Editor's pick: Morality needs more thought
Dan Jones discusses ways to make people moral (26 September, p 36) and Christian B. Miller asks whether “character education” works (p 26). In part, dilemmas on morality come from a lack of understanding that moral behaviour requires thought. “Moral instruction” is an oxymoron promoted by religious and other groups seeking power and conformity, and doesn’t lead to moral behaviour, simply acquiescence or worse.
Our progress has been hampered by a lack of planned education in the area. In the UK, this hasn’t been helped by a lack of strategic planning in the National Curriculum. Pupils should be given the opportunity to see how their instinctive reactions and behaviours are based on priorities which served us well a million years ago.
These reactions originate in deep-seated parts of our brain, and often do not serve us well today. It is correct to say that moral behaviour must be based on an understanding of this, together with an exploration of how we think through how we make good decisions for ourselves and others.
Ironbridge, Shropshire, UK
Shining a light on ancient caving
The large collection of Homo naledi fossils found deep inside a cave system in South Africa appears to have been placed there intentionally, suggesting some type of ritual for disposing of the dead (12 September, p 8). That raises an interesting question.
How did this ancient hominin, with a brain half the size of ours, navigate caves that are clearly dangerous in pitch blackness while carrying a dead relative? Surely they must also have mastered the making of fire torches 鈥� a skill usually attributed to much later development of the human species.
West Lakes, South Australia
<b>First class post</b>
Listening then developing legislation is better than what we are stuck with in the UK
Maureesa Walsh , perhaps wistfully, the science policy of Canada’s new government (24 October, p 6)
Memory recovery and therapy
Discussing the issues of “lost” memories and therapy, you report me saying that memories that re-emerge spontaneously are more likely to be real than those from recovered-memory therapy (10 October, p 8). To put the record straight, I did not use the term “recovered-memory therapy” and would never do so. It is a term with no specific definition, often used indiscriminately to describe any therapy (appropriate or otherwise) that might have preceded memories of abuse.
In my role as an expert witness in the courts I recognise that recovering a memory in therapy per se does not necessarily render it unreliable, and the majority of therapists do not use inappropriate practices. In legal cases it is necessary to weigh up a variety of factors that might increase or decrease the likelihood of a memory being reliable before giving an opinion. It is important that experts ground the testimony they provide in scientific evidence rather than opinion, whether they are representing the prosecution or the defence.
For the avoidance of doubt, I do not believe that memories recovered in all forms of therapy are less likely to be real, because there is no consistent scientific evidence to support such a claim. It is, however, universally recognised that certain therapeutic techniques such as hypnosis may be risky if used inappropriately.
London, UK
The measure of the class and the nation
It is intriguing to read of the lengths to which scientists go to obtain accurate measurements as, for example, in measuring the Boltzman constant to one part per million (3 October, p 38).
My field is educational measurement. Schools and universities, when marking, for example, a physics exam, don’t even use an agreed unit. Teachers and professors just have a group of questions on their topic, allocate some marks and add the marks to produce a percentage non-linear score. Sometimes they even add these non-linear scores (like an assignment) to other non-linear scores (like a semester test) to obtain a composite non-linear score, not mentioning any errors.
The errors in these scores would probably be 5 to 10 in 100 and maybe more. Nobody knows because nobody tests for these errors. Here in Perth it is common for the Curriculum and Standards Authority to report subject examination scores to two decimal places 鈥� an accuracy they cannot possibly meet with non-linear percentage scores.
Perth, Western Australia
The measure of the class and the nation
Your leader on metrology rightly emphasised its importance as a fundamental, though little-regarded, infra-technology (3 October, p 5). The UK has long been a world leader in metrology.
So why is the watt balance in Canada? Why is work on the Planck constant being done there and in the US, France, Switzerland, New Zealand and South Korea, instead of at the NPL in Teddington, Middlesex?
Could it be because UK government funding for metrology is now 拢15 million less in real terms than it was a decade ago? In the government’s current spending review, ministers are demanding “proof”, through econometric modelling, that science funding increases prosperity, while competitor nations continue to outspend us. I imagine the minister responsible watching a son parading with a marching band and proudly exclaiming: “There’s my boy, the only one in step.”
London, UK
Glass myth needed to be smashed
Stained glass craftspeople thank Gilead Amit for busting forever the hoary myth that the ancient glass found thicker at lower edges of leaded glass tesserae “proved” that glass is “a super-cooled liquid,” and slumps at ordinary temperatures (5 September, p 30).
Medieval glaziers deliberately used variations in their hand-blown glass to put functional, water-shedding “shelves” at the lower edges of individual pieces of stained glass. Like shingles on a roof, these optimised the working life of their lead, putty and glass constructions which, before protective glazing was invented, had to face corroding rain.
Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania, US
An Ig Nobel with a practical point
David Hue and colleagues won an Ig Nobel prize this year for finding that urination takes about 21 seconds in most mammals (Feedback, 26 September). Should this be supported by follow-up studies, it could prove an invaluable early medical diagnostic for men.
If they find that the time required for them to empty a full bladder is significantly different, it could be a very useful indication that they should visit their doctor for a prostate check. Maybe older men should be advised to keep a watchful eye on this as a matter of routine.
Amersham, Buckinghamshire, UK
<b>How low can we go?</b>
You say giraffe vocalisations at 92 hertz are “just within the lower limit of human hearing” (26 September, p 17). In fact this frequency, F#2 in Helmholz notation, is just within the range of the human voice. The lowest note a bass is normally asked to sing is a semitone below this, F2 or 87.3Hz, for example in Sarastro’s aria “O Isis and Osiris” inThe Magic Flute. Human hearing goes way past that. The bottom note of the piano is A0 at 27.5Hz.
Returning to The Magic Flute, some productions have animals, including giraffes, appearing during Sarastro’s aria. Maybe they could be trained to help out with the bottom F, since many basses have trouble with it?
Sydney, Australia
<b>How low can we go?</b>
You say that frequencies below about 20 hertz are “too low for us to hear” (12 September, p 36). Below these frequencies we don’t hear a single musical note; instead we hear the individual vibrations. Think of the sound of motor bikes, helicopter blades or pneumatic drills.The 32 foot stops on large organs go down to around 16 hertz, and even the lowest notes are clearly audible. Indeed, a 32 foot reed is often the loudest stop on the organ: hugely expensive, so only the largest cathedral and concert organs have them. More than anything it is the throb of the 32 foot reed that makes the sound of an organ at full power so thrilling.
London, UK
<b>How low can we go?</b>
Given the discussion of the effects of our sonic environment on health, what a pity that Europe’s standard mains frequency is somewhere around a G on the musical scale (or Bb in the US), instead of a more healthy A. Perhaps we would have tolerated the mains hum better, and maybe even have actively sought it.
La Tour d’Aigues, France
Nutrition versus stewed tradition
Chloe Lambert discusses how the nutritional content of vegetables has changed (17 October, p 32). Another change is cooking methods. When I was growing up in the UK in the 1960s vegetables were routinely boiled until they were soft. This destroyed organic nutrients, though the cooking liquids were sometimes reused, preserving some minerals. We eat our cooked veg in a much crunchier state than our parents.
Dundee, Fife, UK
Sakhalin Island is not quite Arctic
You quote a spokeswoman for Shell saying: “We already have an operation with the Russian firm, Gazprom, to explore in the Russian Arctic around Sakhalin Island” (3 October, p 7). Sakhalin goes only as far north as 54掳N or so, not even close to the 66掳N used to define the Arctic circle.
Les Essarts-le-Roi, France
When the hurlyburly's done
Thanks to climate change, trees are now “heading north” (3 October, p 42). Has anyone warned ?
London, UK
<b>For the record</b>
鈥� We inverted the figures: of the 47 pairs of twins in Tuck Ngun’s epigenetic study, 10 were both gay and 37 differed (17 October, p 12).