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Greed on the high seas
Letters– Greed on the high seas From Richard Tilzey You rightly condemn the failure of the European Union to introduce realistic cod fishing quotas (11 November, p 3). Unfortunately, the greed of European fishing companies and the failure of EU states to control their activities on the high seas are now having an impact on fisheries in the southern hemisphere. I write having just emerged from a five-day meeting in Hobart, Tasmania, attended by 24 nations and an EU delegation. Its central aim was to establish a South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation to control currently unregulated fishing in international waters. Attempts to introduce interim management measures such as capping fishing effort at current levels and preventing bottom trawling in sensitive habitats were vigorously resisted by the EU delegation and consensus was not reached. The EU agenda annoyed and frustrated other nations, particularly coastal and island states. EU “supertrawler/seiners”, each 150 metres long and with a 20,000-tonne hold capacity, continue to plunder South Pacific mackerel stocks. It is certainly time for EU fisheries ministers to act in a responsible manner, but don’t hold your breath. Central Tilba, New South Wales, Australia
Odds-on result From Tim Butterworth When I read the assertion by Pat Michaels that predictions based on new climate research “should have an equal probability of being better or worse” for Earth’s climate (4 November, p 18), I dropped my copy of New Scientist in horror. Is Michaels really saying that we should always expect the balance of new scientific research to fall in line with currently accepted predictions, and that 20 | NewScientist | 2 December 2006
061202_R_Letters.indd 20
there must be something wrong with the science if it suggests we should change the way we think about something? Reflecting on this logic, I am actually in favour of it. I gave up smoking on the basis that “scientific research” carried out in the 20th century showed that it was far more harmful than originally thought. Now I understand that those results must be biased by the antismoking lobby: we should have seen just as much evidence telling us that we should smoke more as telling us that we should stop. Thanks to Michaels I can now safely light up in the knowledge that any serious health problems I suffer in the future will be entirely unrelated to my smoking. Edinburgh, UK
Vanishing analysts
products that those people eat at home, at work and at play in a day. On average only one of those foods will have been sampled for a public analyst to test for safety, nutritional content or authenticity. For every £100 spent on food by consumers, less than one penny is spent by local authorities on testing. Durham, UK
Armchair blowback From Trevor Magnusson You report that the US Department of Defense is looking to robotics to reduce troop losses on its side (28 October, p 24). One contractor says “we are trying… to create a very un-level battlefield”. This commitment to one form of asymmetric warfare can have only one outcome: it will encourage the adversary to embrace two other forms – guerrilla warfare and terrorism. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Home-schooling truths
From Alan Richards, Association of Public Analysts Your article on food fraud made interesting reading, but its contents did not come as news to the UK’s few remaining public analysts (11 November, p 40). We are appointed under statute to direct the analysis of food to help local authorities enforce food law, and have been protecting the public from adulterated food for nearly 150 years. The article highlighted several high-profile special initiatives, but routine sampling – to detect the watering of milk or high levels of fat in mince, for example – is in terminal decline. Imagine a town with a population of 300,000 and the number of different food
From Sharon Dever There are other, perhaps more convincing ways of reading the data on home-schooling (11 November, p 20). It is certainly becoming more popular, but the conventional wisdom among home-schoolers – borne out by the available data – is that the number of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the home-school population has already peaked, and that the increasing total reflects the growing acceptance of homeschooling among other groups. As a Christian (Catholic) homeschooler, one of the greatest blessings of avoiding our local public school in Texas is that we can teach our children real science from real texts (we use good introductory college texts as an alternative to the wretchedly muddled public high school texts) without pressure to hush up inconvenient truths about biology, geology and astronomy.
Arguably, others will benefit from the home-schooling of children of creationist families. Many school districts – notably the one in Texas where I was taught – used to have constant battles over science classes, featuring school board takeovers and anxious teachers hesitant to teach anything at all about the origin of species. The availability of home-schooling and of private Christian schools reduces the pressure on public school districts to shape science teaching to accommodate creationist beliefs. There is no meaningful way that state regulation could address the teaching of creationism by home-schoolers. A better solution is that chosen by the University of California system, which refuses to recognise science classes that teach certain creationist curricula. This avoids unfairly and uselessly burdening home-schooling families, and has the advantage of being enforceable. Austin, Texas, US From Elizabeth Ross You have previously reported on the poor science education that the American public school system provides, stating that unsatisfactory science programmes continue due to a lack of national standards and the notoriously low standards established by the No Child Left Behind Act (19 August, p 11). Parents informed by this article and similar ones may choose to fill those potential gaps in their children’s education through home-schooling. Cary, North Carolina, US www.newscientist.com
24/11/06 5:13:52 pm
Odds-on result From Tim Butterworth When I read the assertion by Pat Michaels that predictions based on new climate research “should have an equal probability of being better or worse” for Earth’s climate (4 November, p 18), I dropped my copy of New Scientist in horror. Is Michaels really saying that we should always expect the balance of new scientific research to fall in line with currently accepted predictions, and that 20 | NewScientist | 2 December 2006
061202_R_Letters.indd 20
there must be something wrong with the science if it suggests we should change the way we think about something? Reflecting on this logic, I am actually in favour of it. I gave up smoking on the basis that “scientific research” carried out in the 20th century showed that it was far more harmful than originally thought. Now I understand that those results must be biased by the antismoking lobby: we should have seen just as much evidence telling us that we should smoke more as telling us that we should stop. Thanks to Michaels I can now safely light up in the knowledge that any serious health problems I suffer in the future will be entirely unrelated to my smoking. Edinburgh, UK
Vanishing analysts
products that those people eat at home, at work and at play in a day. On average only one of those foods will have been sampled for a public analyst to test for safety, nutritional content or authenticity. For every £100 spent on food by consumers, less than one penny is spent by local authorities on testing. Durham, UK
Armchair blowback From Trevor Magnusson You report that the US Department of Defense is looking to robotics to reduce troop losses on its side (28 October, p 24). One contractor says “we are trying… to create a very un-level battlefield”. This commitment to one form of asymmetric warfare can have only one outcome: it will encourage the adversary to embrace two other forms – guerrilla warfare and terrorism. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Home-schooling truths
From Alan Richards, Association of Public Analysts Your article on food fraud made interesting reading, but its contents did not come as news to the UK’s few remaining public analysts (11 November, p 40). We are appointed under statute to direct the analysis of food to help local authorities enforce food law, and have been protecting the public from adulterated food for nearly 150 years. The article highlighted several high-profile special initiatives, but routine sampling – to detect the watering of milk or high levels of fat in mince, for example – is in terminal decline. Imagine a town with a population of 300,000 and the number of different food
From Sharon Dever There are other, perhaps more convincing ways of reading the data on home-schooling (11 November, p 20). It is certainly becoming more popular, but the conventional wisdom among home-schoolers – borne out by the available data – is that the number of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the home-school population has already peaked, and that the increasing total reflects the growing acceptance of homeschooling among other groups. As a Christian (Catholic) homeschooler, one of the greatest blessings of avoiding our local public school in Texas is that we can teach our children real science from real texts (we use good introductory college texts as an alternative to the wretchedly muddled public high school texts) without pressure to hush up inconvenient truths about biology, geology and astronomy.
Arguably, others will benefit from the home-schooling of children of creationist families. Many school districts – notably the one in Texas where I was taught – used to have constant battles over science classes, featuring school board takeovers and anxious teachers hesitant to teach anything at all about the origin of species. The availability of home-schooling and of private Christian schools reduces the pressure on public school districts to shape science teaching to accommodate creationist beliefs. There is no meaningful way that state regulation could address the teaching of creationism by home-schoolers. A better solution is that chosen by the University of California system, which refuses to recognise science classes that teach certain creationist curricula. This avoids unfairly and uselessly burdening home-schooling families, and has the advantage of being enforceable. Austin, Texas, US From Elizabeth Ross You have previously reported on the poor science education that the American public school system provides, stating that unsatisfactory science programmes continue due to a lack of national standards and the notoriously low standards established by the No Child Left Behind Act (19 August, p 11). Parents informed by this article and similar ones may choose to fill those potential gaps in their children’s education through home-schooling. Cary, North Carolina, US www.newscientist.com
24/11/06 5:13:52 pm