Editor's pick: Science cannot escape philosophy's inquiry (1)
Rachael Padman describes philosophy as “the experimental study of human nature” (Letters, 5 May). That's part of psychology. Even moral philosophy is not much about telling people how they should behave: that's religion. These days, most philosophers would say that the philosophy of science in particular is not about answers at all, but about questions.
These range from “What counts as science?” to “Can the scientist ever escape the influence of her role as observer?” and “Is the so-called anthropic principle based on a circular argument?” It is also about concepts, such as 's paradigm shifts and 's criterion that theories must be falsifiable.
Editor's pick: Science cannot escape philosophy's inquiry (2)
It is true, as Padman says, that philosophy does not prescribe the ultimate aims of science. It is crucial, however, that her statement of aims – to Explain Things – is inevitably a philosophical statement about science, not a scientific statement.
Fake meat and artisanal food, farming and tonics (1)
I enjoyed your article on meat substitutes (5 May, p 30). The innovations behind these are ingenious and welcome for their contribution to tackling climate change and resource availability.
But these will be products and brands backed by venture capitalists who will enforce their intellectual property to protect a handsome return. As highly-processed materials they will cement, not challenge, our dependence on processed food.
They will be marketed as premium “added value” products and consolidate the grip of big business on the food chain, distancing the consumer even more from primary production of food. Any winning formula for a product identical to meat will risk being monopolised: a Facebook or Google of food, anyone?
Fake meat and artisanal food, farming and tonics (2)
Niall Firth mentions animal welfare issues as one reason for substituting meat. Expectations of what living is all about are difficult to determine for other species, and even in our own are greatly influenced by upbringing and experience.
Eventually almost everything dies, but it is a presumption too far to imply that because we know of the death of farm animals and birds their welfare would be increased by not getting to live in the first place.
Only stupid or incompetent livestock owners allow their charges to suffer needlessly, because that almost always has a financial penalty on top of its indefensible cruelty. And what farmers produce and how they do it depends on the resources they have and how well or poorly they are allowed to market that produce. Many parts of the world can only be farmed for livestock. In parts of the western British Isles, for example, this consumes little energy and water.
Without serious intervention by most governments acting together, the short-term system with all its adverse consequences will remain the only game in town. Many in the West take cheap food for granted, but prefer to ignore what that means for those producing that food.
Fake meat and artisanal food, farming and tonics (3)
Firth mentions leghaemoglobin being used in veggie burgers for colouring and flavouring. In 1906, , a pharmacist in Cleethorpes, UK, advertised “Forrester's Ferric Food: composed of organic iron… combined with a diastatic ferment prepared from malted barley and pressed out juices of fruits – a new remedy for consumption and wasting disease”. Does this description almost match leghaemoglobin?
First class post – 2 June 2018
Slapping currency value on nonmarket goods is fraught with problems and assumptions AjP calculating an exact accounting value for a tree, from its shade to its beauty (12 May, p 32)
Another reason to cut children's sugar intake
Clare Wilson makes the point that we might be focusing on the wrong thing by singling out one particular food group when it comes to our ever-expanding waistlines (5 May, p 27). Obesity aside, we should also look to the benefits that the sugar tax could offer in reducing tooth decay. This is , and it costs NHS England £35 million annually despite being largely preventable. Sugar-sweetened drinks can significantly contribute to tooth decay. I agree the tax may not be the only way to reduce either obesity or dental disease, but it is a positive move.
Smart meters as a plan for peak power pricing
Sam Edge describes drawbacks of smart meters (Letters, 28 April). It is now more than 20 years since I was at meetings with the UK government's then Department of Trade & Industry, where the smart meter idea was being proposed. At that time it was not seen as a scheme for remote meter reading, but as a way of allowing the energy supplier to control the smart meter to alter the price paid by the consumer as demand fluctuated. I felt then that this would be very unfair on domestic consumers, who would be unable to predict their energy costs.
When the scheme was unrolled, this remote-control aspect was not mentioned, but, having a suspicious mind, I doubt it has really gone away. I am not volunteering for a smart meter!
My automated car thinks it's smarter than yours
Everyone thinks they are a better-than-average driver, even if they have just caused a serious accident (12 May, p 42). But this delusional belief is apparently a sign of good mental health and makes us happy and contented.
Will the same apply to a self-driving car? Will I be safer if my car assumes that it is a better AI than all the others on the road, so it won't trust the others to do what they say they will do? Or will this just prevent efficient vehicle movement because automated cars will refuse to drive in tight convoys, in case the other AIs in the group are not good enough to maintain the close gaps required?
Are we sure education adds to life expectancy?
Debora MacKenzie reports research into the relationship between long life and education (28 April, p 12). The concluding comment is that “Cuba has a higher life expectancy than the US because it is well educated”.
I would expect the average Cuban to have to take much more exercise throughout life than the average US resident and to eat far less junk food. They probably take fewer opioid drugs, fewer other addictive drugs and shoot each other less often. These factors may be limited more by opportunity than education.
And I believe the Cuban health service has a very high ratio of doctors to population. Are you sure the simple assertion about education is justified?
The editor writes:
• It is heart disease and cancer, rather than gun crime and opioid overdose, that are the leading killers in the US. The number of doctors per head may well be relevant, and that is linked to having a more educated populace. Cuba is also renowned for its preventative healthcare – something other nations don't emphasise as much ( 21 March 2015, p 23).
Don't just dream of getting back to sleep
Rowan Hooper wishes he could jump back into dreaming sleep (24 March, p 32). I have found that I can put myself to sleep by filling my lungs through my open mouth and then exhaling slowly and completely through the nose. I breathe that way until I fall asleep. I usually yawn at around four repetitions and afterwards fall into a deep, dream-rich sleep.
My understanding is that the slightly lower oxygen levels in the brain due to the slower respiration is an ideal precondition for sleep. It has always worked for me, even if I only have half an hour before a wake-up call.
Clever Hans: the truth from the horse's mouth
The fact that Clever Hans the horse could read cues from humans is seen as a problem to be avoided in research (5 May, p 15).
Clever Hans's owner, Wilhelm von Osten, clearly believed he had taught Hans to understand mathematics. Psychologist Carl Stumpf, after scientific testing, also believed he had. Then Oskar Pfungst and his team of 13 scientists that Hans was simply responding to changes in the questioners' involuntary movements when they were aware that Hans had reached the right answer.
This is not the case. While both Hans's owner and the scientists thought von Osten was training a horse, Hans knew that he had worked out how to read people and fool the best scientists worldwide for eight years. And you are surprised that horses can read faces.
I don't train Obama, my pony who provides all-terrain access for people who use wheelchairs and can beat any mechanically propelled vehicle. I just need to know what I want him to do, and leave him to work out what that is and how to do it. I give him a treat when I am in a good mood. It is his job, as the clever one, to work out how to achieve that result.
For the record – 2 June 2018
• The study on koalas given antibiotics found that they had little effect on overall diversity of gut bacteria and did not definitively show that particular bacteria are essential (31 March, p 12).
• Bling spring: diamond needles were bent by a nanoindenter inside a scanning electron microscope (28 April, p 9).
• Angela Gallop in fact suggested that forensic laboratories must produce “impartial, independent and objective evidence” (28 April, p 22).
• Significantly, the probability of the apparent discrepancy in Hubble constant values arising in the data by chance was 1 in 1000 and new work has cut that to 1 in 7000 (5 May, p 9).
• Your move, Death: the status of planet Uranus as the seventh is sealed (Feedback, 12 May).