Origins of music
When reading the review by Bob Holmes of Mark Changizi’s book Harnessed: How language and music mimicked nature and transformed ape to man (20 August, p 48) I noticed an oversight in the theory.
It is interesting that music and language use neuronal circuits that evolved to discern sounds in our environment, but I believe it is the brain’s natural inclination to recognise complex patterns that makes music so compelling for us.
I think it is pretty clear that the brain creates and enjoys music as one way to satisfy its constant need for pleasant and interesting stimulation. Music’s physical and emotional punch comes from the combination of this mental and sensory experience mixed with our innate sense of rhythm from the metronome in our chests.
Stand up for science
Bravo for Royal Society president Paul Nurse’s stand against anti-science (17 September, p 5). I was wondering when respected members of the scientific community would voice concerns about the political point-scoring that devalues science.
The number of charlatans and vested-interest groups given a voice by the popular media is alarming, and avoiding a confrontation with them has served to further alienate the scientific community from the general population. Science is too valuable to be left to the whim of political expediency.
From Peter Bonsey
Congratulations on your editorial on anti-science. However, there is a subtext running through it that religion is a part of the problem – praying for rain rather than listening to what scientists say about climate change, for example.
The fictitious disconnect between science and religion is a useful construct for partisans on each side of this fabricated dispute, but for the rest of us it is an unhelpful waste of time which hurts both science and religion.
Calstock, Cornwall, UK
A case in point?
Barbara Oakley and Guruprasad Madhavan rebrand gullibility as pathological altruism in order to avoid stigmatising people whose support of others is misguided and has negative effects (10 September, p 30). Undoubtedly an altruistic thing to do, but could this itself be a case of pathological altruism?
Whether this strengthens or weakens their argument I do not know, but I strongly suspect that gullibility by any other name would still be an inexhaustible source of problems, and a quite non-pathological aspect of the human condition.
Faith and Fukushima
Might I suggest that the Japanese social psyche has been more disturbed by losing faith in the authorities they once implicitly trusted than by alarmist media coverage of the scale of radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant (3 September, p 7).
No sign yet
It is suggested that we search for evidence of an extraterrestrial presence on Earth millions of years ago (10 September, p 10). Surely archaeologists, geologists and palaeontologists have done their bit. How could they have missed signs of non-human mining or other technology?
Sugar rush
There is a mountain of biochemical evidence to back Robert Lustig’s view that fructose is a trigger of metabolic syndrome (24 September, p 35).
In terms of dietary advice, it all went wrong in the 1950s with US scientist Ancel Keys’s selective Seven Countries study, which concluded that a diet that favours unsaturated over saturated fat is healthier. US politicians got involved, and so began the proliferation of low-fat, high-sugar foods.
For the record
• In the look at off-the-scale pH bunkum (24 September), Feedback’s earlier reference to alkaline water was in our 20 August issue.
• Chyi-Song Hsieh, who featured in our story on T-cells (24 September, p 21), is male, not female as stated.