Who's biased now?
Your article on human rationality (26 May, p 32) asks: “Have you ever, against your better judgement, nurtured a belief in the paranormal?”
It continues: “If you buy into any of these beliefs, you are probably suffering from confirmation bias – the mind’s tendency to pick and choose information to support our preconceptions, while ignoring…evidence to the contrary.”
Have the journalists at 91av ever considered the possibility that their own beliefs in this regard might be the product of confirmation bias? Thus, when you hear other people say paranormal phenomena are delusional, you register this information, but when experimental evidence is reported that supports belief in the paranormal you ignore it, telling yourself without consideration of the details that the experiments must be flawed.
In the case of the belief that rock stars are most likely to die aged 27, you may well be right to dismiss this, but other cases may not be so certain.
Alert for aliens
Astronomer Geoff Marcy assumes that extraterrestrials might try to communicate with us by pointing lasers at Earth (31 March, p 28).
This possibility has been studied. If they know about our civilisation, such beings would point at the telescope dish with the largest reflecting surface. If our mutual position in the Milky Way allows it, their first choice would then be the MAGIC gamma-ray telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands – with a reflective surface of 240 square metres. We plan to take it seriously and look at our data for evidence.
However, our colleagues at the VERITAS gamma-ray telescope in Arizona have already studied some of their data, searching for pulsed laser signals, and they have found no hint yet. Rest assured: if we find something we’ll tell you.
Squid wrap
Ron O’Dor’s conundrum of how to stop captive squid flying into tank walls at night is a concern (19 May, p 39). Has he considered lining the tanks with bubble wrap? Not only is it widely available, cheap, waterproof and malleable, it could even be an effective way of recording the animals’ night-time activity, by observing deflated areas each morning.
This would not be the most scientifically controlled experiment – especially if the cephalopods appreciate the cathartic properties of bubble wrap as much as humans do – but it would make for a delicious soundtrack.
From Jim Franks
At last, I realise that the strange canard-type flying fish I saw en route from England to Antarctica in 1957 were actually squid. They were definitely squirting out a jet of water, and I am sure they also seemed to beat their leading wings at times.
Aviemore, Highland, UK
Earlier spin
In your story “Roulette beater spills his secrets” you wrote that in the 1970s, Doyne Farmer, then a graduate student, used the world’s first wearable computer to beat roulette tables in Nevada’s casinos (12 May, p 12).
I believe the first wearable computer was conceived in 1955 and deployed in 1961 by Edward Thorp and Claude Shannon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They in 1962 in Thorp’s book Beat the Dealer.
The editor writes:
• Thorp’s project involved an analogue computer, very different to the first wearable digital computer deployed by Farmer.
Curious prizes
Your review of Philip Ball’s book Curiosity (19 May, p 50) ends: “Yet for all its erudition, his book does not quite succeed in capturing the difference between Nobel and Ig Nobel prizewinning curiosity.”
Nobel prizes recognise (in theory and usually in fact) curiosity that led to extremely good things. Ig Nobel prizes recognise curiosity that made people laugh, then think – regardless of whether the outcome was good or bad, valuable or worthless.
Curiosity sometimes leads to Nobel prizes. Sometimes it kills cats. Sometimes it does both. And thanks to (Nobel laureate) Werner Heisenberg’s curiosity, we suspect it may do both and neither.
The review seems to imply that curiosity that leads to good outcomes is good. The best tool for identifying that kind of curiosity, I am told, is hindsight.
Electric extras
In your look at alternatives to oil (19 May, p 34), the statement that “as electricity generation becomes cleaner, the emissions of electric vehicles will fall further still” is open to challenge.
It is normal policy to allow all non-fossil fuel power stations to produce all the power they can all the time. Fossil fuel stations then make up the difference between that and the demand.
It follows that any extra demand, such as using an electric car rather than a diesel car, is met in its entirety by burning extra fossil fuel. This is true whether non-fossil fuel stations account for 1 per cent or 99 per cent of electricity demand.
Thus, only when all existing demand is satisfied by non-fossil fuel stations and there is some spare capacity, does the electric car start to avoid the burning of fossil fuel.
Not in the family way
Your article, “Engineering love” (12 May, p 28), is predicated on the basis that the family – presumably two adults in a long-term monogamous relationship – is the best place to bring up children. It is ironic that the researchers used prairie voles to research increasing relationship length.
Perhaps this is partly because none of our more immediate relatives, the great apes, form permanent monogamous relationships. Monogamy is not the norm in most monkey species either – in fact, it is quite uncommon in mammals.
The authors’ own research indicates the average human relationship lasts 11 years. It should be remembered that this is with the huge societal pressure, from the media and politicians to parents and friends, to marry and live in a nuclear family.
We should look to change such societal attitudes before looking at altering our biochemistry for the sake of a societal ideal.
Language barrier
My daughters were raised as multilingual and had no speaking problems as a result, contrary to the fears of some educators that you touched on in your look at bilingualism (5 May, p 30).
But I have known of at least three cases of children exposed to two languages in early childhood who had learning problems during their early childhood. These problems disappeared once their parents concentrated on one language only.
Psychiatric view
The article by James Davies, “Label jars, not people” (19 May, p 7) about protesters lobbying the American Psychiatric Association’s meeting is relevant, but there are a few points to make.
Psychiatrists do not label people. They label disorders of mental health. And the protesters highlight that the Diagsnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has added curious conditions that seem only to exist in the US.
It is true that the burgeoning capitalist healthcare corporations rely on the DSM to define what they may pay for in the chaotic private system of much of the US.
Thus there is pressure to invent wider and vaguer conditions as a means to get patients funded, something which does not occur in countries with efficient state health services.
Rocketing riches
The first true commercial spaceship has successfully resupplied the International Space Station after its launch from Cape Canaveral (26 May, p 4). With the shuttle programme over, it was embarrassing that NASA, with its $18 billion-a-year budget, was expecting to have to rely on the Russians to get Americans there for many years. But Elon Musk’s company SpaceX promises to be able to do it commercially, for less than £90 million.
It seems certain that if politics does not interfere, Musk has ushered in the era of space industrialisation. I trust he will get filthy rich out of it.
Fake self-esteem
Here’s my take on your exploration of excessive self-esteem among young people (28 April, p 44). Fake self-esteem is narcissistic, lacks empathy, relies on extrinsic rewards and lacks self-insight. It is based on fantasy. It is easy to see.
Real self-esteem is empathic, provides insight into our strengths and weaknesses – allowing us to understand what we can offer the world, and is based on intrinsic rewards. It revels in the journey, not necessarily the destination. It is based on reality and is much harder to see.
There is simply no comparison: one is fool’s gold, the other is real.
Jumbled sell
The idea of using artificial intelligence to help invent brand names is an interesting concept but, as the unfortunate results of combining “sweet” and “eat” to produce “sweat” shows, we are a long way from giving AI any kind of autonomy in this regard (5 May, p 19). It seems the system described is, at best, a bit like automating the pulling of word fragments from a hat.
I worked for an agency specialising in rebranding. Inventing memetic or descriptive neologisms is sometimes called logotechnics. The most relevant qualities required are imagination, lexical dexterity and a sense of poetry, or the music and rhythm of syllables. I don’t think AIs are remotely capable of these kinds of judgements – yet.
For the record
• In our look at science art in Russia (19 May, p 51), we should have said was the sound artist for Julia Borovaya’s Liquid~Do artwork.
• Brian Cox will be co-presenting a special edition of the UK’s Radio 4 show The Infinite Monkey Cage at Latitude on 14 July, not MC-ing its Comedy Arena as reported in our festival round-up (26 May, p 48).