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Growth must slow
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the Easterlin paradox, that the average happiness of developed nations has not generally increased with growth of GDP per capita over the past few decades, and has even declined in China despite its spectacular economic growth. One reason is the strong dependence of individual wellbeing on relative rather than absolute income. Others are declining community and social capital, as well as environmental degradation resulting from economic growth. These results show that policy focused on GDP growth is not the way to increase happiness in developed countries. Denmark and other Nordic countries usually top international comparisons of average wellbeing, with their much greater equality and trust in neighbours and institutions. St Andrews, Fife, UK
whatever that may mean. But until that happy day, my state of mind is not their business. Knighton, Powys, UK
From Alan Entwistle I can, as a parent, state unequivocally that Daniel Gilbert’s assertion in your interview with him (16 April, p 48) that children have a reliably negative impact upon happiness is incorrect. Tests he employs, or endorses, may score parents to be less happy on average than nonparents; my offspring probably rate me as a “miserable old git”. I can, however, assure both parties that I would be significantly more miserable without said offspring. Buckhurst Hill, Essex, UK
From Julie Fitzpatrick We need a word for the inverse of “something being known for an erroneous name” to apply in situations in which people believe a name to be incorrect or misleading when it is in fact perfectly correct and accurate. Take the Chinese gooseberry, for example. We have been sold the idea that it should be called kiwi fruit, and Feedback accordingly reports an internet quiz which claims that the fruit originates in New Zealand. Yet my family tradition and Wikipedia agree that Actinidia deliciosa, as the fruit is called, is native to southern China, with variants across Asia. The New Zealand connection arose when some Chinese samples were cross-bred there to produce the variants we usually see in the shops. But claiming the whole lot for New Zealand is no more justified than if Australians were to claim the apple just because we developed the Granny Smith and Pink Lady. Scarborough, Western Australia
From Hugh Colvin Gilbert thinks that states should measure happiness. When governments are consistently able to achieve cuts in death rates, prison populations and greenhouse gas emissions, along with the eradication of child poverty, a balanced economy, peace, class sizes of 20 and so on – the list is very long – then perhaps in some Shangri-La they will be entitled to get to work on national quotients of “happiness”,
The name game From Steve Plater The misleadingly easy quiz questions that John Chen came across (Feedback, 9 April) have been around for years. I recently used them as an icebreaker before a fund-raising quiz. There are other possible questions. How much does a 10-gallon hat hold? (Answer: a headful, about 0.75 gallons.) In which month does the Munich Oktoberfest begin? (September.) My favourite is: which seabird has the Latin name Puffinus puffinus? Answer: the Manx shearwater; the puffin is Fratercula arctica. Sevenoaks, Kent, UK
Wealth disorder? From Elizabeth Young I found Jessica Hamzelou’s article on psychopaths very interesting (9 April, p 8). She stated that the study showed “brain areas involved in reward processing… were larger than normal” in adolescents with conduct disorder who also showed callous unemotional traits, considered
symptoms of psychopathy in children. What, I wondered, about bankers’ brains? Do they show up larger than normal in the relevant areas? London, UK
Blast the waste From Jamshed Fozdar The advantages of thorium nuclear power (26 March, p 8) seem mostly unproven in practice, and the technology will probably take more than a decade to develop if a decision is taken to extract power from this element. Meanwhile, our demand for energy means the demise of uranium and plutonium reactors is unlikely any time soon, although their lethal residues still need to be dealt with. We have no real assurance that buried nuclear waste will remain buried. It is impossible to guarantee that nuclear waste, whether encased in salt caves or Yucca mountain, will not escape as a result of geological shifts. A powerful international agency should be established
and charged with collecting such waste from all reactors and, with rockets, shoot it on a one-way trip to the sun. Surely this would be cheaper than the billions being spent to “safely” bury the waste. Singapore
Growth must slow From Fred Averis Achim Steiner’s article (16 April, p 28) about the conflict between agricultural expansion and conservation appears to assume a growing world population is inevitable. It mentions population rising from the present 6.9 billion to between 8 and 9.7 billion by 2050, and discusses ways to increase land use for food without wrecking the planet. If population growth is the problem, what about exploring reasonable and acceptable ways of limiting it? Of course there will be difficult cultural problems, but surely they can’t be insurmountable. Lydbury North, Shropshire, UK
For the record n A conversion error made as our feature about cockroaches (16 April, p 40) was being prepared for publication led to the radiation doses we quoted being out by four orders of magnitude. The correct figures are 64 grays for cockroaches, 640 grays for fruit flies and 1800 grays for Habrobracon wasps. n The story headlined “Invisible princess keeps kids honest” (23 April, p 18) should have said 67 children were involved in the study reported on.
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 May 2011 | NewScientist | 31
the Easterlin paradox, that the average happiness of developed nations has not generally increased with growth of GDP per capita over the past few decades, and has even declined in China despite its spectacular economic growth. One reason is the strong dependence of individual wellbeing on relative rather than absolute income. Others are declining community and social capital, as well as environmental degradation resulting from economic growth. These results show that policy focused on GDP growth is not the way to increase happiness in developed countries. Denmark and other Nordic countries usually top international comparisons of average wellbeing, with their much greater equality and trust in neighbours and institutions. St Andrews, Fife, UK
whatever that may mean. But until that happy day, my state of mind is not their business. Knighton, Powys, UK
From Alan Entwistle I can, as a parent, state unequivocally that Daniel Gilbert’s assertion in your interview with him (16 April, p 48) that children have a reliably negative impact upon happiness is incorrect. Tests he employs, or endorses, may score parents to be less happy on average than nonparents; my offspring probably rate me as a “miserable old git”. I can, however, assure both parties that I would be significantly more miserable without said offspring. Buckhurst Hill, Essex, UK
From Julie Fitzpatrick We need a word for the inverse of “something being known for an erroneous name” to apply in situations in which people believe a name to be incorrect or misleading when it is in fact perfectly correct and accurate. Take the Chinese gooseberry, for example. We have been sold the idea that it should be called kiwi fruit, and Feedback accordingly reports an internet quiz which claims that the fruit originates in New Zealand. Yet my family tradition and Wikipedia agree that Actinidia deliciosa, as the fruit is called, is native to southern China, with variants across Asia. The New Zealand connection arose when some Chinese samples were cross-bred there to produce the variants we usually see in the shops. But claiming the whole lot for New Zealand is no more justified than if Australians were to claim the apple just because we developed the Granny Smith and Pink Lady. Scarborough, Western Australia
From Hugh Colvin Gilbert thinks that states should measure happiness. When governments are consistently able to achieve cuts in death rates, prison populations and greenhouse gas emissions, along with the eradication of child poverty, a balanced economy, peace, class sizes of 20 and so on – the list is very long – then perhaps in some Shangri-La they will be entitled to get to work on national quotients of “happiness”,
The name game From Steve Plater The misleadingly easy quiz questions that John Chen came across (Feedback, 9 April) have been around for years. I recently used them as an icebreaker before a fund-raising quiz. There are other possible questions. How much does a 10-gallon hat hold? (Answer: a headful, about 0.75 gallons.) In which month does the Munich Oktoberfest begin? (September.) My favourite is: which seabird has the Latin name Puffinus puffinus? Answer: the Manx shearwater; the puffin is Fratercula arctica. Sevenoaks, Kent, UK
Wealth disorder? From Elizabeth Young I found Jessica Hamzelou’s article on psychopaths very interesting (9 April, p 8). She stated that the study showed “brain areas involved in reward processing… were larger than normal” in adolescents with conduct disorder who also showed callous unemotional traits, considered
symptoms of psychopathy in children. What, I wondered, about bankers’ brains? Do they show up larger than normal in the relevant areas? London, UK
Blast the waste From Jamshed Fozdar The advantages of thorium nuclear power (26 March, p 8) seem mostly unproven in practice, and the technology will probably take more than a decade to develop if a decision is taken to extract power from this element. Meanwhile, our demand for energy means the demise of uranium and plutonium reactors is unlikely any time soon, although their lethal residues still need to be dealt with. We have no real assurance that buried nuclear waste will remain buried. It is impossible to guarantee that nuclear waste, whether encased in salt caves or Yucca mountain, will not escape as a result of geological shifts. A powerful international agency should be established
and charged with collecting such waste from all reactors and, with rockets, shoot it on a one-way trip to the sun. Surely this would be cheaper than the billions being spent to “safely” bury the waste. Singapore
Growth must slow From Fred Averis Achim Steiner’s article (16 April, p 28) about the conflict between agricultural expansion and conservation appears to assume a growing world population is inevitable. It mentions population rising from the present 6.9 billion to between 8 and 9.7 billion by 2050, and discusses ways to increase land use for food without wrecking the planet. If population growth is the problem, what about exploring reasonable and acceptable ways of limiting it? Of course there will be difficult cultural problems, but surely they can’t be insurmountable. Lydbury North, Shropshire, UK
For the record n A conversion error made as our feature about cockroaches (16 April, p 40) was being prepared for publication led to the radiation doses we quoted being out by four orders of magnitude. The correct figures are 64 grays for cockroaches, 640 grays for fruit flies and 1800 grays for Habrobracon wasps. n The story headlined “Invisible princess keeps kids honest” (23 April, p 18) should have said 67 children were involved in the study reported on.
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 May 2011 | NewScientist | 31