Editor's pick: Another forgotten evolution pioneer
John van Wyhe mentions most of the key players in our acceptance of the idea of evolution (16 July, p 35). Alfred Russel Wallace’s legacy to scientific thought was later tarnished by his enthusiasm for mesmerism, mediums and spiritualism. No such criticism could be levelled at Patrick Matthew, who van Wyhe doesn’t mention. He spelled out the theory of natural selection in his 1831 book .
Charles Darwin acknowledged Matthew’s contribution. An 1862 letter to Matthew opened: “Dear Sir, I presume I have the pleasure of addressing the… first enunciator of the theory of Natural Selection.”
Editor's pick: Another forgotten evolution pioneer
There is no doubt that Wallace held Darwin in great respect. His 1869 book The Malay Archipelago makes several references to Darwin's thinking on plant and bird evolution and to the effects of geological events. There is no evidence here of the competitive spirit between the two that some writers suggested much later. Incidentally, The Malay Archipelago is a surprisingly gripping read, describing threats from pirates, several bouts of severe illness and malnutrition, and demonstrating Wallace's bravery.
Rethink tax under universal income
Hal Hodson mentions the idea of a universal income being opposed by those who fear it would be an opportunity for people to “bludge” off the system at the expense of other tax payers (25 June, p 35). Under the present system of income tax this is understandable, as people have a tendency to think of tax taken from their earnings as “my taxes” and therefore aren't keen on seeing it going to people they consider undeserving.
A move away from income tax to indirect measures such as Goods and Services Tax or Value Added Tax might reduce this attitude, since the revenue is collected more stealthily. It would have the added benefit of reducing the disincentive for people on a universal income to find employment.
I do like the idea of a universal income cutting back on the morass of bureaucracy and perhaps encouraging people to take up more creative endeavours. The downside might lie in that old saying “the devil makes work for idle hands”. What is in no doubt is that with the radically changing status of work something equally radical will have to be done to ensure that the income gap does not expand to the point where social cohesion is totally lost.
First class post
Think about being 60-something and dealing with a toddler in the ‘terrible twos’…
Northern Judy (23 July, p 30) and concludes that what can be done not always should be.
Reproduction and difference
Linda Geddes's review of Henry T. Greely's The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction raises an important question on the wisdom of selecting traits for our children in the future (18 June, p 42). Can we predict the kind of children we and the world need? Where would stigmatisation of personality “oddities”, mental health issues or physical disability lead us with the pre-selection Greely describes? If Stephen Hawking had remained able-bodied, would he have done even more research? Maybe he could answer this? Let us not have the arrogance to believe we know where novel ideas come from.
How can a robot accept blame?
There is no zero risk activity. Autonomous and semi-autonomous (robot) cars will continue to have accidents, even if their makers say these will get rarer (9 July, p 6). The question is whether robot cars' accident rate will be lower than that for ordinary cars. Answering this may not be straightforward, due to what statisticians call a “reference class problem”: with what do we compare the accident rate?
For example, we are aware of alcohol's influence on ordinary car driving. Do we include this in the accident rate against which we compare the unknown effects of errors in robots' algorithms or their sensors?
I don't believe that Jamais Cascio's notion of robots showing or eliciting empathy will help (9 July, p 18). “I'm so sorry, I killed her by mistake” is less convincing than the consolatory words of a public relations spokesperson to the relatives of an accident victim.
Our responsibility to make choices
In your Leader, you present a one-sided argument that experiments on primates are a sacrifice worth making (18 June, p 5). This assumes that the suffering and death of animals for research is our sacrifice to make, and that those animals belong to us. Once upon a time it was culturally usual to think this of other humans, too.
Humans have moral capacity, so we must decide whether it is right to knowingly cause fear and suffering in other beings in order to increase the well-being of humans – and not, in most cases, that of other species. It is not: all beings with the capacity to feel fear and suffering have as much right to a happy life as do humans.
I am aware that I indirectly benefit from research on animals. But this does not reduce our responsibility to make such choices. Here one is either a hypocrite or has no morals at all.
That unconscious stuff is you too
Clare Wilson reports a new study of the unconscious brain events that signal a movement before the decision to make it (2 July, p 10). Why deny that this brain event is “yours”? Surely your brain activity that takes place out-of-consciousness belongs to you? Perhaps if we took seriously the Buddha's view that consciousness is a sense we would better deal with the question of will.
Were dinosaurs not bird-brains either?
So birds with their tiny brains behave more intelligently than expected because the density of their neurons can be greater than that of primates (18 June, p 7). This is intriguing. Birds are descended from dinosaurs, which also had extremely small brains relative to their body size. Their success may now be explained. Also, many of birds' automatic life functions are carried out in their spinal column – witness a headless “chook” on the run. I note evidence of swellings in many dinosaurs' spinal columns.
The limits of medical custody
I appreciated your item on proton beam therapy (18 June, p 18) but I might have hoped you would show more sympathy for Brett and Naghmeh King. They were accused by the British medical establishment, police and media of kidnapping their own child and endangering his life recklessly when they removed him from a UK hospital. The Spanish police arrested and imprisoned them without evidence and effectively kidnapped their child.
Only after belated court proceedings was it acknowledged that they had been fully within their rights to seek alternative treatment. UK doctors should be reminded that, except in very narrow circumstances, we do not require their consent to seek alternatives to their treatment.
Stanisław Lem was there, and there…
Sally Adee attributes the prediction that once an AI machine attains human intelligence it will accumulate wisdom at an ever-increasing pace to Marvin Minsky in 1970 (16 July, p 16). It should be credited to the Polish writer Stanisław Lem, in his 1961 story “Limfater's Formula”.
Similarly, the idea that the universe is a computer simulation is attributed to philosopher Nick Bostrom (27 July 2002, p 48) and to Elon Musk (11 June, p 18). Lem is also the true originator of this idea, in a story called “From the Recollections of Ijon Tichy Part I”, published in 1960 – for which I can find no English translation. About a decade later, Lem elaborated on this subject in “Non Serviam”, with insights into the concepts of thermodynamics, multi-dimensionality and the flow of time held by “personoids” in a simulation.
Life taking hold takes how long?
In your article on alien life under ice, you state: “given ample heat from the planet's interior, water can remain liquid under the ice long enough for life to take hold” (18 June, p 16). We have no idea whether there would be enough time, because we don't really know how life can start.
Plucked from the skies in what state?
The SkyWall100 may well be able to envelope a rogue drone in a net and parachute safely to the ground (25 June, p 24). But the drone could self-destruct when it detects that its progress has been arrested, doing more harm.
Pouring cold water on a nanobottle
You report that “plastic embedded with nanoparticles repels shampoo, so that every last drop slides easily out” (2 July, p 15). There will indeed be less shampoo leftovers in the sea, so that should be better for the environment.
Will this, however, be another occasion where the harm outweighs the good? No proper research has yet been done on the environmental effects of nanoparticles. Why not keep it simple: do you really need to wash your hair every day?
Cudworth, Somerset, UK
The editor writes:
• In this case the particles become fully part of the plastic structure and are believed likely to stay there. It would of course be good to do studies on nanoparticles in the environment.
For the record
• Gas turbines may have their blades inspected as often as every 7500 hours of operation (25 June, p 22).
• The papers on evolution by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin were in fact presented at the Linnean Society in 1858 (16 July, p 24).