentary on reason (26 July, p 42), makes some unreasonable mistakes. First, he lumps all critique of classical reason into one sentence and thereby dismisses the entire scope of complaint – a technique used by conservatives with an ideological agenda and other propagandists. Secondly, he seems to conflate “ought” with “what is”. The goals of enlightenment are lofty, but they are ideals; they are “what ought to be”. Critique of the enlightenment programme usually rests on “what is” – on how things actually turned out. As someone who lives west of the Atlantic Ocean, I am familiar with the current US president’s insistence that “we are a nation of law.” Yet he refuses to sign into law what the majority of the rest of the world finds eminently reasonable, and voids law where he sees fit. Using another ideal quoted by Grayling, why has our nation militarily removed more freely elected democracies than dictatorships in the past 100 years? Rio Rancho, New Mexico, US From Kris Ericksen One could say (with apologies to one-time British prime minister www.newscientist.com
See newscientist.com for letters on: ● Smoke and sots ● Metal anorexia
Winston Churchill) that reason is the worst form of thinking, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Wellington, New Zealand
It’s a dog’s life… again From Zoe Jewell An estimated 3 to 4 million dogs are euthanised each year in the US because they are unwanted companion animals. Might one of these have been a suitable companion for the clients of Lou Hawthorne who are looking for a replacement pet (19 July, p 44)? This could save their current dog the distress of surgical
so, it doesn’t, but for reasons quite unrelated to the evasive rebuff you quoted from Dawkins himself. The possibility that gene expression can vary and be transmitted to offspring is itself an evolved adaptation – one that allows an organism to thrive in a broader range of environments. This is essential to organisms not able to alter their environment or to seek a better one. As such, epigenetics is more akin to the cultural transmission of behavioural changes, another evolved possibility. It is confusing to present it as a mechanism for evolution, or indeed as a paradigm for explaining selection – which the selfish gene seems to be. Houdelaincourt, Meuse, France
Anthropic what?
intervention in being cloned as part of the “Best Friends Again” programme. Can’t best friends be different friends? Hawthorne’s clients in their old age will remember only one character with whom they shared their lives – over and over again. The individual animals in this chain will lose their uniqueness. Surely diversity and difference are to be celebrated in both the human and animal worlds. Monchique, Portugal
Strange inheritance From Harry Dewulf Emma Young asks whether evidence of transgenerational epigenetic changes challenges biologist Richard Dawkins’s ubiquitous “selfish gene” (12 July, p 28). Much as it pains me to say www.newscientist.com
From Philip Pattemore Is the multiverse that Stephen Battersby describes (19 July, p 36) any different in essence from the “infinite improbability drive” invented by Douglas Adams in his radio play The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Yes: the greatest achievement of the improbability drive was to produce a bowl of petunias and a sperm whale high in the atmosphere of a planet. The multiverse, meanwhile, is charged with producing not only petunias and sperm whales, but life, the universe and everything. It strikes me that modern cosmologists must be having to tread a very fine line between two choices. One is to conclude that life and intelligence spring out everywhere the environment allows. This idea suggests that life and intelligence are built-in properties of the universe (or even the multiverse). This smacks of intelligent purpose. The other choice implies a rare Earth, rare life, rare intelligence, and an infinitesimally rare universe – all of which smacks of intelligent fiddling of the odds.
After all, the fact that, by existing, we have won an almost infinitely improbable lottery is a retrospective perception. Prospectively, there would be no way to tell whether a multiverse would yield any universe capable of supporting life or intelligence. It would be a lottery without a sponsor and without a guaranteed winning ticket. Although the multiverse is toted as an explanation for the “fine-tuning” of our universe for the benefit of life, I believe it is little more than a fancy version of the infinite improbability drive. In place of the theology of a god-of-the-gaps we now have a multiverse-of-the-gaps. With or without the multiverse, we still haven’t escaped the question of intelligent purpose or intervention. Christchurch, New Zealand
Time to panic From Charles Goodwin I used to be fairly confident that the human race was unlikely to be completely wiped out in the near future, either by its own hand or some cosmic disaster. However, now that I’ve been
Breast control From Diane Wiessinger Jo Whelan reports on efforts to improve formula milk (12 July, p 38). Touting the “benefits” of breastfeeding makes formulafeeding appear safe and normal. Science properly compares the experiment to the norm and not the other way around. I have rewritten the first paragraph of the article, using identical language but with breastfeeding as the control: “Formula is not as good. There’s no doubt about it. The list of proven risks grows longer every year. Artificially fed babies are not only more susceptible to a huge range of infections, they also suffer lifelong deficits, from lower intelligence to a higher risk of obesity and diabetes.” That puts the quest for a “better” formula in a different light, doesn’t it? When our energies and funds go towards the fourth-best option, then the first-best (helping mothers breastfeed), second-best (the mother’s own expressed milk, rather than direct breastfeeding) and third-best (banked human milk – see 16 August, p 18) are less likely to be promoted. That adds up to a huge overall loss. Even a “better formula” is still unnecessarily damaging to babies, no matter how much money it makes for industry. Ithaca, New York, US
For the record ● Whatever constellation it was that Feedback saw “just where we left it the last time we looked” (9 August), it wasn’t Orion, which is not visible in London at midnight in summer.
reassured that this is so by a panel of experts (26 July, p 8), I’ve started to feel a lot less confident. A look at how the predictions of experts have measured up in the past makes this article seem rather less than reassuring. Ngaio, Wellington, New Zealand
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.
30 August 2008 | NewScientist | 19
From Mark Baraniecki A more rational analysis might suggest that economic stabilisation, investment and the enlightened support of individual autonomy, democracy and the rule of law has something to do with these Eastern European countries’ impressive rates of growth and well-being. If you are suggesting that they now abandon the “Chicago school of economics” to return to a centrally planned school of economics, then a simple experiment would be to ask a cross section of Eastern Europeans if they would like to return to communism (and a lower rate of TB). Calpe, Alicante, Spain
Wonderful cosmos From James Humphreys Lawrence Krauss states that if science “turns out to suggest that we are alone in a universe without purpose, we must accept that” (2 August, p 52). Science could suggest, then, that atheism is true. But if science could suggest that atheism is true, why could it not suggest that theism is? Krauss rejects this latter possibility, even in principle, saying that “any spiritual enlightenment provided by science is merely in the eye of the beholder”. In other words, the theist, unlike the atheist, cannot hope to base his belief on the objective nature of physical reality. But why should that be? The problem for Krauss, as I see it, is this: either he must provide an argument which demonstrates how it is that science can support atheism but not theism – and I do not think that he can provide one – or else his argument falls to the charge that it is fallacious, involving special pleading for atheism. Colchester, Essex, UK From Robert Bennie I am a born-again atheist. I was born an atheist, converted to Christianity before my eyes could focus and, as an adult, reverted to
atheism. I now live my life to exactly the same principles as I did when I was a believer. As a believer I tried to act as though God was always looking over my shoulder – whereas I now try to live my life as though my parents are looking over my shoulder. There is no discernible difference. Michael Whalley (9 August, p 20) requests details of the meaning or philosophical consolation being sought by religious believers. It is obviously the transcendence of death. There is only one significant difference between my believer knowledge and my rationalist knowledge, and that is the knowledge that my death will be permanent. I thank no rationalist for that knowledge. Ferntree Gully, Victoria, Australia
Blight here, blight now From Ben Raskin, Soil Association The problem of blight resistance in potatoes (2 August, p 30) will not necessarily be solved by using the myriad South American varieties, nor by genetic modification. It is not the lack of genetic variation which makes the crop vulnerable, but the fact that the blight pathogen did not co-evolve with South American potatoes, so they did not develop resistance to it. The evidence is that the countless varieties of potato grown in South America are all susceptible to blight – if they were not, we would already be growing them in the UK. Blight-resistant GM varieties do not offer the answer because this resistance breaks down
quickly. But conventionally bred, blight-resistant “Sárpo” varieties are already being successfully grown by organic farmers. Sárpo varieties’ resistance is less prone to breaking down and appears to withstand virulent strains of blight now in north-west Europe. Sárpos originated from varieties bred in Hungary for low-input Soviet agricultural systems. They also have some resistance to viral diseases, and work continues to develop them. Learning to grow and process varieties whose environmental benefits are clear is the way ahead for the potato industry. Bristol, UK
No reason to be cheerful From David T. McCanna A. C. Grayling, in his commentary on reason (26 July, p 42), makes some unreasonable mistakes. First, he lumps all critique of classical reason into one sentence and thereby dismisses the entire scope of complaint – a technique used by conservatives with an ideological agenda and other propagandists. Secondly, he seems to conflate “ought” with “what is”. The goals of enlightenment are lofty, but they are ideals; they are “what ought to be”. Critique of the enlightenment programme usually rests on “what is” – on how things actually turned out. As someone who lives west of the Atlantic Ocean, I am familiar with the current US president’s insistence that “we are a nation of law.” Yet he refuses to sign into law what the majority of the rest of the world finds eminently reasonable, and voids law where he sees fit. Using another ideal quoted by Grayling, why has our nation militarily removed more freely elected democracies than dictatorships in the past 100 years? Rio Rancho, New Mexico, US From Kris Ericksen One could say (with apologies to one-time British prime minister www.newscientist.com
See newscientist.com for letters on: ● Smoke and sots ● Metal anorexia
Winston Churchill) that reason is the worst form of thinking, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Wellington, New Zealand
It’s a dog’s life… again From Zoe Jewell An estimated 3 to 4 million dogs are euthanised each year in the US because they are unwanted companion animals. Might one of these have been a suitable companion for the clients of Lou Hawthorne who are looking for a replacement pet (19 July, p 44)? This could save their current dog the distress of surgical
so, it doesn’t, but for reasons quite unrelated to the evasive rebuff you quoted from Dawkins himself. The possibility that gene expression can vary and be transmitted to offspring is itself an evolved adaptation – one that allows an organism to thrive in a broader range of environments. This is essential to organisms not able to alter their environment or to seek a better one. As such, epigenetics is more akin to the cultural transmission of behavioural changes, another evolved possibility. It is confusing to present it as a mechanism for evolution, or indeed as a paradigm for explaining selection – which the selfish gene seems to be. Houdelaincourt, Meuse, France
Anthropic what?
intervention in being cloned as part of the “Best Friends Again” programme. Can’t best friends be different friends? Hawthorne’s clients in their old age will remember only one character with whom they shared their lives – over and over again. The individual animals in this chain will lose their uniqueness. Surely diversity and difference are to be celebrated in both the human and animal worlds. Monchique, Portugal
Strange inheritance From Harry Dewulf Emma Young asks whether evidence of transgenerational epigenetic changes challenges biologist Richard Dawkins’s ubiquitous “selfish gene” (12 July, p 28). Much as it pains me to say www.newscientist.com
From Philip Pattemore Is the multiverse that Stephen Battersby describes (19 July, p 36) any different in essence from the “infinite improbability drive” invented by Douglas Adams in his radio play The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Yes: the greatest achievement of the improbability drive was to produce a bowl of petunias and a sperm whale high in the atmosphere of a planet. The multiverse, meanwhile, is charged with producing not only petunias and sperm whales, but life, the universe and everything. It strikes me that modern cosmologists must be having to tread a very fine line between two choices. One is to conclude that life and intelligence spring out everywhere the environment allows. This idea suggests that life and intelligence are built-in properties of the universe (or even the multiverse). This smacks of intelligent purpose. The other choice implies a rare Earth, rare life, rare intelligence, and an infinitesimally rare universe – all of which smacks of intelligent fiddling of the odds.
After all, the fact that, by existing, we have won an almost infinitely improbable lottery is a retrospective perception. Prospectively, there would be no way to tell whether a multiverse would yield any universe capable of supporting life or intelligence. It would be a lottery without a sponsor and without a guaranteed winning ticket. Although the multiverse is toted as an explanation for the “fine-tuning” of our universe for the benefit of life, I believe it is little more than a fancy version of the infinite improbability drive. In place of the theology of a god-of-the-gaps we now have a multiverse-of-the-gaps. With or without the multiverse, we still haven’t escaped the question of intelligent purpose or intervention. Christchurch, New Zealand
Time to panic From Charles Goodwin I used to be fairly confident that the human race was unlikely to be completely wiped out in the near future, either by its own hand or some cosmic disaster. However, now that I’ve been
Breast control From Diane Wiessinger Jo Whelan reports on efforts to improve formula milk (12 July, p 38). Touting the “benefits” of breastfeeding makes formulafeeding appear safe and normal. Science properly compares the experiment to the norm and not the other way around. I have rewritten the first paragraph of the article, using identical language but with breastfeeding as the control: “Formula is not as good. There’s no doubt about it. The list of proven risks grows longer every year. Artificially fed babies are not only more susceptible to a huge range of infections, they also suffer lifelong deficits, from lower intelligence to a higher risk of obesity and diabetes.” That puts the quest for a “better” formula in a different light, doesn’t it? When our energies and funds go towards the fourth-best option, then the first-best (helping mothers breastfeed), second-best (the mother’s own expressed milk, rather than direct breastfeeding) and third-best (banked human milk – see 16 August, p 18) are less likely to be promoted. That adds up to a huge overall loss. Even a “better formula” is still unnecessarily damaging to babies, no matter how much money it makes for industry. Ithaca, New York, US
For the record ● Whatever constellation it was that Feedback saw “just where we left it the last time we looked” (9 August), it wasn’t Orion, which is not visible in London at midnight in summer.
reassured that this is so by a panel of experts (26 July, p 8), I’ve started to feel a lot less confident. A look at how the predictions of experts have measured up in the past makes this article seem rather less than reassuring. Ngaio, Wellington, New Zealand
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.
30 August 2008 | NewScientist | 19