Editor's pick: Compare mystery and a known fake
You report on Gordon Rugg's work, which concluded that the Voynich manuscript is gibberish, while still following the structure of a true language (1 October, p 12). I recently compared the Voynich text and the similarly baffling from Hungary with the , published in 1981 by the artist Luigi Serafini.
This couples cryptic text with illustrations at least as strange as anything in the Voynich manuscript. Like the Voynich and Rohonc texts, much effort has been put into deciphering the Codex, again with little success apart from confirming that it conforms to the structure of a true language.
The advantage with this volume is that the creator is alive. Although he has refused to enlighten anyone on the detailed meaning, he has dropped a hint about the volume's language. At a lecture in Oxford in 2009, he explained that he wanted the book to create the impression a small child, unable to read, has on encountering a book for the first time. To that end it is written in an asemic script – one that has the form and structure of a real text, but no meaningful content – making it akin to a written form of glossolalia or “speaking in tongues”.
I suspect both the Voynich manuscript and the Rohonc Codex are also asemic, and that any attempts at decoding them will also end in failure.
Signal failure and crossword success
Simon Makin reports that people can assess the competence of teachers or politicians within seconds, merely on the basis of their appearance, body language and social signals (1 October, p 30). The evidence is that these first impressions correlate to students' evaluations of teachers at the end of courses and to politicians' success in elections.
More pessimistically, I suggest that large numbers of people are unable to assess the competence of teachers or politicians, no matter how much time they have. They continue to base their judgement on their superficial first impression.
Thus incompetents are praised and elected to office. This appears to correlate with observations.
Signal failure and crossword success
It is apparently possible to accurately rate another person's character after seeing their picture for 0.1 seconds. But we don't know what particular features make people appear trustworthy or competent.
We can instantly tell heroes from villains in a film, unless the director deliberately conceals this for plot purposes. So can movie directors shed light on what characteristics are critical? If they won't tell us, let an artificial intelligence watch thousands of films and work it out.
Signal failure and crossword success
It's rather humbling to realise that most of our mental functions are carried out unconsciously. I suspect that there isn't only a distinction between our conscious and unconscious mind, but also between various levels of our unconscious.
A name coming to mind some time after I've been struggling to remember it is a common experience. More interestingly, the answer to a crossword puzzle clue often pops up long after I have ceased thinking about it.
The unconscious me that drives my car is impressive, but quite different to my inbuilt crossword clue solver.
Signal failure and crossword success
You say that in forming habits “practice makes perfect”. I have been telling trainee trainers for more than 30 years that in fact guidance, correction and coaching make perfect (or at least correct). Practice (repetition) makes permanent.
If what one practises is wrong, wrong will be made permanent.
First class post
Our surprise at their ‘theory of mind’ shows how limited ours is
Emma Olver proof of chimps, bonobos and orangutans grasping how others view the world (15 October, p 7)
Evolutionary forces may evolve too
Kevin Laland discusses how concepts of evolution could evolve (24 September, p 41). Is it not likely that evolutionary forces are themselves subject to evolutionary forces? After all, anything that gives living organisms the edge in survival will be prioritised. That would include any improvements on the purely “blind chance” method of generating adaptive variations.
Evolutionary forces may evolve too
The description of evolution evolving was a much needed summary for many who have long viewed the “selfish gene” theory as too narrow. But a word missing from the article was “feedback”. The realisation that information flows from organism to environment and the other way, so that each modifies the other, implies a feedback loop.
I am now inspired to look at the work of and others modelling how networks of genes evolve to the “edge of chaos”. The emergence of similar forms by seemingly separate evolutionary pathways may be the result of “strange attractors” in the evolutionary space.
Perhaps Richard Dawkins's greatest contribution wasn't the popularisation of the “selfish gene” meme, but the concept of the “meme” itself as a unit of cultural inheritance. Still, the meme has been slippery to define.
Evolutionary forces may evolve too
The bird's nest depicted with this article is even more interesting from an evolutionary point of view than you may have realised. The reed warbler pictured is feeding a cuckoo.
Chill out before replacing a fridge
Having recently replaced a thermostat in my old freezer, I was interested in Michael Le Page's suggestion that this wasn't a green thing to do, as old appliances use more power and become inefficient with age (1 October, p 23). But he referenced figures from the US market, which may not be relevant to the more energy-conscious Europe.
I have measured the energy usage rate of my 10-year-old standard German fridge at 85 kilowatt-hours per year, and of my 19-year-old Swedish freezer at 321 kWh per year. They appear to be 27 per cent and 7 per cent better than their as-new specifications, not worse. Of course this may be due to my house being cooler than that assumes. But neither figure is anywhere near the 1000 kWh per year given in the study referenced.
Perhaps people should use a cheap energy meter before deciding on whether to renew an appliance, rather than just looking at its age.
Odds on climate change accepted
Andrew Collins asks whether climate-change sceptics would accept his $1000 bet that the global mean temperature will exceed the 2015 record within 10 years (Letters, 17 September). He is conflating two different ideas. One can easily accept that the world is heating up – thus, on the face of it, making the offer a bad one – while still asserting that the change is due to sunspots, volcanoes or any other non-human mechanism.
Surely those he needs to convince are deniers of anthropogenic climate change?
There is also a flaw to his logic. Had he made the offer last year, with regard to 2014's record high, he would have stood a very good chance of making his point. But the 2015 high of is clearly an outlier. Looking at it statistically, I would say that the global temperature is, in financial language, significantly overbought, with falling momentum.
Based on current trends, I predict (with better than 50 per cent confidence) that the next time the 2015 record will be beaten will be around 2033 – almost 20 years away – and even then by another outlier. It won't be until around 2060 that such temperatures become normal.
I'll take his bet, if he's still minded to stand by it.
Montrose, Angus, UK
Andrew Collins writes:
• Of course I will! I don't fear regression to the mean. I fear departures from the historical mean. Let's hope I lose.
Carbon black for soil improvement
Jon Cartwright describes a reaction that produces hydrogen from methane – and mountains of carbon black (8 October, p 28). Could we pelletise that to the consistency of “biochar” for soil improvement? The build-up of low-lying coastal fields could be an extra benefit.
These memories will not <i>fado</i> away
I very much enjoyed your article about nostalgia (24 September, p 36). It touched on my research into the Portuguese emotion saudade – which could be roughly described as a mix of longing, melancholy and nostalgia.
It arose during the maritime conquests of the 16th century. When the sailors travelled to strange lands, the feeling was present in the memory of those who sailed away and also of those who stayed behind waiting for their return. It eventually came to be seen as a characteristic of the Portuguese people. Musical genres such as fado, morna and choro have saudade as one of their main themes.
Bacterial obscurity is still not secure
You report on increasing the security of spores carrying data by hiding them among other spores to make it almost impossible for a snooper to identify them (24 September, p 25). This is colloquially known as “security through obscurity”. It deters only casual crackers. An adversary specifically targeting a user will make sure that they know which spores to look for.
Species change to save the planet
When proposing synthetic biology to fix our planet, Ricard Solé gives an analogy of removing large, predatory fish from a lake to reverse algal blooms (1 October, p 36). I immediately thought “yes, that would work: remove the large, predatory simians currently trashing the planet and the climate change problem will end”.
For the record
• was a Roman lawyer, senator and philosopher (8 October, p 32)