- Email: [email protected]
Edge of darkness
For more letters and to join the debate, visit www.NewScientist.com/topic/letters ■ Natural born belief ■ Darwin, Lincoln and emancipation ■ Dan Dare was first, again ■ For the record
no chance in the free carbon market that he advocates, even less than would most of the firstgeneration biofuels. Has Stern read the OECD’s 2008 Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies? The human and ecological harm now arising through the exploitation of marginal lands for biofuels could make last century’s World Bank-funded dams look like millponds. We could rig subsidies in favour of “second-generation” biofuels – and hope to lessen the damaging externalities – or we can abolish mandated levels of biofuel use altogether for the common good of the environment, the poor and the economy. London, UK
Welcome comfort From Carla Ingram I was touched by your interview with Irene Scheimberg on her work as a paediatric pathologist (31 January, p 26). As a doctor in general practice, I would not have imagined that a post-mortem report could be a source of comfort for grieving parents. After the inexplicable stillbirth of our beautiful baby girl at full term in November, however, this was something I was forced to consider. The decision to allow your baby to be taken for post-mortem examination goes against every protective nurturing instinct there is. For me, the guilt of making that decision was only heightened by the small feeling of relief that came with knowing that I had done nothing “wrong”. Reading an interview with a sensitive pathologist who has such an understanding of the significance of her role for the parents and families of the babies she looks after is a source of comfort at a time when comfort is a difficult thing to find. Pendoylan, Vale of Glamorgan, UK
Robotic obedience From Ted Osmond Jeff Hecht, in reviewing P. W. Singer’s book on robotic warfare, Wired for War, accepts the given examples of “picking the wrong target” – that a “high-tech radar” is incapable of discerning the different flight profiles of a slow-moving, large aircraft and a smaller, fast-moving F-14 Tomcat (24 January, p 57). IranAir flight 655, an Airbus airliner travelling from Bandar Abbas on the Straits of Hormuz to Dubai, was on a steady climb at 319 knots when it was blown out of the sky on 3 July 1988 by missiles from the US Aegis class cruiser, the USS Vincennes. The course, speed and radar signature should have in fact have indicated precisely what type of aircraft it was. Captain Will Rogers, commander of the Vincennes, was exonerated by a military board of inquiry in August 1988. Two years later the first President George Bush awarded Rogers the Legion of Merit medal – for “responding appropriately to a threat to his ship”. Lawnton, Queensland, Australia
Dignitas Darwinae From Hugh Farey I was disappointed that after introducing the Catholic church’s recent report on bioethics, Dignitas Personae, Lawrence Krauss made it abundantly clear that he did not feel that any deep exploration of the Catholic church’s point of view was worthwhile (7 February, p 25). So he went on to denigrate that church’s understanding of scientific progress and hence to reject any ethical conclusions it may have come to. A fundamental principle of Catholicism is that all human life is sacred and that life begins at the moment the zygote has formed. Krauss and others who plump for some other definition are
entitled to their point of view, but no scientific discoveries have rendered the first one either invalid or meaningless. Krauss appears to have misunderstood the church’s view. Its ethical problem with IVF is not that babies so conceived don’t have a soul, but that all the embryos destroyed do. Bredenbury, Herefordshire, UK From Laurence Baker Krauss rightly condemns religion as an obstacle to scientific truth. Worryingly, evolution appears to be following in the footsteps of religion.
Hologravity From Galen Strawson As a schoolboy I used to wonder why the law of gravitational attraction is an inverse-square law rather than an inverse-cube law. I now wonder whether there might be a connection between the holographic principle (17 January, p 24) and the fact that the gravitational attraction is an inverse-square law. Oxford, UK The editor writes: ■ You anticipate our next issue.
For the record
Darwin’s home, Down House, is a museum with artefacts once touched by the man himself. This is the modern equivalent of pilgrimages to see relics. The Natural History Museum in London recently installed a marble statue of Darwin seated like some Greek god in the temple of life. Perhaps in 2000 years’ time people will doubt whether Darwin really existed and will ascribe to him mythical and legendary status. Brigg, Lincolnshire, UK
Edge of darkness From Nick Hamilton Amanda Gefter makes much of the idea that in “dark flow” we may be observing effects from beyond the observable universe (24 January, p 50). Need I say more? Red Hill, Queensland, Australia
■ An Editorial discussed what would happen if the world were to warm by an average of just 4 ºC, which “some models predict could happen as soon as 2050” (28 February, p 3). It should rather have said, as did our cover story in that issue, that “some scientists fear that we may get there as soon as 2050” (p 28). ■ A transcription error made it seem that James Lovelock said “the biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly” (24 January, p 30). That should have been 550 GT of carbon dioxide. Also several readers queried Lovelock saying “it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt” of wind power, since the British Wind Energy Assocation says 1 GW of installed wind generation capacity takes around 250 square kilometres. Lovelock stands by his figure, saying it is based on 1 MW turbines on land. ■ We unaccountably referred to San Francisco as “Cisco” (7 February, p 7). San Franciscans prefer it not be called “Frisco”, either. 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.
7 March 2009 | NewScientist | 25
no chance in the free carbon market that he advocates, even less than would most of the firstgeneration biofuels. Has Stern read the OECD’s 2008 Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies? The human and ecological harm now arising through the exploitation of marginal lands for biofuels could make last century’s World Bank-funded dams look like millponds. We could rig subsidies in favour of “second-generation” biofuels – and hope to lessen the damaging externalities – or we can abolish mandated levels of biofuel use altogether for the common good of the environment, the poor and the economy. London, UK
Welcome comfort From Carla Ingram I was touched by your interview with Irene Scheimberg on her work as a paediatric pathologist (31 January, p 26). As a doctor in general practice, I would not have imagined that a post-mortem report could be a source of comfort for grieving parents. After the inexplicable stillbirth of our beautiful baby girl at full term in November, however, this was something I was forced to consider. The decision to allow your baby to be taken for post-mortem examination goes against every protective nurturing instinct there is. For me, the guilt of making that decision was only heightened by the small feeling of relief that came with knowing that I had done nothing “wrong”. Reading an interview with a sensitive pathologist who has such an understanding of the significance of her role for the parents and families of the babies she looks after is a source of comfort at a time when comfort is a difficult thing to find. Pendoylan, Vale of Glamorgan, UK
Robotic obedience From Ted Osmond Jeff Hecht, in reviewing P. W. Singer’s book on robotic warfare, Wired for War, accepts the given examples of “picking the wrong target” – that a “high-tech radar” is incapable of discerning the different flight profiles of a slow-moving, large aircraft and a smaller, fast-moving F-14 Tomcat (24 January, p 57). IranAir flight 655, an Airbus airliner travelling from Bandar Abbas on the Straits of Hormuz to Dubai, was on a steady climb at 319 knots when it was blown out of the sky on 3 July 1988 by missiles from the US Aegis class cruiser, the USS Vincennes. The course, speed and radar signature should have in fact have indicated precisely what type of aircraft it was. Captain Will Rogers, commander of the Vincennes, was exonerated by a military board of inquiry in August 1988. Two years later the first President George Bush awarded Rogers the Legion of Merit medal – for “responding appropriately to a threat to his ship”. Lawnton, Queensland, Australia
Dignitas Darwinae From Hugh Farey I was disappointed that after introducing the Catholic church’s recent report on bioethics, Dignitas Personae, Lawrence Krauss made it abundantly clear that he did not feel that any deep exploration of the Catholic church’s point of view was worthwhile (7 February, p 25). So he went on to denigrate that church’s understanding of scientific progress and hence to reject any ethical conclusions it may have come to. A fundamental principle of Catholicism is that all human life is sacred and that life begins at the moment the zygote has formed. Krauss and others who plump for some other definition are
entitled to their point of view, but no scientific discoveries have rendered the first one either invalid or meaningless. Krauss appears to have misunderstood the church’s view. Its ethical problem with IVF is not that babies so conceived don’t have a soul, but that all the embryos destroyed do. Bredenbury, Herefordshire, UK From Laurence Baker Krauss rightly condemns religion as an obstacle to scientific truth. Worryingly, evolution appears to be following in the footsteps of religion.
Hologravity From Galen Strawson As a schoolboy I used to wonder why the law of gravitational attraction is an inverse-square law rather than an inverse-cube law. I now wonder whether there might be a connection between the holographic principle (17 January, p 24) and the fact that the gravitational attraction is an inverse-square law. Oxford, UK The editor writes: ■ You anticipate our next issue.
For the record
Darwin’s home, Down House, is a museum with artefacts once touched by the man himself. This is the modern equivalent of pilgrimages to see relics. The Natural History Museum in London recently installed a marble statue of Darwin seated like some Greek god in the temple of life. Perhaps in 2000 years’ time people will doubt whether Darwin really existed and will ascribe to him mythical and legendary status. Brigg, Lincolnshire, UK
Edge of darkness From Nick Hamilton Amanda Gefter makes much of the idea that in “dark flow” we may be observing effects from beyond the observable universe (24 January, p 50). Need I say more? Red Hill, Queensland, Australia
■ An Editorial discussed what would happen if the world were to warm by an average of just 4 ºC, which “some models predict could happen as soon as 2050” (28 February, p 3). It should rather have said, as did our cover story in that issue, that “some scientists fear that we may get there as soon as 2050” (p 28). ■ A transcription error made it seem that James Lovelock said “the biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly” (24 January, p 30). That should have been 550 GT of carbon dioxide. Also several readers queried Lovelock saying “it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt” of wind power, since the British Wind Energy Assocation says 1 GW of installed wind generation capacity takes around 250 square kilometres. Lovelock stands by his figure, saying it is based on 1 MW turbines on land. ■ We unaccountably referred to San Francisco as “Cisco” (7 February, p 7). San Franciscans prefer it not be called “Frisco”, either. 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.
7 March 2009 | NewScientist | 25