Enhancement rights
In his review of our book, The Proactionary Imperative (6 September, p 46), Carl Elliott capitalises on outdated stereotypes of the Nuremberg Code and disabled people.
We regard the Nuremberg Code, which continues to underwrite institutional review board constraints on research using human subjects, as an instance of US jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr’s maxim that “hard cases make bad law”.
Without denying Nazi crimes against humanity, we doubt that it serves the interests of either science or the public to regulate research as if every scientist were a potential Josef Mengele. On the contrary, we believe that the legal system should aim to encourage people to participate in scientific research, perhaps even as a basic human right.
In the case of disabled people, it is patronising, if not simplistic, to claim that they are bound to be disadvantaged by a loosening of ethical standards in research. Indeed, they may indirectly benefit, given the legal restrictions on enhancing able-bodied people.
Thus, disabled people may be allowed to leapfrog into a transhumanist future by virtue of prosthetic enhancements (think Oscar Pistorius), which in turn forces the non-enhanced to adjust their own values and policies. This topic is the subject of a recent report, , published by the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.
Warwick, Coventry, UK
Pressing charges
Richard Smith says he wants to see research misconduct criminalised (13 September, p 27). But research is a civil contract between the organisation initiating the research and those carrying it out. Any failures in the process can and should be dealt with by the civil courts.
The real-world harm that Smith describes begins at the point of publication. Crackpot ideas are not illegal; giving them scientific credence is the point at which they become dangerous.
There are problems of misconduct by researchers, but if we are to allocate criminal blame, I believe the law should only intervene after the point of publication.
London, UK
National distress
Debora MacKenzie’s magisterial account of the evolution of nation states asks whether we can “manage a transition to whatever we need next” (6 September, p 30). I believe it is already happening 鈥� but only thanks to the continuation of nation states.
One of the most successful examples is the control and improvement of civil aviation safety over the last 60 years by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a specialised agency of the United Nations, supported by 191 states.
International cooperation of this kind is only made possible by the exercise of national sovereignties. Global networks of essential bureaucracies will continue to evolve and interact with each other, using the collective powers of nearly 200 national sovereignties 鈥� just a little more than the approximate natural size of a workable human community, as described by Robin Dunbar.
Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, UK
National distress
Rather than the end of nations that Debora MacKenzie refers to, a global system based on small nations would be a better way to “run a planet”.
My research suggests that the problem is not the state or nationality as such, but how to prevent too much power from piling up in too few hands in rich-get-richer growth cycles.
By virtue of their size, small societies allow their members to solve these problems more easily. As I demonstrate in my recent book, The Small Nation Solution, many nations with fewer than 10 million people are already succeeding in this.
Pullman, Washington, US
Coding renaissance
I rejoice at Niall Firth’s paean to the idea of teaching coding to kids (6 September, p 38). I recall that Arthur C. Clarke wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” In this age when magical thinking is still far too abundant, anything that demythologises the wonderful gadgets technology provides us with is to be welcomed with open arms.
Prestwood, Buckinghamshire, UK
Coding renaissance
A push for children to learn coding early is commendable, but I resent your article’s use of the word “narrow” to describe engineers’ “view of how things should look or behave”.
What these classes represent is the need for an earlier and more widespread appreciation of what it truly is to be an engineer.
As the University of Sydney advertisement in the same issue states: “The training that engineers receive helps them develop uniquely analytical minds… that make them attractive, not just for traditional engineering, but also the finance world, patents and international development.”
Buderim, Queensland, Australia
The editor replies:
鈥� You are correct; we meant to say that if coding is included in the school curriculum, it is the diversity of engineers and the things they create, not the engineering mindset, that will broaden.
Games of death
In re-evaluating Stanley Milgram’s infamous experiments, Alexander Haslam and Stephen Reicher argue against the popular view that most people will willingly shock someone to death if an authority figure asks them to (13 September, p 28).
These psychologists might change their mind if they watch the 2010 French/Swiss television documentary Le Jeu de la Mort, in which participants in a fake game show were asked to shock a contestant who answered trivia questions incorrectly.
The participants knew there was no scientific benefit. Yet only a fifth of them stopped before inflicting what they thought were lethal level shocks.
Hampton, Middlesex, UK
Soul survivor
Pythagoras’s enrolment as a reader at the library of Alexandria some 200 years after his death (6 September, p 29) is entirely consistent with Pythagorean philosophy. A significant tenet was the doctrine of transmigration of the soul after death into another body.
Great Shelford, Cambridge, UK
Shear volume
According to your feature “Roar power”, an electric racing car travelling at 100 kilometres per hour will emit about 80 decibels (30 August, p 42).
Yet my electric lawnmower emits 96 dB, according to the manufacturer’s warning label.
Forest Lake, Queensland, Australia
The editor replies:
鈥� We should have mentioned that noise exposure depends on distance as well as volume. Not many Formula 1 fans get as close to a racing car as you do to your lawnmower.
For the record
鈥� We should have described Richard Twitchett as a co-author of the study of scavengers on ichthyosaur remains (13 September, p 12). He worked with colleagues from Plymouth University.