Letters

Science News, Jan 8, 2000

Slippery terminology

Regarding that photo of "canola seeds" in "Plastic plants may become plastics plants" (SN: 10/16/99, p. 246), come on! There's no such thing as a canola. What you have there is rapeseed. "Canola" is a term dreamed up by a Canadian marketing department to get around the difficulty of trying to sell something called rape oil.

J.M. Graetz Acton, Mass.

"Canola" was indeed dreamed up pretty much as asserted, yet the word has entered common usage and the dictionary. "Around the lab we use `canola,'" says researcher Steven Slater. Furthermore, canola has a meaning distinct from rape. Canola seeds are low in erucic acid, making their oil more palatable than the oil from other varieties of rape.

--O. Baker

Think nonconsciously

I was pleased to see the article "The Mental Butler Did It" (SN: 10/30/99, p. 280), since it concerns a potentially important topic in

social science. But the studies that are reported ignore a key issue, the difference between the nonconscious and the unconscious. In psycho-dynamic psychology, unconscious elements are not only outside of consciousness but also blocked from consciousness under most conditions. By ignoring this issue, the studies reported avoid dealing with such crucial issues as resistance, denial, and repression.

Thomas J. Scheft University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, Calif.

The introduction to the article attributed "a cause" to A.N. Whitehead that the context of his remarks seems unlikely to support. Whitehead indeed made the statement quoted at the beginning of the article ("Civilization advances by extending the number of operations which we can perform without thinking about them ... "). However, its context is clearly the value of the efficient use of symbolism, by which "we can make transitions in reasoning almost mechanically by the eye, which otherwise would call into play the higher faculties of the brain."

It seems that Whitehead wasn't so much "urging everyone to cultivate the habit of acting without thinking" and denying "free free will" but urging that mental effort be applied in conscious mental training in useful general principles.

Harvey C. Solomon Arlington, Mass.

Where's the fire equipment?

If calcium carbonate is so damaging to computers ("Weather service's supercomputer burns," SN: 10/23/99, p. 270), why was it even available in the area? Why weren't firefighters prewarned of the damage it could cause in a critical installation? With either halon or carbon dioxide, a deluge of gas into a computer room is intended to extinguish the fire. Why wasn't this done?

Albert L. de Richemond Doylestown, Pa.

The room was protected by a gaseous agent, but other parts of the building had dry chemical extinguishers, which firefighters grabbed in their haste. The new supercomputer is located in a special computing facility where this mix-up can't occur.

--R. Monastersky