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Will someone please do something about the new names of Britain’s research
councils before it is too late? Their long-windedness is a barbaric example
of decision making by committee.

Take the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
What’s wrong with the Biology Research Council? Half the public don’t know
what ‘biotechnology’ is and the other half will be thrown off balance by the
redundant addition of ‘biological sciences’. You can’t expect people to
understand science, still less warm to it, if you feed them gobbledegook
like this.

The same goes for Particle Physics and Astronomy (why not just call it
Cosmology?) and Engineering and Physical Sciences (Engineering or Physical
Sciences, depending on prejudice, would be quite adequate). Likewise,
Natural Environment could be shortened simply to Environment, a nd Economic
and Social to just Social.

With officials currently working on the legal constitutions of the new
councils, there is still time to sort out this mess.

* * *

Feedback is pleased to learn that Sindy, the teenage fashion doll, has
decided to turn her back on being a glitzy debutante or riding instructress,
and has taken up a new, more serious, career for 1993: junior doctor.

Instead of spray-on leggings and boob tubes, Sindy MD now sports a crisp,
white coat and stethoscope. Unlike many junior doctors, however, she also
wears a flourescent pink micro skirt under her open coat – and her doctor’s
clipboard, like the skirt, is bright pink.

Manufacturer Hasbro is offering a free doll to every children’s hospital
ward in Britain – something the real junior doctors might have mixed
feelings about.

* * *

On 23 May last year, we reported on an organisation called Vegans Against
Creating Children. At the time, the existence of a group opposed to the
continuation of the human species seemed merely eccentric. Now we begin to
wonder.

Social Innovations – A Compendium, the latest publication of the
London-based Institute for Social Inventions, reproduces (without comment)
a conversation first published in a magazine called These Exit Times, from
Portland, Oregon, in the US. Les Knight of the Voluntary Human Extinction
Movement is having a chat with someone called Geophilus of the Gaia
Liberation Front.

‘While we support all voluntary efforts to make the humans extinct,’ says
Geophilus, ‘we do not exclude the involuntary route. At the rate that the
humans are killing the Earth . . . a decision to not reproduce, even if
adopted by every new human . . . would be just too damn slow.’

‘What involuntary methods do you have in mind?’ Knight wonders.

‘We support, for example, involuntary sterilisation,’ muses Geophilus, ‘but
we would also welcome the escape of any new anti-human viruses – such as the
airborne version of AIDS (sic) that might result from AIDS research on
³¾¾±³¦±ð.’

Geophilus goes on to give his or her support to the idea of racial genocide:
‘If you want the humans to die out, is it so awful that some of them die out
before the rest? Of course, if I knew that someone had targeted a particular
race, I’d be happier knowing that that race was my own, because that’s the
one that’s doing the most damage. But if it weren’t, I wouldn’t be unhappy,
just less happy.’

Knight finally comes out with a question that was also strongly in
Feedback’s mind while reading the above: ‘Why don’t you just commit
²õ³Ü¾±³¦¾±»å±ð?’

Surprise, surprise, Geophilus has an answer to this:

‘In my judgment the good I’m doing by promoting the idea of human extinction
outweighs the harm I’m doing by staying alive.’

Rather debatable, Feedback thinks.

* * *

Also in Social Innovations – A Compendium is the list of ‘Social Inventions
Awards’ for 1993. Some of the schemes given awards are imaginative and
commendable – like, for example, the Groningen city planning department in
the Netherlands, with its efforts to reduce the city’s dependence on cars,
for which it receives the Urban Development Social Inventions Award.

Other schemes are less impressive. The Health Social Inventions Award goes
to Zacharia Evans for his scheme to ‘save the NHS millions of pounds
currently wasted on sleeping pills’ by the use of what he calls ‘prepared
sleep-thoughts’ to conquer insomnia. His own sleep-thought, he says, is ‘the
names and dates of Wimbledon champions’.

Sorry, but this has been thought of before. In fact, millions of people
have already tried out one very famous prepared sleep-thought: they count
sheep.

* * *

The climax of last week’s Anglo-French summit was John Major’s announcement
that the Queen and the French President, Francois Mitterrand, would open the
Channel Tunnel on 6 May next year.

Sounds familiar? Indeed it is. Readers will recall that on 1 May Feedback
predicted an official opening in May 1994, and added: ‘. . . at least, 6 May
is the date in the diaries of both the Queen and Francois Mitterrand.’

Of course, the really interesting question is whether Major himself will
still be around for the ceremonies . . .

* * *

And another reminder about Feedback’s 2020 Vision summer competition.
Readers are invited to help to compile an almanac for the year 2020 by
sending in up to 10 prophesies of events that will take place in that year.
All should have some connection with science and technology, however
tenuous.

Thanks to the kindness of the Cambridge University Press, the 20 winners
will each be awarded a copy of The Golem: what everyone should know about
science by Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch. The competition closes on 27
August. The editor’s decision on the winners is final. Keep ’em coming.