BUILDING A LIFE
I teared up after reading “Designing Life,” in which Philip Ball exquisitely describes how the undifferentiated cells of the early embryo create differentiated tissues, organs and a body, using a genome that does not contain design-plan instructions. The interplay of chemical, physical and electrical signals in the cells and their cooperative response are astounding.
WENDY ROSENBLUM STAMFORD, CONN.
As I read of the multiplicity of projects experimenting with living tissues in Ball's article, I realized that this is the complementary situation to that of engineers “playing around” with artificial intelligence. Both groups have little idea of what will emerge from their activities and how it will affect the rest of us.
ARNOLD BANNER VIA E-MAIL
PERSECUTION PARALLELS
“Witch Hunts,” by Silvia Federici and Alice Markham-Cantor, is a brilliant history of this horrifying and continuing assault against mostly women that often accompanies economic upheaval. The Supreme Court's decision to overturn the national right to an abortion has released what amounts to another contemporary “witch hunt” that targets women who seek this procedure and the medical practitioners who perform it. In many states, these women and professionals are subject to arrest and, for the latter, disbarment from their medical profession. Women travel to other states for an abortion, and those who help them are also subject to arrest.
I wish the authors had included this present outrage in their article. Considering the current amount of gun violence, I suspect this country will soon see more murders of women who want to or do have an abortion and of professionals who perform the procedure.
JIM BOTTA DELMAR, N.Y.
Some of the causative factors at play in centuries of accusations of female witchcraft include economic hardship and dislocation, the need for an alien scapegoat, or “other,” and a strongly patriarchal social structure. While I was reading Federici and Markham-Cantor's analysis, it occurred to me that these factors may have further contemporary analogues in such accusations as “pizzagate,” the conspiracy theory that falsely claimed Hillary Clinton and other high-ranking Democrats operated a secret child-sex-trafficking ring.
Most of the triggers for this kind of charge appear to be present in pizzagate: There is widespread conspiratorial rumormongering. There are threatened white males, who are often economically marginalized and facing alleged “replacement” by nonwhite people, as well as demotion from favored patriarchal hegemony by feminism and increased influence of women in politics and business. And there is even a quasireligious element with the false claim that Clinton and her acolytes performed “Satanism.”
I think that many similar modern indictments of what amounts to female witchcraft could easily be found.
GERALD A. DONALDSON SOUTHPORT, N.C.
SOLVENT SECURITY
“Social Security and Science,” by Naomi Oreskes [Observatory], asserts that “Social Security isn't a drain on the federal budget; it pays for itself through a dedicated payroll tax.” The article is in error. Social Security tax receipts are already less than payments. The last Social Security Trustees report shows that demographics will cause growing problems. Lower birthrates mean there are fewer and fewer taxpayers for each recipient. There were 4.1 taxpayers per recipient in 1963, but there are only 2.7 now and expectations of just 2.3 by 2035.
ROBERT RAY IRVINE, CALIF.
Politicians can lie by speaking the truth in a way that misleads. They've told us Social Security (SS) benefits will need to be cut by 2034 because the SS trust funds will reach a dangerous low. They claim it's a difficult problem.
If nothing changes in the SS program, its reserves will be depleted by 2034. But raising the annual wage-base increase by a small amount would fix that. Who benefits by not solving this problem? People earning much more than the SS wage cap.
EMANUEL V. POLIZZI MACUNGIE, PA.
ORESKES REPLIES: In my column, I did not say that all was well with the U.S. Social Security system. As several letter writers noted, demographic changes demand adjustments to the system. My point was that the required changes are not dramatic, but some people are exaggerating them because their antigovernment ideology leads them to look for an excuse to dismantle an extremely effective program.
Ray is right that the numbers look large, and when taken out of context, they are frightening. But as any modeler or manager can tell you, in large systems, small changes can have large effects, especially over time. As Polizzi notes, the looming shortfall could be fixed with a small change in the wage base—the level at which workers stop paying Social Security tax on their income.
This last point highlights an odd feature of the system. Most of our taxes keep increasing as our income increases. But with Social Security, payments top out at a certain amount. Right now that level is $160,200. According to a 2016 Wall Street Journal analysis, if you earned $161,413 in 2014, that would put you in the top 3 percent that year. Raising the wage base would not only close the shortfall but also make the system more equitable: currently anyone making more than $160,200 a year pays less of their income, as a percentage, in payroll taxes than someone making less than that. Another option would be to raise the retirement age, something that has been done once and could be done again.
APPROVED FOR TRANSPORT
I was delighted to read “Let's Take the Bus,” Kendra Pierre-Louis's article supporting public transport as a way to help solve the climate crisis. I vacation every summer in a remote region of Italy called Val Pusteria. Moving around there used to be a nightmare until I substituted my rental car for the increasingly efficient local transport system that seamlessly coordinates the arrivals and departures of trains and buses down to the smallest of towns. It even connects to skiing venues accessible only through gondolas. Whether the U.S. can similarly deliver the punctuality, efficiency, cleanliness and safety of this region's transport system remains to be seen.
IRA SOHN NEW YORK CITY
CLARIFICATION
“Parrot Invasions,” by Ryan F. Mandelbaum [July/August], introduced the Carolina Parakeet by saying that “North America once had its own parrot.” This extinct species was specifically native to the eastern U.S.
ERRATA
“Urine Luck,” by Elise Cutts [Advances; April], misspelled the family name of archaeologist Justin Pargeter.
“Science in Images,” by Jordan Kinard [Advances; July/August], should have described the FlyLight initiative researchers as at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's (HHMI's) Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Va., not HHMI in New York.
