God and Obamacare
In his review of Ara Norenzayan’s Big Gods: How religion transformed cooperation and conflict (28 September, p 52), Michael Bond wonders why the US, one of the most economically developed countries, is still among the most religious. This contrasts with the fact that the world’s most secure countries tend to be the least religious.
As a systematic theologian, I have been fascinated by that very phenomenon and have a working hypothesis. This Suchard contention is that, in comparison with much of Europe, the US has an underdeveloped healthcare network and social security safety net, which leaves millions of citizens facing catastrophic illness and abject poverty. Such insecurity, either experienced or feared, means active religiosity and membership in a religious organisation proclaiming that God takes care of his own becomes an attractive source of immaterial comfort and hope, as well as often providing real and tangible material support.
If health and social programmes were implemented in the US to the same level of effectiveness and outcome as in much of Europe, religious society in the US would more closely resemble the unchurched Europeans. Obamacare 鈥� which seeks to widen healthcare provision 鈥� may provide us with a means of testing this hypothesis.
I am willing to predict that, if implemented in full, it will contribute, probably within one child-bearing generation, to the decrease in church attendance and literalist religious beliefs. European levels would be seen within half a century.
Haarlem, The Netherlands
God and Obamacare
Bond’s review has it that “true believers think atheists cannot be expected to behave morally”. This is wrong. Orthodox Christianity teaches explicitly that every rational person can recognise moral obligation. The mystery lies in how an atheist squares this obligation with a wholly materialistic universe.
London, UK
Latin dance
In her look at the relationship between manners and disgust, Valerie Curtis raises some interesting points (21 September, p 28) but does not address the huge differences between cultures.
For example, why does the concept of personal space vary? A social anthropologist friend of mine described how, at a conference in Brazil, every conversation between one of the locals and a US or UK delegate turned into a slow waltz around the room as the Brazilian moved forward to their comfortable talking position while the visitor backed off to theirs.
Neither the hygiene nor the social cooperation hypothesis seems to account for these differences.
Sydney, Australia
Art first
In an otherwise fascinating exploration of civilisation’s true beginning (5 October, p 32), David Robson states that art has its roots 8300 years ago.
However, there are earlier examples as exemplified by the recent Ice Age Art exhibition at the British Museum in London. Then there is the incomparable art of the Chauvet cave in France, roughly 32,000 years old, the Coliboaia cave in Romania, which dates to roughly 30,000 BC, and the later, but still significantly early art of Altamira cave in Spain and Lascaux in France.
Not forgetting the extraordinary sculpture from the Doln铆 V藝estonice archaeological site in the Czech Republic, which dates from roughly 25,000 BC.
So art seems to predate civilisation and agriculture by a substantial margin.
Louisburgh, County Mayo, Ireland
Cuts both ways
In your special issue on thought, you list Occam’s razor as a tool for easier thinking, as follows: “Don’t invent a complicated explanation for something if a simpler one will do” (21 September, p 38). It is also useful in medicine: do not make two or more diagnoses when one will explain the symptoms.
But, in or out of medicine, the razor may sometimes fail. We should recall Hickam’s dictum: “A patient can have as many diseases as they damn well please.” This is the same as saying it is often more likely that a patient has several common diseases than a single, rarer one that explains their multiple symptoms.
Weybridge, Surrey, UK
Climate talk
Adam Corner discusses the ineffective way in which some scientists communicate the predicted effects of climate change (28 September, p 28), a problem which makes me despair.
For example, tell British people about a 2掳C rise in temperature, and the usual reaction will be: “Oh, that’ll be nice. We could do with some better weather.”
But if researchers spoke about how many of the 160 million inhabitants of low-lying Bangladesh will be displaced by rising sea levels and that, as it is a member of the Commonwealth, the UK needs to prepare for millions of refugees, then I suspect the public might get serious about it.
Truro, Cornwall, UK
Climate talk
I am writing in response to Corner’s take on the ineffective communication of climate science. We are all subject to confirmation bias, whereby we favour evidence that supports our existing feelings. Further, when strongly held views are challenged, cognitive dissonance is invoked 鈥� a feeling of mental discomfort that discourages a change of heart.
It might be helpful to start teaching in schools not only about devastating climate change, but also about our susceptibility to subconscious and exploitative persuasion, so that we could appreciate reason above propaganda. Now that would be environmentally friendly.
Radcliffe on Trent, Nottinghamshire, UK
Bullet proof
Given that gun lovers in the US seem impervious to moral or rational argument (28 September, p 30), I suggest that the only remaining hope is to make their weapons useless.
One way would be to produce bullet-proof clothing which is both wearable on a casual basis and cheap enough to become ubiquitous. A forlorn hope, but it’s all I can think of.
Ashford, Kent, UK
Life on Mars
The Mars rover Curiosity reports that methane is not present in the atmosphere (28 September, p 19). Chlorinated methane derivatives such as chloromethane have been detected in experiments with Curiosity’s sample analyser at least twice. We are told they are possibly the result of contaminants brought from Earth. This issue is unresolved, and so the methane needed to form these compounds could be a product of microorganisms.
The idea that water exists in liquid form on Mars 鈥� at least some of the time 鈥� is supported by the atmospheric pressures and temperatures, its polar ice caps, water vapour in the atmosphere and the subsurface ice. It is surely enough for adapted bacteria to derive their water requirements.
Buckingham, UK
Deadly lake
I suspect the birds that die in Lake Natron in Tanzania (28 September, p 26) are found as they are because they become coated with carbonate and dry out. Often birds will go into these lakes because the water facilitates removal of their surface parasites. Some spend too long in it. The water strips the oil from their feathers, and they become waterlogged and drown.
If the birds are washed ashore, the hot dry climate dries them out, resulting in the striking, petrified appearances shown.
Ellensburg, Washington, US
You scratch my back
In your look at the true nature of cats (14 September, p 44), you miss one of their most peculiar behaviours: that of giving their “owners” dead mice as a present.
It has happened to me a couple of times, and it always felt (very unscientifically) as a genuine act of friendliness, perhaps in return for so much cat food.
London, UK
Kill switch
You ponder legal dilemmas of the future (14 September, p 40). Perhaps the most interesting one facing the legal system and society as a whole will be machine consciousness. Will switching off a self-aware robot be murder?
Manchester, UK
Bang goes the future
It was interesting to read about the outcomes predicted by climate models for the year 2100 based on crucial decisions we make now, ranging from starting large-scale geoengineering to continued addiction to fossil fuels (5 October, p 8).
I do, however, believe it is somewhat naive of the modellers to have omitted that in all probability there will be a third world war before the end of the century. That will be the mother of all wars and will certainly change the climate.
Bournemouth, Dorset, UK
Early influence
Your recent article about the importance of birth order credited Francis Galton with the idea of prising apart the influences of nature and nurture (7 September, p 40). However, Shakespeare uses it in The Tempest Act IV Scene I, where Prospero describes Caliban as “A devil, a born devil, on whose nature/Nurture can never stick”.
He wasn’t the first: 40 or so years before The Tempest, author John Lyly used it in .
Coventry, West Midlands, UK
Missing matter
Robert Adler reported on dark matter (31 August, p 36), and John Darlington hypothesised that “dark aliens” exist and are searching for their missing 15 per cent of matter (21 September, p 31).
I can confirm the existence of these one-footed monsters. The cheeky blighters are recovering their 15 per cent of matter from my laundry basket, one sock at a time.
Forbes, New South Wales, Australia
For the record
鈥� We got carried away in our report on floods in Colorado (21 September, p 7). We should have said 18,000 homes were damaged, not destroyed.