Editor's pick: Searching for a second tree of life
Penny Sarchet raises the tantalising possibility that life on our planet emerged not once but several times (20 August, p 26). Recently, DNA sequencing has detected microbial life that resists being cultured.
What if there is life that uses a different chemistry to store genetic information? The probability of such “alternative” life having survived the competition with DNA-based organisms is vanishingly small. But what a discovery it would be!
Editor's pick: Searching for a second tree of life
Sarchet asserts that all life on Earth is the same life. But only a tiny fraction of microbes have been characterised, let alone cultured and sequenced. Systematic methods of analysis are customised to life as we know it, so wouldn't pick up life as we don't know it. For some years my research group at Arizona State University has investigated the possibility of a “shadow biosphere” – a second tree of life descended from an independent genesis. Would we not have found it already? No, for the simple reason that nobody has taken the trouble to look.
Tempe, Arizona, US
The editor writes:
• Read about the search for alternative life in our feature “Second Genesis” (14 March 2009, p 28).
There are limits to sacred rights
John H. Evans presents a survey showing that religious believers, who see humans as qualitatively separate from animals, have a greater regard for the rights of other humans (6 August, p 32). He does add the caveat that “it was only about what people think instead of what they do”.
The evidence of what happens in practice is rather different. In my lifetime I have seen Catholics and Protestants fighting in Northern Ireland, Orthodox and Catholic Christians committing atrocities on each other in the former Yugoslavia, Sunni and Shiite Muslims fighting to the death in Arabia, Christians and Muslims fighting a dirty war in Sudan and Buddhists persecuting Muslims in Myanmar.
The religious view of human rights does not in fact apply to humankind. It applies only to those of the same religious belief. Those of different religions stand back and denounce rights abuses, but those involved (with notable exceptions) do not.
For the record, I am a practising Christian who believes that all the evidence shows that differences between humans and other mammals are quantitative, not qualitative.
There are limits to sacred rights
Evans has good intentions in trying to define what is human and uphold human rights; but I think his method for achieving them is flawed. He seems to feel that the best way to protect humans is to label them as special, even sacred, as a taboo creature not to be touched.
Unfortunately there are many ways this can be warped. For example he suggests that maybe we should think of people as made in God's image. But many right-wing Christians think that neither women nor people of colour are made in God's image and accord them lesser rights than white men.
There are limits to sacred rights
Your Leader expresses concern that materialists who have a strictly biological definition of humans are less supportive of human rights (6 August, p 5). Surely the most rational answer to the growing evidence that we are “no more” than a species of ape is not to lower our standards for human rights, but to raise our standards for animal rights?
First class post
I think so. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Tess on whether it's time to rein in information giants like Facebook and Google (3 September, p 16)
Is illogical belief morally wrong?
Shaoni Bhattacharya reviews two books on how people base illogical decisions on emotional misinformation (6 August, p 42). She seemed to make no mention of the possibility that such behaviour could be considered immoral, or that honesty about evidence is moral behaviour.
Do those who adhere to non-factual ideas, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, really have no free will? Are they totally at the mercy of their amygdalae? How can we even have a civilisation if that is all we are?
Perhaps one way of addressing the emotional issue is for those whose ethics include respect for evidence to express moral outrage at those who promote unsubstantiated belief over massive amounts of real evidence.
It should be clear in our speech and writing that, at least on the issue of respect for evidence, there is little moral difference between a creationist and a holocaust denier, an anti-vaxxer and a perjurer, or a scam artist and a climate denier.
Our empathy sets the bar for animals
If ever there were a philosophical sideshow, it is the question Aviva Rutkin examines – the role of “personhood” in determining animal treatment (2 July, p 16). As she says, young children and cognitively impaired adults reliably flunk personhood tests – yet we do not think we can treat such people like nerveless lumps of meat. We see that they suffer.
That's the point. From that recognition follows a case-by-case argument for rights and needs. Yes, it is interesting to map which cognitive capacities other animals share with us – but it's irrelevant to the issue of animal treatment.
Notice, too, that we don't recognise animal suffering because they are sufficiently human, but because we are sufficiently human. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Homo sapiens, specialist in social cleverness, can't help seeing painfully far into the experience of other creatures.
You may choose to ignore what you can't help perceiving. Pity. That's like being a salmon that never gets to swim; a swallow that refuses to fly.
Engineering safer banking practice
Bill Summers suggests banking should be regulated as a profession (Letters, 20 August). The profession that banking really could learn from is engineering. Before the 2008 global financial crisis, banking regulators and practitioners believed self-regulation was best for free markets.
Unfortunately, the conditions necessary for free markets to exist are rarely present and then only briefly. So it is no surprise that disaster eventually strikes.
Engineers are trained to understand the limitations of applying theory to the real world and so build in safety factors. If engineering principles had been used to design the new Basel 3 rules, I suspect they would focus on wider measures to prevent the positive feedback loops that caused the crisis.
Let us hope financial regulators continue to closely monitor the markets and learn from mistakes before it's too late. We can't afford another such crisis.
Chance would be a fine titanium thing
I read with interest that the frame supporting the hull of the Mary Rose was built of titanium rather than iron (13 August, p 43). We wished! At the time titanium cost around £70 per kilogram, and the frame weighs around 100 tonnes. The supporting frame is steel. Most of the internal supports and some of the bolts are titanium. I helped design those bits.
We mine richer seams than that
You report that there are 6 grams of gold per tonne of rock in the Solwara subsea deposit off Papua New Guinea, “six times what landlubbers get” and that a deposit being 7 per cent copper grade is “10 times what is typical for mines on land” (30 July, p 38). Mike Johnston of Nautilus Minerals goes on to say that these grades have not been seen on land for 300 to 400 years. These statements are true only for open pit mining.
Underground gold mines around the world have grades up to 40 grams per tonne mined. While average copper mine grades are around 0.6 per cent, some large mines operate at up to 2 per cent copper. Earlier mines in South Australia produced copper at much higher grades.
Processed food is so often a problem
Anthony Warner urges us to “question the narrative that processed food is inherently bad” (30 July, p 20). Indeed, cooking food yourself is “processing” it.
But Warner glosses over the substantive objections to many processed foods: that they often contain very high levels of problematic ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, salt, sugar and trans fats. They contain substantial amounts of artificial ingredients such as preservatives, stabilisers and emulsifiers, often without as much safety testing as you might think.
Processed food is so often a problem
Warner's comment comparing home-cooked and pre-prepared foods is fascinating, if only for its support of his employer's agenda. He eloquently refutes claims nobody has made, that home-made meals are always healthier and processed food “inherently bad”. Ignoring research on levels of salt, sugar or dubious additives, he cites a single source, admitting that “it's a small study and you can't draw too many conclusions”.
Make most pupils above average
Feedback may be being unfair to the odious Michael Gove, former education secretary for England, in criticising his demand that all children achieve above-average test scores (16 July). It is at least possible for most to be above average. Imagine a class of 10 in which 6 children score 6/10 on a test and 4 score 4/10. Most score above the mean, without any doing particularly well.
Allowing for a larger sample and a more realistic variation in scores, all Gove has to do is to ensure a large minority underclass who, for whatever socioeconomic reasons, reliably underperform the slightly more privileged majority. This may or may not be relevant to the understanding of wider Conservative Party policy.
For the record
• Our nearest star is, of course, our own sun (27 August, p 5).