Letters archive

Amanda Gefter contends that we are being offered a choice between God and a multiverse as explanations for our existence (6 December 2008, p 48) . Consider a third possibility: that our universe is an artefact created by an advanced species and contained within the universe in which that species exists. It would be difficult …

Lawrence Krauss seems to have strayed into the foothills of metaphysics without realising that he hasn't brought the proper equipment (22 November 2008, p 53) . He starts with the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" and claims that physics has largely answered this question by "reframing" it as "how" rather than "why". …

Marcus du Sautoy declares that we can all do mathematics because we are naturally programmed to do so (29 November 2008, p 44) . Being able to survive by moving around in the world and manipulating objects in it with speed and precision has nothing whatever to do with mathematics. The survival skills he alludes …

Prompted by the article on sexual strategies (29 November 2008, p 32) , I took a small informal poll at the school where I work. Seventeen out of 20 boys and six out of 10 girls said they would probably lie on a questionnaire about their sex life, even if they completed it anonymously. If …

Caroline Williams writes of the menstrual synchrony effect in humans, first described by Martha McClintock in the 1970s, that, "McClintock's conclusions remain contentious because nobody has yet isolated the actual chemicals that cause the effect" (6 December 2008, p 38) . They remain contentious because of much more than that. Others have tried and failed …

Weimaraner Club members were disappointed to read Paul McGreevy saying that the breed standard for Weimaraner dogs – which demands that the chest is "well developed, deep" while the abdomen is "firmly held" and the flank is "moderately tucked-up" – "may help to make Weimaraners appear athletic, but puts them at risk of gastric dilation …

I was thrilled to read A. C. Grayling on our duty towards fellow animals (29 November 2008, p 50) . Severe restrictions on invasive animal research are long overdue, and the European Union's proposal to ban all but behavioural research on great apes is an important step forward. Those who think "good welfare" is good …

Douglas Fox describes work that seems to imply that the conscious brain needs to be inactive for the subconscious one to work (8 November 2008, p 28) . I would say that the requirement is that it should be inactive only on the topic of concern and that activity on unrelated topics is a necessary …

In your eco-questions and answers, your discussion of how best to charge a laptop left a major topic unanswered: what if you use the laptop as a main computer, normally just plugged into the mains – or "to the wall" as we say in the US (15 November 2008, p 36) ? Is it better …

Piers Bizony says "recent military events in Georgia have reminded that Russia may not yet be a fully tamed member of the international community" (15 November 2008, p 22) . The way the UK and the US go rampaging round the world, bombing at will, raises an obvious question.

Amanda Gefter may have inadvertently answered her own question in posing her third option for explaining the fine-tuning of the universe to our existence: "we somehow endow the universe with certain features by the mere act of observation" (6 December 2008, p 48) . For observation presupposes consciousness, and in eastern philosophies god is consciousness …

A something-for-nothing universe epitomises the hubris that is one feature of the contemporary science scene. Krauss outlines Alan Guth's inflation, which describes a flat universe which trades off the positive energy of particles for the negative energy of gravity to provide a "free lunch" (22 November 2008, p 53) . According to Krauss, this resolves …