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The 'Two Cultures' Have Endured

By Gregory Byrne | March 9, 1987

When I was 20 I had an English literature professor who insisted on the virtues of one's keeping a literary log—a chronicle of all the books read over the course of the year. All great men and women of letters did this, he said. In fact, it appeared that journal keeping was something of a prerequisite for being a man or woman of letters. With the enthusiasm and single-mindedness that often propel us (arid render us insufferable) when we're 20, I began such a project. At the end of two mont

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The Second Green Revolution

By Peter Timmer | March 9, 1987

Beyond the Green Revolution: New Approaches for Third World Agriculture. (Woridwatch Paper 73) Edward C. Wolf, Woridwatch Institute, Washington, DC, 1986. 46 pp. $4. Directed by Lester R. Brown, recent winner of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Worldwatch Institute analyzes and focuses attention on global problems through a series of papers "written for a worldwide audience of decision makers, scholars, and the general public." This one, written by senior researcher 'Edward Wolf, a Willia

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Time, Space and St. Augustine

By Robert Boyd | March 9, 1987

May I, from the other end of the ecclesiastical spectrum, welcome the letter from Andrew Szebenyi, S.J. (The Scientist, January 12, 1987, p. 10). As he says, "God does not create in time, but is the creator of time." He will know, what some of your readers may not know and some creationists may have forgotten, that this is explicitly proclaimed in the New Testament (Hebrews 1:1-2): "God … has spoken … by his Son by whom also he made the worlds" (Greek: Aiones, "indefinite time"). Wha

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Trivelpiece Takes Top AAAS Post

March 9, 1987

CHICAGO—Alvin W. Trivelpiece will take office April 1 as executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the AAAS announced February 15 at its annual meeting here. He succeeds Wffliam D. Carey, who is retiring after 12 years at the head of the nation's oldest and largest genera! science membership organization. The appointment was reported first in the February 9 issue of THE SCIENTIST. Triveipiece, 56, a nuclear physicist with experience in industry, academia a

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U.K. Budget Allocation Draws Fire

By Jon Turney | March 9, 1987

LONDON—British science policy advisers sent their government a message of gloom and dismay along with their recommendations for the country's 1987-88 science budget. And they were backed by opposition politicians in the House of Lords who said the country's industrial future was threatened by its weak support for research. The Advisory Board for the Research Councils (ABRC) decided to award 20 million of the 24 million pounds ($34 million) that were added to Britain's 300-million-pound aca

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Understand the Difference Between Science, Religion

By Ronald Jensh | March 9, 1987

Craig K. Svensson completely misses the point concerning the teaching of creation science in the schools (The Scientist, January 26, 1987). I will defend the right of any individual to practice his own faith as long as such practice does not infringe upon or harm other members of society. Creation science is a religious belief and not a branch of scientific thought. Therefore, it is not appropriate to teach this subject in the context of science. I will not discuss the arguments concerning the l

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UNESCO Race Still Wide Open

By Andy Crump | March 9, 1987

LONDON—The contest to elect a new director-general of UNESCO is about to enter a period of international wheeling and dealing. The election could test the organization's ability to emerge from two years of disarray and indecision. No front-runner for the top post has appeared, although member states may nominate candidates through the end of this month. The 50-member Executive Board then must select a single candidate to propose to the General Conference in November. Director-General Amado

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'God as the Edge of the Universe'

By e Weber | February 23, 1987

"In the Beginning … But exactly what in the beginning? The physicist Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor at Cambridge University, has devoted much of his career to answering that question. His obsession is the one second between the Big Bang (the postulated birth of the universe) and the beginning of its expansion. A victim of amyotropic lateral sclerosis, an incurable progressive motor neuron disease, Hawking is almost totally immobile and is confined to a wheelchair. He can communicate o

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'I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier'

By Perutz | February 23, 1987

Fifty years ago, the great un solved problem of biology seemed to be the structure of proteins. Bill Astbury, a physicist and X-ray crystallographer working for the Wool Research Association in Leeds (United Kingdom), discovered that the fibrous protein keratin, found in wool, horn, nails and muscle, gave a common X-ray diffraction pattern consisting of just two reflections, a meridionalone at 5.1 Å and an equatorial one at 9.8 Å. Astbury called this the a-keratin pattern. When these f

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A Tour of the Human Mind

By Lynn Nadel | February 23, 1987

Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. Patricia Smith Churchland. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986. 800 pp. $27.50. Can there be an object of scientific study as compelling, yet baffling, as the human mind? In Neurophilosophy Patricia Churchland argues that a new paradigm in the study of the human mind is emerging, one that promises rich and often unexpected understanding of the underlying nature of mentality. In this claim she is not alone: great excitement has been gene

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