22nd February 2005
In your item (News & Curiosities, March) about the standard for the unit of mass, you mentioned in an aside that the speed of light is used to define the second. This is not true: it is the metre that is defined in terms of the speed of light, being the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds. Since 1968 the second has been defined by caesium atomic clocks, based on the interaction between quantum transitions and electromagnetic radiation. The frequency of the radio waves that stimulates a particular transition in the caesium atom is the basic frequency of the clock: 9,192,631,770 Hz.
Tony Finch
Cambridge
Deaf nationalism
23rd February 2005
Jonathan Rée (March) writes: "As far as I know there are no signers, even among the most passionate Deaf nationalists, who use sign notation as an extension to their signing, in the way that speakers habitually use the writing systems linked with their languages." In fact, the sign language transcription system of signwriting (invented by Valerie Sutton in 1974, www.signwriting.org) is used by signers in more than 20 countries.
Charles Butler
ASL Interpreter, Pelotas, Brazil
God and the tsunami
21st January 2005
Further to the debate (February) between AC Grayling and Keith Ward on the tsunami, surely it's as simple as this: 1) If God exists, disasters are part of His plan for purposes not clear to us. 2) If God doesn't exist, disasters are part of the "life" of the natural and human worlds. Within those two statements is the scope for expansion, clarification and nuance which duly filled up several pages of your marvellous magazine and indirectly supported the theory that one reason we have an arsehole is so we can disappear up it.
Tony McCrorie
Disley, Cheshire
Happiness is back 1
27th February 2005
Richard Layard (March) repeats the cliché that most people with "clinical depression" only get "ten minutes with a GP and some pills." From my experience as a GP in both an inner-city and a rural area, I know that this is a misconception. We do see many people who are unhappy, and these patients tend to be frequent attendees. Many spend a long time with the GP over repeated visits. It is still a strength of general practice that we tend to come to know individuals and their backgrounds quite well. "Traditional" general practice works well for many patients, as emotional and physical problems are so often entangled.
It is true that there is still overprescription of anti-depressants. However, specialist psychiatrists are no superior in this respect. In fact, they are more likely to recommend drugs, and in higher doses. Clinical psychology and "therapy," even when available, are only ever offered for a limited number of sessions. The patient nearly always returns to the GP for ongoing support.
Keith Evans
Pwllheli, Gwynedd
Happiness is back 2
21st February 2005
How anachronistic and disturbing that Richard Layard recommends that government should promote "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Inconveniently for socialists, people are individuals, and what makes them happy varies greatly. One man's career ladder is another's rat race. The concept of a "common good," appealed to by Layard, harks back to a tribal age when connections between individual survival and group cohesion were more local. Contemporary voters, by contrast, elect governments to safeguard the national interest: a remit awkward to reconcile with maximising happiness, as widespread resistance to paying higher taxes illustrates. John Stuart Mill tried to salvage from utilitarianism a philosophy of government as a positive agent for good. In the end, his most important political tract—On Liberty (1859), defining the principles of a classical liberalism already mooted by Locke and Hume—was vehemently to reject any role for democratic government other than to protect individuals and their interests under law.
Martin Bradley
Tamworth, Staffordshire
Far right alarmism
1st March 2005
Catherine Fieschi (March) has misread our article in the New Statesman, and so misleads your readers. We agree with her that it is nonsense to suggest that an electoral "breakthrough" for the far right is possible. But the traditional complacency in the UK about the far right vote is misplaced. We presented evidence from three surveys, that found about 20 per cent of the population saying they might vote for the BNP (not the BNP and Ukip together, as Fieschi says). We think this is a matter for concern.
Our argument is not that the BNP and Ukip are the same, but that they draw upon the same reservoir of support among the public. Once again, we clearly set out evidence of the linkages, with examples of vote-switching between the two parties and the connections between them made by participants in focus groups.
Fieschi quotes the average vote nationally for the BNP, but fails to recognise first that BNP activity and support runs very high in certain areas—in one recent council by-election the party won half of the vote—and secondly that it is well organised to mobilise support in these areas and getting better at it. We made no predictions about the general election. But the BNP could win seats in the London borough elections. And even if it doesn't, it brings misery and violence wherever it is strong.
Peter John, Helen Margetts and Stuart Weir
America vs Europe
2nd March 2005
Mark Leonard (March) asserts that US power remains "dominant" only in its "ability to fight and win intensive conventional wars, and the ubiquity of its popular culture." I feel no need to claim dominance in any area, but it would be nice if Leonard recognised excellence in other areas of US life. The US, for example, has an overwhelming share of the world's leading universities. It wins a disproportionate share of Nobel prizes (seven of 12 in 2004). And a large proportion of world-class orchestras are based in the US—half of the top 20, according to some.
David Perkins
Williamsburg, Massachussetts
Durkheim vs Weber
4th March 2005
As a sociologist, I was tickled to read about Michael Prowse's conversion to our faith (February), but not so happy to learn that he had joined the Durkheimian sect. Prowse never asks whether the world that Durkheim described was in fact a world that someone could live in. Social scientists face a problem: if they don't take society seriously enough, they end up with an overly psychological conception of it, but if they take society too seriously they generate an over-socialised conception of man. Radical neoliberals are overly psychological, and Durkheim and his like-minded sociologists are over-socialised in their vision. Both extremes ignore the ever-present tension between the individual and society.If Prowse wants to read sociology that doesn't fall into this trap, he should pick up Max Weber's books.
Barry B Levine
Florida International University
Better ID cards
26th February 2005
David Birch's "A better class of ID card" (March) skated over important points. It seems incredible to me that anyone can say, after just two readings of the government's ID card bill in the House of Commons, that it is time to stop debating whether ID cards would be "a waste of money and whether they will do anything about terrorism, illegal immigration and so on." Peter Lilley, the former Tory minister, said in the commons debate: "The department for work and pensions said it would need 4,500 [machines to read ID cards]. Each costs a minimum of £250. That's £1.1bn to save between £20m and £50m a year. Is that a good deal?"
Apacs, the trade body responsible for introducing chip and PIN technology on bankcards, is also sceptical that the government scheme will only cost £5.5bn. It told me that chip and PIN is costing £1.1bn for mainly software changes, with users already known and after more than a decade of preparation.
James Mawson
London SE22
China's soft power
18th February 2005
Joshua Kurlantzick (March) is hungry for another cold war, and his article on China is full of Sputnik-era paranoia. But he fails to explain what we are meant to find ominous in his long list of ways in which China has become engaged with the international community (or, in his words, dared to "challenge America's soft power"). Why is it a bad thing, for example, that Chinese diplomats now have an in-depth knowledge of other countries? Certainly democratic nations should not be charmed into turning a blind eye to China's human rights record. But what is likely to be more effective at improving that record than increased participation in world affairs coupled with economic development?
Philip Ball
London SE22
Islamophobia
17th February 2005
It is rich of Abdul Wahid (Letters, March) to speak about hostility towards Muslims. Wahid is a leading member of Hizb ut-Tahrir. I quote from one of its publications, widely available: "Palestine… was the graveyard of the crusaders and Tartars, and it will be so as well to the Jews, the enemies of Allah, by his will." Wahid, a north London GP, supports this blatant antisemitism; indeed it is central to his organisation's worldview. And you give him and his organisation a voice.
Davis Lewin
Jewish Society, Univ of Sussex
The future of work
24th January 2005
Stephen Overell (January) and Charles Handy (Letters, February) are both right about the future of work: many people will find it unstable and uncertain, but others will maintain strong ties with long-term employers. Charles Handy asserts that the full-time job is now a "minority occupation" for people of working age, excluding the 3m he counts as incapacitated. But he has misread a table in Social Trends as saying that Britain has 47m people of working age. In fact, it's around 37m, since the table includes pensioners. This would mean that using Handy's rationale, 18m are in full-time jobs and 16m in other forms of "activity"—or 13m, if you exclude full-time students and unemployed people. So a clear majority of adults doing paid and unpaid work are still in full-time jobs. Moreover, the table that Handy used shows that full-time workers comprise exactly the same proportion of the total adult population as they did 15 years ago.
Yet Handy is right to argue against a complacency that the labour market is providing an old-fashioned form of protection and stability. Employers may well be rediscovering the advantages of treating workers well and rewarding loyalty, especially in the case of the workers they value most. But the risk is that these benefits will go principally to those who already have the strongest position in the labour market, while others become further marginalised. Only if these more disadvantaged groups can be helped to secure more stable working conditions will Overell's optimism be justified.
Donald Hirsch
Guildford
