Kathryn S. Brown's article in The Scientist's Jan. 20, 1997, issue (page 16) discussed today's deplorable and stilted style of science writing. In college I saw it as my duty to insist that my students write their lab reports in the passive voice. But when, where, and why did that practice begin? No doubt scientists wanted to emphasize that they were not voicing opinions but reporting observations that others could confirm. The first observer is merely a reporter, the observations being valid

N.A. Halasz's summary of the tenure question (Letters, The Scientist, Jan. 6, 1997, page 13) is too simple. It may well be that those who deserve tenure don't need it, in the sense that they would be kept on by their institution even without it, but he ignores the range of psychological needs of different people. Some able people have superb self-confidence, and if they lose one job they are sure they'll find another. But others, able, even brilliant, have little self-confidence, fear for thei

The history of science and technology includes a remarkable number of well-known persons who were sustained in their scientific activity through their Quaker convictions. Among them: John Dalton of atomic theory fame; Abraham Darby of Coalbrookdale, England, who produced coke from coal for use in iron production, and thus ushered in the industrial revolution; Arthur Eddington, who confirmed Einstein's prediction that light travels on a curved path around the sun; and crystallographer Kathleen

I was delighted to see a photograph of Friedrich August Kekulé, one of the architects of the structural theory of organic chemistry, in Science Archive (September 7, 1987, P. 28). You describe the dream that led to the ring structure for benzene, a structure he first proposed in 1865. He divulged the origin of that idea 25 years later at a celebration hosted by the chemical industry that gained immeasurably from that one proposal. The benzene dream was the second he described, the first be

The fascinating excerpt "The ABCs of Abstract Science" from Robert K. Logan's book The Alphabet Effect (The Scientist, January 12, 1987, p. 15) must make readers wonder why China and Japan did not long ago give up their ideographs in favor of a phonetic alphabet or syllabary. The alpha-bet appears to be directly linked to deductive logic, abstract theoretical science and an atomistic conception of the material world. However, this last point, as Joseph Needham keeps on emphasizing, is not enough

I well remember the sudden about-face of the science establishment's view of acupuncture—from adamant disbelief to cautious acceptance. What caused the change? It was not new facts about acupuncture, but instead the discovery of the enkephalins, the body's own opiates. Perhaps the needle stimulated their production. Scientists seem to be unimpressed by facts unless they can be connected to the established network of ideas. How then does science progress? And how did the enkephalin discover