Editor's pick: Existence in a complex cosmos
Mary-Jane Rubenstein offers a fascinating discussion of the historical relationship between theology and cosmology (19/26 December 2015, p 64). But her opening premise is that the universe being suited to life presents us with some kind of dilemma: almost any other set of cosmic properties would be inimical to life, so how did we end up with a habitable universe? However, this doesn’t stand up to examination.
It is hardly surprising that an environment should appear well suited to the structures that have evolved in it. Are deep-sea thermal vents so well suited to the needs of extremophiles that we should ask whether they are the product of conscious artifice?
The universe affords great complexity, and life is an example. Any complex structure is likely to be specific to the parameters within which it exists, but that should not lead us to suppose that those parameters have been established to bring that structure about… unless we already happen to believe in a creator.
Rubenstein is right to ask if cosmology challenges religion to think differently about its interests. There are other aspects of human experience that are just as mysterious, and less amenable to scientific investigation.
Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, UK
Waves of bearded science fashion
Your article on beard fashions (19/26 December 2015, p 67) was particularly interesting. I teach a colour science course, including a brief summary of the science of light, with slides showing portraits of famous figures who have contributed.
I invite students who might otherwise lose interest to consider the change in facial hairstyles over the centuries. The ancients, Democritus and Aristotle, are bearded, as is Galileo. In the 17th century Ole R酶mer, Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens are clean-shaven. That style continues for a century or more: Hans Christian Oersted and Michael Faraday are also handy with the razor.
By the mid-19th century, beards are back: James Clerk Maxwell is notably hirsute, Hippolyte Fizeau is somewhat tidier and Heinrich Hertz has a very neatly trimmed beard. Suddenly, in the late 19th century, it’s moustaches: Albert Michelson, Edward Morley, Max Planck, Joseph John Thomson and Albert Einstein all comply.
I don’t see any glitter, however.
Kingston, Rhode Island, US
<b>First class post</b>
If they escape to the wild, will they form dyes in surface waters, disrupting the food chain?
Sandra Knuteson possible downsides of growing dyestuffs in microbes (9 January, p 18).
Saving soil from scientism
While I fully agree with your leader article on the need for better science education (12 December 2015, p 5), I am concerned that an uncritical approach will increase scientism.
For example, my field is agriculture. In mainstream farming, the value system demands maximising yield and profit. Organic agriculture has values of sustainability, observing the precautionary principle and fair trade. Many of the debates around agriculture, such as those on genetic engineering and pesticides, are fundamentally not about the science, they are about values, ethics and morals.
The only aspect of the natural world that is fundamentally beyond the scientific method is value judgement. It is vital that alongside science education students also learn about the relationship between science and values, and how to tell one from the other.
Lincoln, New Zealand
What exactly is your gut gas?
Your afflated correspondent appears to think that the sulphur in foods, possibly reappearing anally as hydrogen sulphide and other malodours, is present as sulphate compounds (19/26 December 2015, p 58).
Were this the case, it would cause even more embarrassing problems. There are restrictions on sulphate in drinking water and its laxative effect indicates that our gut hastens to excrete the substance unabsorbed and unaltered.
Most of the biological sulphur in foodstuffs is present as thiols, sulphides and disulphides with, occasionally, sulphoxides or sulphinates.
My kitchen-sink drain is capable of converting organic sulphate (from washing-up liquid) to sulphide, but I am far from certain that is true for my gut flora. Also, according to several sources, hydrogen rather than methane is the dominant flammable gas of the human gut.
Kenilworth, Warwickshire, UK
What exactly is your gut gas?
Was Kate Douglas too embarrassed to tell us the quantity of digestive greenhouse gas emissions per anus per annus (19/26 December 2015, p 58)?
Stirling, Western Australia
Anthropocene nomenclature
Robert Macfarlane’s call for an Anthropocene glossary is timely (19/26 December 2015, p 82). The desecration of the planet is a real concern, among the younger generation in particular. This is reflected in published by the in Australia, which defines a “quoquake” as the devastation caused by land clearing, salinity and soil erosion.
New vocabulary is required in this new world for which humans are responsible. It would be good to hear of other examples.
Sydney, Australia
Dishwashers and dipping sheep
Arranging the dishes in a dishwasher in a circle is more effective than in a square (19/26 December 2015, p 62). But most dishwashers have a rectangular shape. The manufacturers have obviously not tried dipping sheep to eradicate lice. It is well known to those who have that round dips are far more effective than square dips, which cannot adequately wet the sheep that stand near the corners. Washing machines are round inside despite being square outside, so why not dishwashers?
West Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
The difficulty of teaching numeracy
You quote Gerd Gigerenzer saying that children need to be taught uncertainty as well as the certainty of mathematics (12 December 2015, p 30). While developing my book The Doubtful Realities, I proposed a teacher able to answer arithmetic questions only with a question mark or a cross. To the question “what is 9 脳 9?”, the answer 81 would get a “?”. The answers 18 and 80 would both get “x”; they are both wrong. But are they equally wrong?
When I put this question to people, I was surprised to find that their responses divided evenly across the three possible answers. To some it is a daft question: 18 and 80 are both wrong and that is an end to it. To others, 18 is the least wrong 鈥� perhaps the digits were inadvertently reversed or the person mistook a multiplication sign for an addition sign.
To another group 80 is better because it is closer to the right answer. It seems that only a third of people had a feel for approximation. I therefore disagree with Gigerenzer’s thinking that it isn’t difficult to teach uncertainty 鈥� it is very difficult to counter certainty with uncertainty.
One example is climate change deniers refusing to accept the idea of warming due to uncertainties about the specifics. The clash between science and religious certainty is another. Too often, to our shame, we try to use scientific certainty even when it isn’t there.
Most of the time, science has only the answer 80 rather than 81 鈥� but at least it generally knows how to get to closer answers.
Denbigh, UK
Clarifying the sulphur forecast
Your Feedback column was recently seeking “Truly Horrible Ideas for Saving the Planet” (29 August). Oliver Morton’s book The Planet Remade is surely one. He proposes veiling the atmosphere with sulphur to stabilise global temperatures (12 December 2015, p 47).
All forms of sulphur end up as sulphates, which reflect sunlight. They have a lifetime in the upper atmosphere of a year or two, during which they seriously deplete the ozone layer and return to Earth as acid rain. This will damage forests, one of our major carbon sinks, accelerate the acidification of our oceans and reduce crop yields. Frankly, the consequences of higher sea levels seem mild in comparison.
Sydney, Australia
Clarifying the sulphur forecast
鈥� Oliver Morton clarifies that the amount of stratospheric sulphur envisaged is on the order of 1 per cent of current anthropogenic sulphur emissions. So the effect on acid rain would be marginal.
Sunflowers don't turn to the sun
You quote naturalist Scott Weidensaul saying “like sunflowers, [snowy owls] always turn to face the sun so their backs are always in the shade” (19/26 December 2015, p 53).
Once the buds have opened, sunflowers all face east and .
Broad Hinton, Wiltshire, UK
A singular quantum achievement
I’ve been waiting for someone to celebrate your breakthrough in quantum lexical representation (14 November 2015, p 14): “…a trick in which the photon seem [sic] to be in two different states at once.” Perfect. Personally, I think all the different things is one.
Berlin, Germany
There is no longer a law against suicide
I am surprised and disappointed to see a journal as respected as 快猫短视频 still referring to people in the UK “committing” suicide (newscientist.com/article/dn28634). To prefix “suicide” with “commit” is to imply a criminal offence. It has not been an offence in England and Wales since 1961 and never was in Scotland.
Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK
<b>For the record</b>
鈥� The name of the performer who entertained cabaret audiences as Le P茅tomane was Joseph Pujol (19/26 December 2015, p 58).
鈥� Don’t get lost in cyberspace: to trace the path of your data on a Macintosh or Unix-flavoured computer, type the command traceroute into the terminal window (12 December 2015, p 30).
鈥� The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo launched chemical attacks in 1994 and 1995 (28 November 2015, p 30).