Dear Sir
Adoption societies are rightly fussy as to whom they entrust a child. The same standards must be applied to those producing a third child. Should parents not have to explain why they want a third? Have they done well enough in bringing up the first two? The adoption societies should approve these third children so that we avoid double standards. Parents convicted of cruelty must not be allowed to produce a further child.
Dr Ian Macadam
Edinburgh
Dear Sir
This letter concerns the recent Sir Francis Galton Symposium. I was fortunate to be able to attend and the Symposium will always be remembered fondly.
The setting was appropriate and the logistics were handled smoothly by Mrs Brooks and her volunteers, who were very gracious to me.
And imagine the thrill of meeting Dorothy Middleton, who has actually talked to Sir Francis!
Nevertheless, in the interests of continual improvement, let me offer two small suggestions:
First, it would have been wonderful if some time had been saved for a round table discussion by the distinguished presenters, of questions asked by the audience, with the proviso that the questions must be about Sir Francis.
Second, although many of the lectures were splendid and most were very good, one or two were presented without, it seemed to me, much regard for the fact that the symposium was about Sir Francis Galton. Perhaps more guidance to the presenters would be appropriate.
In any event, my sincere thanks to everyone who made the symposium possible. It was certainly a privilege to be able to attend.
Gary E Pittman
Statistical Thinking
Dallas, Texas
Dear Sir
In a letter to The Times headed "Ignore the sceptics: it is never too late to pray" on 23 November 1991, Clifford Longley asked whether those who prayed over five years for the release of Terry Waite contributed to it. Rabbi Daniel Cohn-Sherbok had written in The Time the previous month that he did not see how prayer could induce God to alter the future as it was already fixed and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Habgood, had answered that the future was unknown, even to God, adding that prayer could affect the relation ship between God and the person praying, but saying nothing about any possible effect on a third or fourth party, the person prayed for or, in this instance those holding him captive.
The question "Are prayers answered, or are they not?" was considered by Sir Francis Galton, FRS to be a simple statistical one. In 1872, he wrote in his Statistical inquiries into the efficacy of prayer that such an objective study was "a perfectly appropriate and legitimate subject of scientific enquiry". One question he asked was "do sick persons who pray, or are prayed for, recover on the average more rapidly than others?", but could not discover an instance where a medical man of any repute had attributed recovery to the influence of prayer. He looked at the longevity of persons whose lives are publicly prayed for and found that sovereigns were literally the shortest lived of all who have the advantage of affluence. He noted that the clergy, who are a far more prayerful class than lawyers and medical men, despite the country life and family repose of many of them, did not live longer in consequence and that "the prayers of the clergy for protection against the perils and dangers of the night, for security during the day, and for recovery from sickness" appeared to be futile in result. He noted that insurance offices, so wakeful to sanitary influences, never asked before accepting a life, "Does he habitually use family prayers and private devotions?"
Galton agreed that nothing he had said "negates the fact that the mind may be relieved by the utterance of prayer" adding that "The impulse to pour out the feelings in sound is not peculiar to Man." He did, however, suggest that from his fmdings there was no likely effect of prayer on a third party prayed for.
Milo Keynes
Cambridge