Rio verdict
There were some shortcomings in the official declaration agreed at the Rio+20 summit last month (30 June, p 10), including the failure to make an explicit link between population dynamics and sustainable development.
The Royal Society’s report on population and consumption released in April, titled , highlighted the need for such a link. Failure to include it is akin to planning for a party without any idea of who has been invited, but on a vast scale.
This omission must be addressed. The sustainable development goals that delegates agreed to draw up in the next three years offer some hope. Scientists have a critical role to play in helping politicians make such decisions based on evidence rather than on self interest or rhetoric, but recognition of this is lacking in the Rio declaration. Their assessment of population projections should be integrated into all goals if we are to produce anything grounded in reality.
On a more positive note, while the Rio declaration appears to agree so little, the devil is in the detail. Delving into the text, we can see the skeleton of what we need to ensure our planet’s future. From these bare bones we can raise an army.
Now is not the time to dwell on thwarted hopes and aspirations, but to encourage new ambitions and great leadership. Politicians must continue the work they have started and we must support them. We may not believe that world leaders have delivered at Rio, but we must trust them to deliver our future.
Super brains
I was fascinated to read how the double duplication of the SRGAP2 gene, which helps drive development of the brain’s neocortex, appears to have propelled our ancestors’ development at two distinct times during the past few million years (12 May, p 10). If two copies of the gene are better than one, and three copies better than two, what would be the effect of still more?
It is probably within our technical grasp to achieve that. Could we breed super-humans, simultaneously able to stop climate change, solve the euro crisis and find dark matter? The (triple-SRGAP2) mind boggles.
Openly critical
In Stephen Curry’s look at open access publishing for science papers (23 June, p 26), one question went unanswered: what about those authors who can’t afford the $2000 to publish?
Adversely affected will be ambitious doctoral students with five chapters worthy of publication, post-doctoral fellows with original papers outside the research agenda of their grant holder, the grant holder who had to use the budget for open access fees to pay an equipment repair bill, researchers with minimal funds in poor countries, and retired researchers who write widely useful review papers.
Beware this new way of making profits for publishers; it will narrow access while consolidating the power of the wealthy.
From Guy Cox, editor of Micron
As a semi-retired academic who edits an Elsevier journal, I must take issue with the one-sided view given by Stephen Curry. Open access journals are only open access for readers.
Anyone can have their work published in Micron at no cost. We get a lot of papers from Brazil, where they do great science on slender budgets. Those with deeper pockets can pay to have their paper made open access.
Many libraries offer members of the public access to journals, and most authors will supply a copy of a paper on request. If neither option is available, download costs are moderate.
I do agree with Curry’s other point, about ensuring that papers in journals are comprehensible. I have always tried to write mine in plain English.
Sydney, Australia
Modified view
Matthew C. Nisbet refreshingly acknowledges the importance of addressing trust and communication issues between scientists and the public with regard to genetically modified crops, as well as the inadequate government regulation and labelling currently in place (26 May, p 26).
To my mind, the main problem is that the science is too narrowly focused and lacks ecosystemic and cultural context. Yes, the wheat mentioned by Nisbet that is modified to produce a pheromone that repels aphids, thus reducing reliance on insecticide, sounds good, but what about other insects that feed on aphids, and the birds and reptiles further up the food chain? Or what if the gene for that pheromone spreads and starts to repel insects beneficial to other crops?
It might well be that many modified crops can be used for the common good, but we need to proceed with the greatest caution, the most rigorous testing and the broadest perspective possible.
Who are the liars?
In the haste to focus on bankers, Dan Ariely’s discussion of cheating appears to have missed a major point (16 June, p 30). His experiment showing that people will cheat if they think they can get away with it has been writ large in society.
The sub-prime crisis was largely fuelled by the infamous “no doc” mortgages, also known as liar loans. People who knew their mortgage applications wouldn’t be checked routinely inflated their reported income to match the requirements of the house they wanted to buy. This became institutionalised and endemic.
If people had been unable to do this, it is arguable the sub-prime mortgage crisis would not have happened, or at least been much smaller. The liars in question weren’t bankers, but Joe Public.
Bankers certainly should heed lessons from the psychology of cheating, the most important being that everyone does it.
Morality lesson
Ullrich Fischer’s letter (16 June, p 33) makes the standard liberal error of supposing that for liberals and conservatives alike “the most important moral precepts are to avoid harming fellow humans and render aid to those in trouble”. The evidence says otherwise. A survey of 132,000 people reported by psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind shows that liberals value avoiding harm and unfairness much more than conservatives do. Conservatives value loyalty, authority and sanctity more.
You may disagree with the conservatives, as I do, but we will not be able to properly understand morality, politics or religion unless we recognise the full range of moral thinking.
Is it alive?
Further to cosmologist Charley Lineweaver’s attempt to widen the definition of life, could the universe or Earth be considered to be living things (19 May, p 29)?
This would depend on whether the universe is a fully integrated entity or just a collection of organised matter ensembles, one of which (Earth) contains smaller ensembles that are certainly alive.
Similarly, Earth could be considered alive if it is deemed to be self-regulating to maintain its millions of species – as the Gaia hypothesis suggests.
From Mike Jaket
Defining life as “anything that undergoes Darwinian evolution” infers constituent processes that give a steady structure, reproduction and so on, while not being too prescriptive.
The overall process doesn’t include a fixed “evolutionary unit” that a cosmologist could search for. So, contrary to Lineweaver’s view, a Darwinian approach doesn’t invalidate the definition in any way.
You could tighten it to “DNA-encoded forms that undergo Darwinian evolution”, but then that may well be incorrect in the wider universe.
Upper Coomera, Queensland, Australia
Group sacrifice
Rather than questioning the evolutionary purpose baldness serves in an individual (16 June, p 44), perhaps we should ask if older men sacrifice their hair for the good of the male species. If baldness is associated with advancing age, then this group is probably wealthier, more responsible and less self-centred than hirsute male youngsters.
If both age groups were equally hairy, younger men wouldn’t get a look in with the ladies, hence baldness is nature’s way of giving youngsters a helping hand. Yes, you guessed, I am north of 40.
Both right
So the answer to the question of whether life is inevitable or a fluke turns out to be inconclusive (23 June, p 32). If Nick Lane’s thinking is right, all we know for sure is that, using the example of life on Earth, it is both inevitable (simple forms) and a fluke (complex forms).
Dim and dimmer
It is always with great interest that I read your articles on particle physics, the cosmos, grand unified theories and so on, but I think I have inadvertently stumbled on the answer to the dark energy puzzle (2 June, p 36).
Frank Zappa once wrote that the most abundant element in the universe is stupidity. Think of politicians, creationists or the TV viewing figures for The X Factor. I think he may have cracked it – after all dark matter is thought to be both dim and dense. How do I claim my Nobel prize?
Long view
Well before the next transit of Venus is seen from Earth, 105 years from now (2 June, p 44), we shall, I hope, have observatories in various parts of the solar system. So, when will it be possible to observe a transit of Earth or Venus from Mars?
The editor writes:
• Not sure about Mars, but something similar is planned for later this year – the transit of Venus as seen from Saturn (9 June, p 4).
For the record
• In our description of the sea urchin depicted in Aperture (9 June, p 26) we wrongly described it as expelling its guts through its mouth. In fact, the animal was captured as it defecated.
• New York lawyer Maura Grossman’s co-author on the study assessing new software for sifting legal documents (23 June, p 22) was Gordon Cormack of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.