Valley views
I wonder if the “uncanny valley”, the discomfort experienced when confronted by a human-like android (12 January, p 35), could be related to the idea that our brains organise things into specific categories, such as dogs and fish under animals (5 January, p 10)?
A robot that looks human but we know is a machine could be creating an anomaly in the brain’s filing system as it attempts to slot it into conflicting categories.
Few could disagree that empathy plays a key role in the “uncanny valley” phenomenon, as proposed by Karl MacDorman. However, I would suggest an additional factor to do with the detection of lying. Humans rely on facial micro-expressions to determine trustworthiness and I believe that an android face that tries but fails to perfectly mimic human emotion is unconsciously interpreted by the viewer as attempting to suppress these. This is perceived to be an attempt to deceive and is therefore taken as menacing.
The concept isn’t limited to visual cues. In the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, director Stanley Kubrick allowed computer HAL 9000’s over-controlled, emotionless diction to alert viewers to its untrustworthy nature before it became deceptive and murderous.
Newtownabbey, County Antrim, UK
It grows on trees?
Your look at the ecology of mistletoe was a fascinating read (22/29 December 2012, p 70), but it got me thinking about economics. Trees hang onto the large majority of resources in a woodland and don’t share them with others, and that stifles diversity. In a sense this echoes the accumulation of resources by the super rich, or 1 per cent, in our societies.
Mistletoe is like Robin Hood; it steals from the rich (the trees it grows on) and gives to the poor (other species present). In so doing, it apparently acts as a “keystone resource” promoting diversity.
To what extent do ecology and economics occupy common ground? Could economic experiments be conducted in experimental forest plots? Can models in ecology be extrapolated to human economies? Has this been studied, and if so, what does it tell us about inequality, redistribution, economic productivity and health?
Not so elementary
As an avid fan and one who uses the stories of Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate inference, I really enjoyed your book reviews on the great detective and his science (5 January, p 40). In them you mention his use of deductive reasoning, which in its strictest definition means that based on the assumption of true reasons the answer is guaranteed true.
However, author Arthur Conan Doyle probably assumed the more common meaning of “deduction” as a process leading to a conclusion so that an audience not necessarily skilled in either science or logic could understand.
Holmes of course uses that form of reasoning which gave 18th century philosopher David Hume so many problems and which produces new knowledge with a high probability of truth 鈥� inductive reasoning.
Natural barriers
Mark Pagel’s hypothesis about the distribution of languages, with the widest diversity found in the tropics, is interesting but I suspect it has more to do with topography than climate (8 December 2012, p 38). The New Guinea islands are geologically young and in the early stages of erosion, with high mountains and steeply incised valleys in the highlands. Each valley is home to a different tribe with a distinct culture and language, often out of touch with the rest of the world.
Editorial input
You report that Wikipedia is rated harder to read than Encyclopaedia Britannica (15 December 2012, p 27). Information scientists Adam Jatowt and Katsumi Tanaka attribute this to Wikipedia articles often being written by experts, who tend to sacrifice readability for accuracy.
I always understood that Encyclopaedia Britannica contributors were also experts. There is surely a simpler explanation: the Britannica entries are edited by professionals before publication, unlike those in Wikipedia.
Gainless condition
You report that finger skin wrinkling as a result of soaking in water could be a beneficial adaptation as it gives better grip in wet conditions (12 January, p 15). Surely this is a classic example of what author Raymond Tallis calls “Darwinitis”.
Not every physical characteristic need confer an adaptive advantage. A characteristic can surely be adaptively neutral, of no great benefit or disadvantage.
Headline figure
I worry that announcements such as those by the UK’s Met Office predicting little change in the global mean surface temperature over the next five years are so readily translated into “global warming at a standstill” by the mainstream press, as you reported (9 January, newscientist.com/article/dn23060).
The global mean surface temperature is an insufficient, often misleading measure of the real issue. What matters is the energy imbalance of the planet, the climate disruption it is driving, and the consequences for humanity. As you said, 90 per cent of the energy imbalance is accumulating in the oceans 鈥� something that is invisible to the global surface temperature data. The continuing rise in global mean sea level as a result of thermal expansion (and a contribution from ice melt on land) shows this accumulation has not ceased.
Even if the global mean surface temperature stayed constant, changes to the geographic patterns of temperature would have consequences for our well-being, water supplies, food production and the frequency and nature of extreme events. The heatwave in Australia this month provides a vivid illustration.
I don’t blame the media for pursuing a catchy headline and provocative story. But the unfortunate consequences are public confusion and loss of motivation to combat climate change. It seems to me the science community needs to be much more circumspect about how it expresses its results and their meaning.
Car hacking
Bryant Walker Smith raises a number of legal issues surrounding driverless cars (22/29 December 2012, p 34). But what about the elephant in the room: hacking? Doubtless we will be told that security will be tight, but it often isn’t for new technology, such as cellphones.
Why would anyone want to hack a driverless car? Perhaps for “fun”. Or maybe to kidnap a politician, or their child on the way to school. Worried? You should be.
Consumer rules
Peter Ryan’s letter makes a good argument for taxing carbon emissions on the consumption rather than production of goods (22/29 December 2012, p 41).
However, recent responses to energy price and fuel duty increases in the UK are not encouraging. Environmental explanations for the underlying policy are overwhelmed by the bad press generated by aggrieved consumers. I don’t think that any sensible system that directly makes the consumer pay for carbon emissions will ever be politically viable.
Puzzle and a pint
Logician George Boolos may have solved the “hardest logic puzzle” in 1996 (22/29 December 2012, p 50). However, a handful of students of experimental psychology at the University of Sussex, UK, cracked something similar one afternoon in 1968, aided by a few beers.
Our problem was to distinguish the door that led to freedom from the door that led to death when faced by three guardians: a truth teller, a compulsive liar and a randomiser, whose words for “yes” and “no” were “ping” and “pong” (or vice versa). We didn’t need to appeal to the law of the excluded middle, and it didn’t occur to us to publish.
Bounce, don't slosh
Further to your look at how to avoid a scalding when carrying a hot drink (22/29 December 2012, p 65), I find that applying a slight up and down motion to the container while walking works well. This is true regardless of container weight or distance from body.
Health shortages
In his letter Peter Wilson bemoans the lack of psychotherapists in the UK’s National Health Service (12 January, p 29), but there are also too few staff to care for the elderly, for dementia care, for treatment for some types of cancer, for health education 鈥� in short to provide anything like a service that can satisfy the insatiable demand.
The defining of what our health service can and cannot afford is urgently needed. Until this exercise takes place, it will be underfunded and underachievement the norm.
G.O.D.
I propose that while there is uncertainty regarding the beginning of the universe (1 December 2012, p 32) the debate about it should be called the Great Origin Dilemma.
For the record
鈥� In our photo competition (22/29 December 2012, p 77) we mislabelled image L as H on page 66. The labelling was correct in the online version, however, where the answers needed to be submitted
鈥� Enigma puzzle 1731, “Power play” (12 January, p 28), should have been credited to Gwyn Owen