Letters archive

Osagie K. Obasogie's criticism of clinical trials contains a number of misleading assumptions, including the implication that a clinical trial is by definition a drug trial (22 January, p 24) . Clinical trials provide the best evidence for efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness of many interventions, be they behavioural change, surgery, screening or pharmaceuticals. The increase …

The idea that robots do only what their designers intend, as David Flint's letter assumes, is outdated (29 January, p 25) . Even in the 1960s, when developing the GEORGE operating system, we sometimes tested what happened in certain circumstances and left things as they were if the results seemed reasonable, even if they hadn't …

Reading your editorial about futurology (25 December 2010, p 5) reminded me of a course I took in 1970 while I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California. The theme was "California in 2000 AD", and speakers gave presentations on topics as diverse as hydrology, farming, urban planning, forestry and economics. I have …

I must take issue with Sebastian Hayes's assertion that scientists take it for granted that their work should be funded regardless of its benefits to society at large (8 January, p 24) . To support his case he cites the failure of scientific job adverts to mention any benefit to humanity of the work in …

You report a study which shows that the consumption of fruit is linked to a reduction in the incidence of heart disease, concluding that perhaps people should be encouraged to increase their intake (22 January, p 7) . However, just because people who eat more fruit are healthier, it does not mean that overall health …

In your interview with neuropsychologist Kevin Nelson ( 25 December 2010, p 80 ), he omitted one scenario in which near-death experiences (NDEs) can occur: during temporal lobe epileptic seizures. He went on to suggest that he would like to have an NDE. I suffered a severe case of adult onset drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy, …

Petra Meier states that generally "alcohol has become steadily cheaper", and suggests that the price of alcohol in pubs and bars has increased only slightly in real terms over the past 20 years (29 January, p 22) . I have heard this a lot recently, though rarely supported by any convincing evidence. My experience shows …

There is some debate over the object that fell from the sky onto a cricket match in Sussex, UK, in July 2010. It was described as a meteorite in the review of Ted Nield's book Incoming! ( 22 January, p 47 ), but did it in fact fall from space? An online report in The …

Rabies would make an interesting addition to Paul Collins's excellent piece on the basis for belief in vampires (29 January, p 40) . In the legends, those bitten by a vampire often became vampires themselves. It was undoubtedly the prevalence of diseases such as tuberculosis and syphilis in the late 19th century that supported the …

Anil Ananthaswamy's exploration of artificial intelligence failed to consider what might happen when a computer gets a mind of its own (29 January, p 28) . If AI reaches a point where it is conscious, what will it make of life, the universe and everything? AI, if not evolved by natural selection, might not be …

I applaud Michael Hartl's efforts to promote tau (which is 2 pi, or 6.28318...) as the definitive circle constant (8 January, p 23) . He advises that we use the necessary factor of 2 when converting between tau and pi, which seems straightforward enough. I do wonder, though, how many Mars probes may be lost …