Editor's Pick: Radicalisation's roots and a radical psychedelic proposal
I thank Peter Byrne for the article on the roots of terrorism (19 August, p 30). One incident can be enough to encourage an individual to join an insurgency group or to trigger an insurgency. In 1972, shortly after Bloody Sunday, when marchers were shot by the British army in Derry in Northern Ireland, I was in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland watching university students queuing to join Sinn Féin, a party linked to the Provisional IRA. Most seemed to be middle-class, well-educated boys, who had recently left home and were open to ideas about what was valuable in life.
Maybe only a few became active Provisional volunteers, but on that morning they were open to the possibility. Whoever thinks killing innocent citizens is innocuous is not only wrong morally but foolish – unless they want to stimulate insurgency.
Editor's Pick: Radicalisation's roots and a radical psychedelic proposal
Peter Byrne points out that no classic intervention strategy to combat radicalisation seems to work and that the UK parliament's human rights committee reported that the nation's Prevent strategy may actually make matters worse. Suggested countermeasures were to encourage community engagement; to break down stereotypes, rehumanising collaborators; and encouraging empathy and compassion through brain training. Those most susceptible to the propaganda were identified as being uncertain about their lives, or having psychiatric problems.
Then I read Graham Lawton's interview with Robin Carhart-Harris (p 42). Carhart-Harris reports that subjects on psilocybin experience profound feelings of connectedness to others. Even a single dose can make the subject more politically liberal and more connected to other people.
Is it worth a try?
Elimination of diseases versus eradication
Claire Wilson's article about rabies was fascinating (5 August, p 38). It reminded me of being raised at the Manorom mission hospital in rural Thailand. When our pet dog developed rabies in 1971, I had to undergo a series of traumatising (and still memorable) abdominal muscle inoculations aged only 5.
Around that time, the hospital adopted a policy of vaccinating, and red-inking, all stray dogs that wandered through its compound. The article suggests this was a wise approach. Unfortunately, it conflates the terms “elimination” and “eradication”. This was not controversial until 20 years ago when the World Health Organization began suggesting that leprosy could be eliminated – which can be reduction to zero of the incidence of a specified disease in a defined geographical area – without eradication, which would be permanent reduction to zero of its worldwide incidence with no further intervention required.
The confusion has now spread to other neglected diseases such as . The small print to look out for in WHO texts is a goal of eliminating a disease only “as a public health problem”.
The editor writes:
• The WHO indeed rabies.
First class post
It's more likely that we've always been more global than initially thought
Kate Horrocks controversial fossil footprints show humans evolved in Europe not Africa (9 September, p 9)
The neural correlates of crowdfunding success
Helen Thomson reports that scanning the nucleus accumbens in people's brains while they viewed Kickstarter campaigns predicts which will be successful 59 per cent of the time (26 August, p 6). Is it not more likely that successful campaigns appeal to that part of the brain?
The research may simply be identifying what triggers investment by Kickstarter funders. Perhaps it will pin down what prompts that investment, regardless of the actual viability of projects.
Research says that disinvestment works
Alec Cawley asks how getting institutions such as universities and pension funds to ditch their investments in the oil, coal and gas industries puts “any pressure on the companies to be greener” (Letters, 19 August). The strategy behind such divestment is to break the hold these companies have on the political process and thus pave the way for the types of restrictive legislation change.
A 2013 at the Stranded Assets Programme of the University of Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment surveyed earlier campaigns and concluded that in almost every case “from adult services to Darfur, from tobacco to South Africa, divestment campaigns were successful in lobbying for restrictive legislation”.
The outcome of stigmatisation that the fossil fuel divestment campaign has now triggered, the authors noted, “poses the most far-reaching threat to fossil fuel companies and the vast energy value chain. Any direct impacts pale in comparison.”
Dozens of already exist in the UK targeting local pension government schemes, several of which have already committed to divest.
Search for sustainable synthetic fabrics
Joseph Poore's account of reduction in farmland was very encouraging with regard to the prospects for wildlife (12 August, p 26). One reason given is that consumer preference for synthetic fabrics rather than wool or cotton is reducing demand for land.
This disconcerts me. All fabrics break down in wear and washing. Today's synthetic fabrics break down into microplastics that persist in the environment and enter the marine food chain, so we ingest them (19 August, p 7).
We could expand the range of plant-based fabrics. Flax is used to make linen and bamboo can be processed into soft, comfortable fabric, but land would be needed to grow more of these. We could see fabrics based on polymers similar to polylactic acid, which is finding use as packaging in the food industry. Such polymers break down without damaging the environment.
On religion, Finns may be quantum beings
Bob Holmes mentions that Finns showed no anti-atheist bias and that Finland has a long secular tradition (19 August, p 22). Finland seems to me to be a curious combination of religious belief and atheism.
In a recent survey, 52 per cent of Finns said they believed in God in some way. About 72 per cent are members of the dominant Lutheran church, though church attendance is fairly low. The Christian political party is tiny. In people's everyday life and conversations I hear religion playing hardly any part at all. Knowledge and science are very much appreciated.
Maybe Lutheranism with its ideals of hard work and pragmatism has been absorbed only as a background canvas.
Perhaps Finns are quantum beings: both religious and atheist, God-believing and science-believing at the same time.
Saving energy with recycled glass
As Peter Urben suggests, no energy can be recovered from recycled glass (Letters, 26 August). It has to be cleaned and sorted before it can be melted, which requires energy input.
New glass starts with crystalline ingredients that have to be melted at a high temperature. Addition of even a small amount of used glass can speed up this process and save energy.
As early as 500 years ago much glass was recycled, so glass from that period is now a rare collector's item.
Vegans concerned about animals, not health
As a vegan of 10 years' standing, I can assure Anthony Warner that the majority of us are animal rights advocates first and vegan as a consequence (26 August, p 24). I am certainly not vegan because of diet or health – though there are health advantages to not eating flesh. So Warner's criticism of the film What the Health is beside the point for me.
My diet is not a choice; it's a consequence of my vegan way of life: a way of living and of seeing the world. Some might call it more of a religion than a food choice.
More Global Positioning System spoofing, maybe
You report ships suffering a Global Positioning System spoofing attack (19 August, p 6). This triggered a memory of sailing into Salcombe in Devon, UK, about two years ago. As I know the channel well, I was going by eye rather than instruments. Imagine my surprise when a crew member pointed to our GPS that showed us traversing the hillside on a parallel track. Another hand-held unit displayed the same track.
I have no idea what caused it, but over a few beers we decided it was “the Russians” – an explanation my mother used to suggest for most problems from bad weather and back pain to traffic jams.
Why medical psilocybin is vastly expensive
Graham Lawton mentions that synthesising medical-grade psilocybin is “staggeringly expensive” (19 August, p 42). The significant cost is complying with the regulations for working with a scheduled substance. The very similar synthetic drug sumatriptan is routinely prescribed for migraine relief, and psilocybin is a simpler compound. And can't psilocybin be purified to medical grade from natural sources?
The editor writes:
• Robin Carhart-Harris tells us that only synthetic psilocybin qualifies as medical grade.
For the record
• Jonathan Montgomery's term as ended in February (2 September, p 22).