- Email: [email protected]
Paradoxical design
SEE OUR WEBSITE FOR LETTERS ON: ● Face blindness ● Black hole turf war
● The editor writes: To be fair to mathematicians, Burkard Polster and his colleagues do point out in their paper that the ground has to be continuous for their proof to work (www. arxiv.org/abs/math/0511490).
Paradoxical design From David Prichard Your editorial “It’s still about religion” leaves me somewhat bemused (16 December 2006, p 5). Not because of its advocacy of “good science” over the intelligent design movement,
but because of the individuals it refers to whose zealotry requires they play a game that might be called “I’m the king of the (intellectual) castle”. In order to appear to have some mystical superiority, they contradict the bleeding obvious. To suggest that the complexity of existence is proof of intelligent design is a non sequitur. Clearly, the opposite is true. Had some super intelligence designed everything, it would have been far simpler. It can be explained logically only by random (even chaotic) evolutionary events – unless, of course, the designer wasn’t all that intelligent. Geraldton, Western Australia
had intelligent designers (16 December 2006, p 8). In the 17th century, New England settlers took it as a sign of divine providence that the Native Americans were dying of various diseases. Mark Twain in his Letters from the Earth similarly attributes a lot of bacterial misery to an intelligent designer. La Jolla, California, US
Widdershins winds From Martin Pettinger Feedback muses how, in the absence of an analogue clock, the concept of clockwise and anticlockwise can be expressed (9 December 2006). We could use the nautical terms “veering” and “backing”. Veering occurs when the direction from which the wind comes changes in a clockwise direction – for instance from the east to the south – and backing is the reverse. Herstmonceux, East Sussex, UK From Steve Fankuchen Several years ago I visited a maths class at one of America’s top private high schools and asked them what they thought the 1949 movie Twelve O’Clock High was about: was it probably about smoking pot in the cafeteria during lunch break? All either agreed, or said they had no idea. I then explained to them that it was about aerial combat and that the title was a method of location entirely contingent on an understanding of analogue clocks. Conversion to digital clocks would do more than delete certain “facts”: it would eliminate a way of viewing the world – an intellectual impoverishment. Alameda, California, US
Server service Design’s purposes From Ray Merewether Douglas Axe of the Biologic Institute is far from the first to believe that bacteria www.newscientist.com
From Bart Holland We are told that distributing 10 megabytes of information uses the energy equivalent of burning 900 grams of coal (16 December 2006, p 24). It would be
interesting to calculate the energy consumption necessary to bring us the same amount of information in the form of, say, old-fashioned photographs – taking into account the production of the paper, the chemicals, transporting them, processing the photographic film, posting the pictures to friends via mail trucks, and so forth. Are there significant economies of scale when producing certain kinds of material that is viewed only on the web rather than in the form of very numerous copies of large printed reference volumes? Certainly, web servers concentrate energy demand in one place and time, but it is not at all obvious whether more or less energy is used overall in a society where photographic and reference materials are held on servers rather than as hard copies. New York, US From Colin May If a large part of the power used by these data centres is used to keep them cool, why not put them somewhere cool to start with: northern Alaska, Iceland or on top of a mountain, for instance? Who knows or cares where the web’s servers actually are? These areas often have interesting alternative sources of power, too. Zurich, Switzerland
Compulsory free will From Tim Sprod Forget free will, says Jim Haigh (23/30 December 2006, p 26). If it is so easy, he ought to be able to rewrite his letter to remove any assumption of free will from it. He tells us that “facing up to the fact that we lack free will seems to be so difficult.” If he is right, then it is either compulsory (for people like him), or impossible; each of us has been determined either to reject free will or to accept it. His letter is littered with other appeals: for us to choose to “make better progress”, to “consider”, to “live as if” and “to remember”.
Each of these are exhortations to make certain choices. While determinists cannot do without the language of free will, I will continue to believe that the free will versus determinism debate remains a live one. Taroona, Tasmania, Australia
Colour by number From Dennis Fregger I enjoyed your festive, lighthearted holiday issue – until I found the statement “Robotic art dates back to 1973” (23/30 December 2006, p 60). Back in 1963 my aunt, Joan Shogren, collaborated with Jim Larson in the engineering department at San Jose State College in California. The computer filled in a grid at random, except as constrained by “rules of art” entered on punched cards, specifying colour, colour harmony, rhythm and composition. There were no colour printers in those days, so students and faculty were invited to colour in the resulting pictures. Aptos, California, US
Price control From Derek Bolton Your reference to the “time riots” in England in 1752 could leave the impression that the rioters thought they were losing 11 days of their lives (23/30 December 2006, p 40). Maybe some thought that, but most were upset with good reason. Rents were paid quarterly, and the landlords still expected a full quarter’s rent. No price watchdogs back then. Birchgrove, New South Wales, Australia
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 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.
20 January 2007 | NewScientist | 19
● The editor writes: To be fair to mathematicians, Burkard Polster and his colleagues do point out in their paper that the ground has to be continuous for their proof to work (www. arxiv.org/abs/math/0511490).
Paradoxical design From David Prichard Your editorial “It’s still about religion” leaves me somewhat bemused (16 December 2006, p 5). Not because of its advocacy of “good science” over the intelligent design movement,
but because of the individuals it refers to whose zealotry requires they play a game that might be called “I’m the king of the (intellectual) castle”. In order to appear to have some mystical superiority, they contradict the bleeding obvious. To suggest that the complexity of existence is proof of intelligent design is a non sequitur. Clearly, the opposite is true. Had some super intelligence designed everything, it would have been far simpler. It can be explained logically only by random (even chaotic) evolutionary events – unless, of course, the designer wasn’t all that intelligent. Geraldton, Western Australia
had intelligent designers (16 December 2006, p 8). In the 17th century, New England settlers took it as a sign of divine providence that the Native Americans were dying of various diseases. Mark Twain in his Letters from the Earth similarly attributes a lot of bacterial misery to an intelligent designer. La Jolla, California, US
Widdershins winds From Martin Pettinger Feedback muses how, in the absence of an analogue clock, the concept of clockwise and anticlockwise can be expressed (9 December 2006). We could use the nautical terms “veering” and “backing”. Veering occurs when the direction from which the wind comes changes in a clockwise direction – for instance from the east to the south – and backing is the reverse. Herstmonceux, East Sussex, UK From Steve Fankuchen Several years ago I visited a maths class at one of America’s top private high schools and asked them what they thought the 1949 movie Twelve O’Clock High was about: was it probably about smoking pot in the cafeteria during lunch break? All either agreed, or said they had no idea. I then explained to them that it was about aerial combat and that the title was a method of location entirely contingent on an understanding of analogue clocks. Conversion to digital clocks would do more than delete certain “facts”: it would eliminate a way of viewing the world – an intellectual impoverishment. Alameda, California, US
Server service Design’s purposes From Ray Merewether Douglas Axe of the Biologic Institute is far from the first to believe that bacteria www.newscientist.com
From Bart Holland We are told that distributing 10 megabytes of information uses the energy equivalent of burning 900 grams of coal (16 December 2006, p 24). It would be
interesting to calculate the energy consumption necessary to bring us the same amount of information in the form of, say, old-fashioned photographs – taking into account the production of the paper, the chemicals, transporting them, processing the photographic film, posting the pictures to friends via mail trucks, and so forth. Are there significant economies of scale when producing certain kinds of material that is viewed only on the web rather than in the form of very numerous copies of large printed reference volumes? Certainly, web servers concentrate energy demand in one place and time, but it is not at all obvious whether more or less energy is used overall in a society where photographic and reference materials are held on servers rather than as hard copies. New York, US From Colin May If a large part of the power used by these data centres is used to keep them cool, why not put them somewhere cool to start with: northern Alaska, Iceland or on top of a mountain, for instance? Who knows or cares where the web’s servers actually are? These areas often have interesting alternative sources of power, too. Zurich, Switzerland
Compulsory free will From Tim Sprod Forget free will, says Jim Haigh (23/30 December 2006, p 26). If it is so easy, he ought to be able to rewrite his letter to remove any assumption of free will from it. He tells us that “facing up to the fact that we lack free will seems to be so difficult.” If he is right, then it is either compulsory (for people like him), or impossible; each of us has been determined either to reject free will or to accept it. His letter is littered with other appeals: for us to choose to “make better progress”, to “consider”, to “live as if” and “to remember”.
Each of these are exhortations to make certain choices. While determinists cannot do without the language of free will, I will continue to believe that the free will versus determinism debate remains a live one. Taroona, Tasmania, Australia
Colour by number From Dennis Fregger I enjoyed your festive, lighthearted holiday issue – until I found the statement “Robotic art dates back to 1973” (23/30 December 2006, p 60). Back in 1963 my aunt, Joan Shogren, collaborated with Jim Larson in the engineering department at San Jose State College in California. The computer filled in a grid at random, except as constrained by “rules of art” entered on punched cards, specifying colour, colour harmony, rhythm and composition. There were no colour printers in those days, so students and faculty were invited to colour in the resulting pictures. Aptos, California, US
Price control From Derek Bolton Your reference to the “time riots” in England in 1752 could leave the impression that the rioters thought they were losing 11 days of their lives (23/30 December 2006, p 40). Maybe some thought that, but most were upset with good reason. Rents were paid quarterly, and the landlords still expected a full quarter’s rent. No price watchdogs back then. Birchgrove, New South Wales, Australia
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 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.
20 January 2007 | NewScientist | 19