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OPINION LETTERS The God issue From Tom Beaton Your editorial espousing “the new science of religion” uses the words secularist and atheist as if they are synonyms (17 March, p 3). They are not, and the distinction is important. Secularism is about maintaining a distinction between religious faiths and their ruling bodies and the structures of government and law. This is well understood in the US and France. In the UK, those who wish to keep bishops in Parliament, retain state funding of faith schools and have the prime minister choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury – the most senior religious figure in the Church of England – have every interest in confusing the two terms, to imply that secularists are against all aspects of religion. Isleworth, Middlesex, UK From A. C. Grayling It is disappointing to see the articles in your God issue engaging in the customary muddled claims about a “god-shaped space” in the mind (17 March, p 38), and
following the archaeological reflex interpretation of any large building from long ago as a “temple of worship” with all that this implies (p 42). Plenty of people, atheists for example, have no godshaped spaces. Most humans in history believed in many gods answering many interests, which would seem to require the existence of many differently shaped holes. Religion survives for historical and social reasons. Humanity is at an early stage; if we survive the (mainly religious) fanatics among us, we might, in a few millennia, leave behind the superstitions that soothed our ignorance of long ago. London, UK
Enigma Number 1692
Key factors Susan Denham Clever logic should enable you to find the nine-figure number that I have in mind. It consists of the digits 1 to 9 in some order, and in the number each digit is next to another that differs from it by one. In just one case a digit has both neighbours differing from it by one. Furthermore, the solution is exactly divisible by more than three-quarters of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. What is the nine-figure number?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 9 May. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1692, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1686 Squaring the circle: 132 slabs were used. The radius of the courtyard was 6 metres. The winner John Woolhouse of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK
32 | NewScientist | 7 April 2012
From Michael Poole, King’s College London I find myself in disagreement with your editorial comment that “religious claims still wither under rational scrutiny”. There are scholarly societies dedicated to the academic study of issues of science and religion, none of which would encourage sloppy or irrational thinking. I had most difficulty with “The God hypothesis” (p 46); its multiple assertions would take a book to address. My book, The New Atheism: Ten arguments that don’t hold water (Lion Hudson, 2009), is an attempt to tackle some of the issues. London, UK From David Bennett You failed to mention the main tools used by the world’s most successful religions to keep and enhance their dominance: force and violence. The dominance of Christianity is the result of centuries of colonialism and imperialism. The spread of Islam was the result of conquest rather than conversion. Force and violence are not only a way of gaining new adherents, but also stop critical examination of the preached religion. Bullying and intimidation have proved, and still prove, capable of silencing opponents. The ongoing history of inquisitions, oppressive fatwas and executions bears testimony to this. New Malden, Surrey, UK
How do we know? From Gary Alexander I think Daniel Everett’s big idea in his excellent article “The social instinct” is in fact bigger than he says (10 March, p 32). It sheds light on the way languages shape our thinking and thus our views of what is real. The Pirahã’s culture limits what they can express, in a way that clarifies it, by demanding that assertions are qualified as hearsay,
deduction or direct observation. It is as though there is a sense of the scientific approach built into their culture. Our less-restricted languages let us think and speak nonsense without realising it. American linguist Benjamin Whorf’s work on Hopi and other native American languages, in which time and space are inseparable and the speaker’s perspective is built into the grammar, has similar implications. If such cultures investigated advanced physics, it might be that some concepts we consider counter-intuitive, because they conflict with the way our language shapes the world, would be the starting points. Diss, Norfolk, UK
Worse could happen From John McIntosh Don Higson says the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine is “the worst that could happen” (17 March, p 26). I disagree. At Chernobyl and Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, one safety system worked successfully to limit the scale of the disaster: people. Without those workers on site, the Chernobyl reactor fire would have continued until it burned itself out, and the reactors and spent fuel storage ponds at Fukushima would not have had their water replenished. Without intervention, more radiation would have been released. If Chernobyl is 7 on the nuclear incident scale of 0 to 7, perhaps there ought to be an 8 for disasters in which there is no one to help. Some will say it is unreasonable to postulate a scenario with no intervention in time to make a difference. But we are talking about extreme events. Natural disasters, war and civil disorder could create such conditions. Port Sunlight, Wirral, UK From David Smythe Like Don Higson, I have been advocating a revision of the higher
following the archaeological reflex interpretation of any large building from long ago as a “temple of worship” with all that this implies (p 42). Plenty of people, atheists for example, have no godshaped spaces. Most humans in history believed in many gods answering many interests, which would seem to require the existence of many differently shaped holes. Religion survives for historical and social reasons. Humanity is at an early stage; if we survive the (mainly religious) fanatics among us, we might, in a few millennia, leave behind the superstitions that soothed our ignorance of long ago. London, UK
Enigma Number 1692
Key factors Susan Denham Clever logic should enable you to find the nine-figure number that I have in mind. It consists of the digits 1 to 9 in some order, and in the number each digit is next to another that differs from it by one. In just one case a digit has both neighbours differing from it by one. Furthermore, the solution is exactly divisible by more than three-quarters of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. What is the nine-figure number?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 9 May. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1692, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1686 Squaring the circle: 132 slabs were used. The radius of the courtyard was 6 metres. The winner John Woolhouse of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK
32 | NewScientist | 7 April 2012
From Michael Poole, King’s College London I find myself in disagreement with your editorial comment that “religious claims still wither under rational scrutiny”. There are scholarly societies dedicated to the academic study of issues of science and religion, none of which would encourage sloppy or irrational thinking. I had most difficulty with “The God hypothesis” (p 46); its multiple assertions would take a book to address. My book, The New Atheism: Ten arguments that don’t hold water (Lion Hudson, 2009), is an attempt to tackle some of the issues. London, UK From David Bennett You failed to mention the main tools used by the world’s most successful religions to keep and enhance their dominance: force and violence. The dominance of Christianity is the result of centuries of colonialism and imperialism. The spread of Islam was the result of conquest rather than conversion. Force and violence are not only a way of gaining new adherents, but also stop critical examination of the preached religion. Bullying and intimidation have proved, and still prove, capable of silencing opponents. The ongoing history of inquisitions, oppressive fatwas and executions bears testimony to this. New Malden, Surrey, UK
How do we know? From Gary Alexander I think Daniel Everett’s big idea in his excellent article “The social instinct” is in fact bigger than he says (10 March, p 32). It sheds light on the way languages shape our thinking and thus our views of what is real. The Pirahã’s culture limits what they can express, in a way that clarifies it, by demanding that assertions are qualified as hearsay,
deduction or direct observation. It is as though there is a sense of the scientific approach built into their culture. Our less-restricted languages let us think and speak nonsense without realising it. American linguist Benjamin Whorf’s work on Hopi and other native American languages, in which time and space are inseparable and the speaker’s perspective is built into the grammar, has similar implications. If such cultures investigated advanced physics, it might be that some concepts we consider counter-intuitive, because they conflict with the way our language shapes the world, would be the starting points. Diss, Norfolk, UK
Worse could happen From John McIntosh Don Higson says the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine is “the worst that could happen” (17 March, p 26). I disagree. At Chernobyl and Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, one safety system worked successfully to limit the scale of the disaster: people. Without those workers on site, the Chernobyl reactor fire would have continued until it burned itself out, and the reactors and spent fuel storage ponds at Fukushima would not have had their water replenished. Without intervention, more radiation would have been released. If Chernobyl is 7 on the nuclear incident scale of 0 to 7, perhaps there ought to be an 8 for disasters in which there is no one to help. Some will say it is unreasonable to postulate a scenario with no intervention in time to make a difference. But we are talking about extreme events. Natural disasters, war and civil disorder could create such conditions. Port Sunlight, Wirral, UK From David Smythe Like Don Higson, I have been advocating a revision of the higher