Letter: A man's view

From Valerie Moyses

While analysing the reactions of the 19 men you asked to look at alternative covers for New Scientist, did it occur to you that the cover they most strongly favoured bears a strong resemblance to a woman’s breast (7 August, p 32)? It even has the appearance of having a nipple. The other two designs look muddled in comparison.

This hardly seems a viable or even-handed test of brain activity and purchasing preferences, especially since you completely disregarded the possible reactions of women. There are female scientists, you know. And female New Scientist readers. Or, at least, there used to be.

The editor writes:

• The decision to use male subjects was an entirely practical one. We had the time and resources to run tests on about 20 subjects; NeuroFocus advised us that to get meaningful results they should all be the same sex. Given our predominantly male readership, we decided to use men. We would very much like to run a similar experiment with women.

Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK