Chemistry gone mad
In considering how life can influence its own evolutionary path (12 October, p 32), Bob Holmes is overly conservative. If our understanding of evolution and organic chemistry is correct, then a complex molecule 鈥� DNA 鈥� has, by evolving the code necessary to make a human brain, become capable of looking down on itself and even modifying itself in ways that would never have occurred in nature.
Someone once described the evolution of life on Earth as “chemistry gone mad”, but when you have a molecule contemplating its own structure then there must be more going on than just a multi-billion-year slide down to lower entropy.
Jomtien, Thailand
Neuro crisis
Your call for caution in the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a research tool for assessing and explaining brain function was timely (19 October, p 32), particularly as it is widely used to pinpoint male-female differences in cognitive abilities and performance.
Such work has raised a variety of ethical and research-quality concerns over possible misuse of the technique to support unwarranted claims of what is “normal”. It also encourages public misunderstanding, and promotes the view that women’s brains are different (and lesser) to men’s.
London, UK
Neuro crisis
Neuroscience is not in crisis (p 3). Neuroimaging, a small part of neuroscience, is a fast-evolving approach in which methodological practice is advancing in leaps and bounds. There are still many challenges, and it is true that ensuring sufficient statistical power to produce reliable results is one of them.
Another challenge is confronting the tendency to identify complex social constructs, such as morality, with specific brain regions. This is a conceptual error for which simplified media representations are perhaps equally to blame.
Brighton, East Sussex, UK
Atheist morality
Quentin de la B茅doy猫re (19 October, p 30) wonders how atheists square moral obligation with a wholly materialistic universe. The answer from this atheist is: ethics, compassion and self-respect.
London, UK
A few dollars more
Talk of the end of dollar supremacy is about a century too soon, despite the possibility of US government debt default and financial crisis (19 October, p 4). As your report pointed out, the British pound was only overtaken by the dollar as the world’s reserve currency in the 1970s. What was not mentioned was that this was nearly 100 years after the US economy superseded the UK’s in size.
Even those with the most positive outlook on China admit that it will take at least a decade before its economy could overtake that of the US, and it may well take many more years than that.
London, UK
Chronic theitis?
It was witty to print Albert Lightfoot’s letter disputing the conjecture that observatories were built for religious reasons, 鈥� and then follow it with one from Steve Blyth suggesting that agriculture may also have been the result of religious congregations (12 October, p 30).
Raymond Tallis uses the term “Darwinitis” for the misuse of Darwin’s theory of evolution to explain all aspects of human behaviour; perhaps we could coin a similar word 鈥� theitis? religitis? 鈥� to describe explanations of human progress in terms of religious concepts.
Sandy, Bedfordshire, UK
Learning by numbers
Biologist Steven Rose highlights a recent genome-wide association study seeking genes associated with educational attainment (Science, vol 340, p 1467). He says the genes found accounted for a mere 0.02 per cent of the difference (26 October, p 28).
That figure applies only to the single most significant gene located by the researchers. The combined impact of all the genetic differences identified raised the figure to around 2 per cent of the variation in educational level.
West Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
Military emissions
The good news in the article on reducing airline greenhouse gas emissions (12 October, p 6) relates exclusively to commercial air transport. Unless its impact is negligible, which I doubt, military air transport must be included in the equation. NATO usage is heavy, and war zones must also be causing damage.
Brentwood, Essex, UK
Healthy disbelief
What is paradoxical, if not contradictory, in Derek Suchard’s hypothesis 鈥� that socialised healthcare undermines belief (19 October, p 30) 鈥� is that the history of social care has religious roots, yet seems to encourage the very secularisation that corrodes those roots.
Manchester, UK