- Email: [email protected]
Illness and the mind
For more letters and to join the debate, visit www.NewScientist.com/letters
comes, evangelists will be queuing up to try to convert him on his deathbed, hoping to make Lady Hope-style conversion claims as they did with Charles Darwin. Dawkins has, I believe, stated that he will have a running tape recorder secreted about his person – so such people should beware, lest they are caught in the act. St Peter, Jersey, Channel Islands
Natural-born belief
scientific procedures on animals (7 March, p 22). Unfortunately, many antivivisectionists reject two assumptions on which this approach is predicated: that knowledge gained from animal research can be applied to humans, and that alternative methods of gaining the same information are not always available. Instead, they claim that animal research is not relevant to humans because of species differences, and that alternatives already exist in all cases. I wish Robinson well in her quest and in her capacity as chief executive of the National Centre for Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) in the UK. Animal research still has relevance to humans, and alternatives are not always available. London, UK
From Sebastian Hayes M. Bell argues that science is independent of great names while religion is not (7 March, p 24). Certainly, other intelligent beings would develop science of a kind, but there is no reason for it to have much in common with, say, Newton’s billiard-ball vision of the universe. Newton’s view was specific to the time and place where it originated. It was also erroneous: for instance, “atoms” are not indivisible. By contrast, it is possible to claim a universality of religious attitude. Religion is more concerned with human behaviour than truth. All the major religions promote an attitude of awe towards the creator of the physical universe and an attitude of unselfish concern for our fellow human beings. The extent to which believers actually put into practice these high principles is, of course, a different matter, but this is also true of so-called “scientific objectivity”. Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK
From Jonathan West I’d like to say “no thanks” to the intercontinental electrical supergrids discussed in the “Green grid” feature (14 March, p 42). Adopting them would make us more vulnerable than ever to the whims of countries from or through which the cables pass, and they would be easy targets for any would-be attacker intent on causing disruption. Instead, the future of energy should lie in the use of multiple small-scale, local power plants using waste, solar and mini nuclear fission reactors. Exeter, Devon, UK
We need lab animals
Relativity rage
From Leigh Jackson Vicky Robinson claims that common ground can be found between scientists and opponents of animal research throughthe three Rs: the replacement, reduction and refinement of
From Alice Poppleton “I didn’t notice hordes of physicists in a frothing rage when the line ‘Why Einstein was wrong about relativity’ appeared on your cover”, Paddy Shannon wrote (14 March, p 24, regarding
Super power
haunted me until my early 30s when, after many visits to doctors, someone finally suggested IBS. Reading up on the condition and realising that it was benign, I stopped worrying about it. Almost 11 years on, I haven’t had any further bouts of IBS. Sydney, Australia
Get knitted 1 November 2008 issue). While not frothing with rage, Brian Newham did point out that the problems in Einstein’s theories were those of language rather than of physics (6 December, p 22). It should be noted that the “Einstein was wrong” issue came with the subtitle “The speed of light is nothing special”, which is rather less inflammatory than your subtitle to your “Darwin was wrong” issue, which was “Cutting down the tree of life”. While people have overreacted somewhat, it was a bit of a disappointment that the promised article about Darwin being wrong was just about his tree model being insufficient. This was the best he could possibly have done at the time, so really it wasn’t about Darwin being wrong at all – it was a lot more interesting than that. Sydney, Australia
Illness and the mind From Joerg Hofmann Simon Wessely’s interpretation of certain medical conditions as having a psychological component makes perfect sense to me (14 March, p 26). We cannot blame our mind for everything, but it undoubtedly plays a major role in many illnesses, as I know from personal experience. I suffered from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) from early childhood, though at that time I did not know what was wrong with me. The constant worry
From Robert Cailliau Keith Tritton’s suggestion of knitting patterns as a metaphor for DNA are indeed a much better analogy than a blueprint (21 March, p 22). Some decades ago New Scientist published an article on random knitting patterns and I realised they could be used to encode anything into a sweater. I convinced my wife to knit the first 500 digits of pi for me,
resulting in an attractive, if erratically decorative, pullover. It strikes me, though, that the same technique would not be able to represent a great deal of my genome. Prevessin-Moens, Ain, France
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.
18 April 2009 | NewScientist | 25
comes, evangelists will be queuing up to try to convert him on his deathbed, hoping to make Lady Hope-style conversion claims as they did with Charles Darwin. Dawkins has, I believe, stated that he will have a running tape recorder secreted about his person – so such people should beware, lest they are caught in the act. St Peter, Jersey, Channel Islands
Natural-born belief
scientific procedures on animals (7 March, p 22). Unfortunately, many antivivisectionists reject two assumptions on which this approach is predicated: that knowledge gained from animal research can be applied to humans, and that alternative methods of gaining the same information are not always available. Instead, they claim that animal research is not relevant to humans because of species differences, and that alternatives already exist in all cases. I wish Robinson well in her quest and in her capacity as chief executive of the National Centre for Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) in the UK. Animal research still has relevance to humans, and alternatives are not always available. London, UK
From Sebastian Hayes M. Bell argues that science is independent of great names while religion is not (7 March, p 24). Certainly, other intelligent beings would develop science of a kind, but there is no reason for it to have much in common with, say, Newton’s billiard-ball vision of the universe. Newton’s view was specific to the time and place where it originated. It was also erroneous: for instance, “atoms” are not indivisible. By contrast, it is possible to claim a universality of religious attitude. Religion is more concerned with human behaviour than truth. All the major religions promote an attitude of awe towards the creator of the physical universe and an attitude of unselfish concern for our fellow human beings. The extent to which believers actually put into practice these high principles is, of course, a different matter, but this is also true of so-called “scientific objectivity”. Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK
From Jonathan West I’d like to say “no thanks” to the intercontinental electrical supergrids discussed in the “Green grid” feature (14 March, p 42). Adopting them would make us more vulnerable than ever to the whims of countries from or through which the cables pass, and they would be easy targets for any would-be attacker intent on causing disruption. Instead, the future of energy should lie in the use of multiple small-scale, local power plants using waste, solar and mini nuclear fission reactors. Exeter, Devon, UK
We need lab animals
Relativity rage
From Leigh Jackson Vicky Robinson claims that common ground can be found between scientists and opponents of animal research throughthe three Rs: the replacement, reduction and refinement of
From Alice Poppleton “I didn’t notice hordes of physicists in a frothing rage when the line ‘Why Einstein was wrong about relativity’ appeared on your cover”, Paddy Shannon wrote (14 March, p 24, regarding
Super power
haunted me until my early 30s when, after many visits to doctors, someone finally suggested IBS. Reading up on the condition and realising that it was benign, I stopped worrying about it. Almost 11 years on, I haven’t had any further bouts of IBS. Sydney, Australia
Get knitted 1 November 2008 issue). While not frothing with rage, Brian Newham did point out that the problems in Einstein’s theories were those of language rather than of physics (6 December, p 22). It should be noted that the “Einstein was wrong” issue came with the subtitle “The speed of light is nothing special”, which is rather less inflammatory than your subtitle to your “Darwin was wrong” issue, which was “Cutting down the tree of life”. While people have overreacted somewhat, it was a bit of a disappointment that the promised article about Darwin being wrong was just about his tree model being insufficient. This was the best he could possibly have done at the time, so really it wasn’t about Darwin being wrong at all – it was a lot more interesting than that. Sydney, Australia
Illness and the mind From Joerg Hofmann Simon Wessely’s interpretation of certain medical conditions as having a psychological component makes perfect sense to me (14 March, p 26). We cannot blame our mind for everything, but it undoubtedly plays a major role in many illnesses, as I know from personal experience. I suffered from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) from early childhood, though at that time I did not know what was wrong with me. The constant worry
From Robert Cailliau Keith Tritton’s suggestion of knitting patterns as a metaphor for DNA are indeed a much better analogy than a blueprint (21 March, p 22). Some decades ago New Scientist published an article on random knitting patterns and I realised they could be used to encode anything into a sweater. I convinced my wife to knit the first 500 digits of pi for me,
resulting in an attractive, if erratically decorative, pullover. It strikes me, though, that the same technique would not be able to represent a great deal of my genome. Prevessin-Moens, Ain, France
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.
18 April 2009 | NewScientist | 25