Armchair science may lead us to a better place (2)
A lack of transparency from the UK government, as shown by its communication strategy, has probably provided more fuel for speculation in this country than any number of pre-publication papers or amount of raw data. As your leader points out, a deluge of poor information has helped make a bad situation worse. But some of it may be coming from Whitehall.
We must prepare for the next big global threat (1)
The long-term lesson of our current predicament is that pandemics do happen, and when they do, many people can be hurt (2 May, p 7).
I don’t expect to see another pandemic 鈥� I am 80 鈥� but there is a real chance that my grandchildren will. There is a lot of scientific data building rapidly, and we need a globally agreed plan to deal with the next crisis based on this. As soon as this pandemic is fully under control, we should be looking at the lessons we can learn so a strategy can be agreed on.
We must prepare for the next big global threat (2)
The spread and death toll of covid-19 has made us conscious that we are all connected, as well as of how fragile life, human societies and economies are.
The latent possibility of a viral pandemic wasn’t a total surprise, but it isn’t the only such enemy. What about a solar flare killing our telecommunication satellites, for example? What are the other latent risks out there?
We should seriously evaluate what other major threats of this sort may be waiting to emerge. Researchers should take the lead and join interdisciplinary efforts to ensure we are prepared.
Other risks in a push for herd immunity?
I wonder whether there is a serious and overlooked aspect of any drive to achieve herd immunity to the coronavirus in order to end the need for lockdowns (11 April, p 10).
Attaining herd immunity, if this is even possible, would require a significant proportion of the population to become infected and develop antibodies.
However, the broad distribution of cases may also serve as a breeding ground for new mutations of the virus. The more people who are infected, the higher the probability of new strains of the virus emerging.
If the pool of infected people is kept low, viral mutations, including those resulting in even more dangerous forms of the virus, might be avoided.
Take a lesson from nature's defences
Your piece on how the turtle got its shell was a fascinating insight into the jigsaw that is palaeontology, especially bearing in mind there are so very few pieces to put together to tell the story of the course of evolution (2 May, p 36). But what particularly grabbed my attention was the side panel on how zebras got their stripes.
As it appears that this pattern gives them the upper hand by deterring horseflies, why is there no clothing for humans to give us the same protection?
Never mind army-type camouflage for the great outdoors, how about zebra stripes to do something a bit more useful? You never know, it may even help against one scourge of summer tourism in the Scottish Highlands: the midge.
We've been on the trail of dark matter for a long time
I would say that missing mass and dark matter were elephants in the room of astronomy and cosmology from rather earlier than the 1980s (16 May, p 30).
It is claimed that as early as 1884, Lord Kelvin suggested that the observed dynamics of the Milky Way didn’t seem to match the amount of matter observed, well before other galaxies were even discovered.
The missing mass problem was explored in more detail in the 1920s and 1930s by several astronomers 鈥� Jacobus Kapteyn, Jan Oort and Fritz Zwicky, among others 鈥� when it became clear that a discrepancy existed between the observable mass of galaxies and their dynamics.
It is more the case that in the 1980s, the elephants grew too big to ignore any longer.
Bring it on: mathematics versus philosophy
Your article on consciousness raises the tantalising prospect that the validity of ideas put forward to explain it could become amenable to practical mathematical analysis (2 May, p 40). This is encouraging.
As usual, though, some philosophers have rolled out the argument that the tools of mathematics and empiricism are insufficient to explain subjective experience.
They miss the point. All observation is inherently subjective. This doesn’t stop us formulating explanations for phenomena, it just requires a rigorous approach that ultimately rests on predictive power and repeatability.
I have severe red-green colour blindness, so I perceive a rainbow differently from most people, but that doesn’t stop us from agreeing that the mathematics of optics explains the phenomenon very well.
I’m not saying that consciousness isn’t a tough nut to crack 鈥� it isn’t called the hard problem for nothing 鈥� but arguing that we need new tools without explaining why or suggesting what they might be isn’t contributing to the field. Philosophers have been doing this for thousands of years without progressing an inch.
Armchair science may lead us to a better place (1)
In your leader, you write: “Non-scientists have many roles to play in defeating the virus, but becoming armchair scientists isn’t one of them (Leader, 9 May).” You are right that there is a huge problem with people who are unwilling to be led by scientists and the scientific method.
The turn to science by vast numbers of people in the face of the tremendous harm wrought by this pandemic does indeed pose real dangers 鈥� but it also opens up great opportunities. Rather than dumping cold water on people’s enthusiasm, we need to encourage this in a way that builds an appreciation for science, including the scientifically grounded procedures for determining truth, such as the peer-review process and so on.
A population of true armchair scientists who were willing to look at the world more scientifically and be led by science, rather than getting caught up in all kinds of wacky 5G or anti-vax conspiracies and superstitions, would be a boon.