Letters

Letters Never blindly trust computer data

The tragic case shown in last week’s BMV of faulty software the results from which were misinterpreted by Post Office Ltd must rank amongst other misuses of computers which have taken place over a long time. About 50 years ago computers came into widespread use at university level when data quality, correct parameterisation, and the tedious process of working through the program by hand, in order to remove any bugs. When a computer program, especially a model, is used for prediction, rigorous testing must take place or else the risk of big errors cannot be ruled out. If a program produces a significant correlation coefficient careful experiments are needed to justify a cause effect relationship. However careful the worker may be misinterpretation of results is a common mistake. Having carried out nearly 50 years’ scientific research, and been a reviewer for nine scientific journals I now present a short list of scientific failures which have had serious consequences. First, in October 1987 a forecaster dismissed the question a viewer raised regarding an impending ‘hurricane’, only to find a few hours later, wholesale damage in much of southern England. Apparently, as an economy measure, a weather ship had been closed down and if operational would have greatly improved the forecast. Second, in 1990 it was predicted that the burning of oil wells in Kuwait would cause the Indian Monsoon to fail with disastrous results: in reality nothing happened. Third, in 1999 research at Imperial College London predicted that there would be about half a million deaths caused by BSE. In fact the value was fewer than 200, but the effect on the beef industry was catastrophic. Fourth, two years later work by the same people produced computer-based predictions of how foot and mouth disease would spread across Britain: this resulted in the slaughter of about 8 million head of mainly healthy cattle. At least one farmer took DEFRA (then MAFF) to court in the hope of saving his herd: he won his case. Fifth, the tragic case of a family whose mother was sent to jail following two cot deaths was based on the joint probability theory being misapplied as prima facie evidence for a verdict of guilty. Such an approach assumes that there was no other possible cause, yet it is known that several other fatal genetic defects can occur in the same family. I could give other examples. Scientific research is difficult to do well, needing patience, determination, total objectivity, intuition, and a lot of hard work. Even that may not be enough because the resulting report must pass the peer review process, which can be far from objective. When a new result is produced and is at odds with an established one there can be both opposition and fear all at once. Computers have made possible difficult and tedious calculations in a split second. Displayed on a screen the effect can be spellbinding. But how do we know what is being shown is right? The public understanding of science needs vast improvement. Practical studies in most subjects would be a good start, which would bring back the real meaning of design, measurement, size, shape, and application. This is a far cry from the fantasy world of the computer and television screen and might just avoid another computer-based tragedy in the future. Dr Colin Clark

n It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people, such as those who run Post Office Ltd, should put such blind faith in computers. The Yetminster postmistress has had her life ruined by this, (NBV, April 30). She was innocent of the charges against her yet Post Office Ltd continued for years to defend its defective computer software. If this is the future it frightens me. Hilary Townsend Stalbridge n On Apr 20 South Somerset district council approved a major development in Wincanton for housing and employment. Nothing strange in that. What was strange was the officer’s report, which stated that Wincanton was one of the few areas in the district that does not fall within the catchment area of the Somerset Levels. That was a pointless remark, as the sewage and drainage would have to flow uphill to join the levels catchments area. Rainwater, and the sewage works outfall go in to the River Cale, which flows down the Blackmore Vale and joins the River Stour catchments, or so I thought. Clearly we have Central Government control with outreach offices in Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire, each with their area of control defined. This has all the appearance of a 1930s totalitarian government and the inevitable disastrous results. Nature is simple but all powerful and its reactions are brutal. We will only succeed if we work with nature, not against nature, and at a realistic level. International conferences do not solve environmental problems; they are solved by truthful work at street level, not box ticking at government level. We are at the tipping point in environment protection, and pointless comments and failure to face the actual pollution problem will not solve anything. Pollution of our rivers is real, and there for all to see, what is required is the commitment to solve the problem by all levels of government. The survival of future generations depends on how we react now, and how we solve a huge economic problem. It will only work with local knowledge, not the usual Westminster computer programme. Colin Winder, Wincanton Ward Member South Somerset District Council

Cartoon by Lyndon Wall justsocaricatures.co.uk

Letters So short-sighted to close Sherborne TIC

Many of our town centres are unfortunately suffering the results of the pandemic and online shopping, Sherborne being one of them. We obviously need to be as creative as possible to keep the town centre as attractive as possible, even though there are empty shops. Why, then, has the Edinburgh Woollen Mill been boarded up? It’s a total eyesore! I have just witnessed another nail in the coffin for Sherborne: the closure of the Tourist Information Office. This facility was extremely well run and an asset to the town, now we all have to look on a website. I am sure I am not alone in saying that when purchasing tickets, asking about local events, etc, I prefer to talk to a person rather than negotiate my way around a website. Sherborne is a tourist town and with lots of holidaymakers taking a staycation this year, I would think Sherborne will be a place to visit. To me it seems extremely short sighted to close the TIC, I wonder what others might think? A bit of creativity, such as the shop window where the Teddy Bear shop was, would not go amiss. And, whilst writing, has anyone noticed the neglected, overgrown, weed-ridden, broken and rotting wooden tubs outside the police station? In fact, is anyone there these days? Perhaps our new PCC, whoever they are, might start their new role with a little gardening! M Buckingham Sherborne

n I was surprised by the figures quoted by Councillor Jones on the costs to support children with special needs. I realise that this requires intensive inputs but the cost per individual equates to leading public school education. Indeed, the fees quoted for out of county care exceed these 40

Cartoon by Lyndon Wall justsocaricatures.co.uk

levels. I should like to see a breakdown of the figure of £22,000 arrived at, which no doubt includes a portion of allocated budgeted cost of council executive pay and conditions. The eye-watering out-of-county cost of an additional £38,000 seems to be beyond belief. How can that be accounted for? Other than transport, I find it difficult to compute. Surely it cannot be an arbitrary amount of profit affixed by another authority. The question has still not been answered as to the decision to purchase St Mary’s, when apparently no decision had been, or still not made, as to the exact use to which the school would be put. Also, why councillors were not given a vote on a financial decision of this magnitude. Jeremy Bloomfield, Gillingham

n We wonder if others are as dismayed as we are about public spending priorities? For example, over the next 4 years, the UK will spend 8 times more on the military than it will on tackling the climate crisis. And globally, just 7 per cent of military spending could have vaccinated everyone on earth against covid-19. While the covid pandemic caused the global economy to shrink by 4.4 percent in 2020, world military spending increased by 2.6 per cent – the biggest margin since the economic crisis of 2009 - and now stands at almost $2 trillion. The UK is the world’s fifth highest military spender. At a time when thousands of UK citizens have lost their homes, jobs and businesses, the government has been spending billions to increase our nuclear warheads – in breach of international treaties – and expand our automated warfare capability. Such spending makes us ultimately less safe, and wastes vital resources in the name of Boris Johnson’s frankly embarrassing colonial nostalgia of ‘global Britain’. Mark Pennell Sherborne

n I just wanted to say how pleased I was to see The New Blackmore Vale back on the shelf. My husband and I have never been great ones for magazines, and then we moved from London to Somerset and it all changed. I was working in Dorset, Shaftesbury and every week members of my team would fight to get the last of the Blackmore Vale magazines and I could never understand why, until I started to look through it myself. I then became as bad as the rest of the team, trying to get my BV before anyone else. I got my husband into it as well – so often I would pick one up at work and he would pick one up when out and about. We were both really sorry when we heard that it was being stopped. From a couple who never read magazines, we both really enjoyed the BV. And today, you made us both very happy. Doing our shopping and ‘lo and behold’ there you were, like an old friend. I don’t know how long you have been back in circulation, but it was the first time we had seen you. So just wanted to say Welcome Back. We missed you. Carmel & Dean Burr

n I wish to bring it to your attention, even though we are not out of lockdown, our letting agent has requested a 2.5% increase in our rent. I am a community nurse and as you know NHS staff received just 1%. The gap continues to widen. My family and I would like to be able to buy a home, however, with rent prices increasing and no help for renters, this is very unlikely. It is hard to know how to sustain being a nurse in Dorset, let alone attract extra staff. Sarah Potts BSc RGN Community Nurse Shaftesbury

n Anne Booth has got her wires crossed when writing about a planning application and roadside rubbish. On the

matter of rubbish many of us don a high vis jacket and go out with a litter picker. We are making a difference and I advise people to adopt a stretch of road and clean it up as required. Planning for housing in the countryside is becoming very lax today. The sweep of land to which “dog walker” refers should remain just that. It used to be the need for persons to be on site for the welfare of the stock. This meant a house near the existing farm buildings. Another reason was that a conversion of an old farm building to housing would ensure its restoration. I note in North Dorset, in particular, that large Dutch barns of no architectural value are now being converted. It strikes me that the planning departments have lost their bearings. John Longley Tisbury

n Further to your article about Benjamin Jesty, Blackmore Vale readers may be interested to know that just as we link diseases such as beriberi and scurvy to nutritional deficiency, and malaria to mosquitoes, smallpox is linked to bedbugs combined with vitamin C deficiency. In 1925, Dr Charles Campbell, a Scottish born physician of San Antonio, Texas, disagreed with the thinking that smallpox was “so easy catching, so infectious and so contagious that even touching the clothing or breathing the air in a room occupied by a person afflicted with the disease was equivalent to acquiring it” and “that the panic a case of smallpox occasions and the resultant quarantine are entirely unnecessary and uncalled for, as the disease, like malaria, is insect-borne and carried only by bedbugs.” Dr Campbell ran a ‘pest house’ for smallpox patients in San Antonio, where he tried hard to infect himself and others by ‘fomites’, (objects or materials deemed to carry infection such as clothes, utensils and furniture), and direct contact with infected people. He said that: “After numerous exposures, made in the ordinary manner, by going from house to house where the disease was...I have never conveyed this disease to my family, or to any patients or friends, although I did not disinfect myself or my clothes, not take any precautions whatever, except to be sure that no bedbugs got about my clothing.” Campbell treated smallpox by administering vitamin C: “Among the lower classes of people this particular acquitted perversion of nutrition is most prevalent, primarily on account of their poverty.... that is more prevalent in winter when the anti-scorbutics” (anti-scurvy) “are scarce and highly priced”. “A failure of the fruit crop in any particular large area is always followed the succeeding winter by the presence of smallpox.” His administration of vitamin C so mitigated “the virulence of this malady as positively to prevent the pitting or pocking of smallpox.” The British and American colonists used smallpox as a weapon against the Native Americans by giving them blankets, thus spreading the bedbug to the New World. Jesty and Jenner showed merely that cowpox is not contagious. However, the ‘arm to arm’ method of vaccination and accompanying ignorance of asepsis, led to serious aftereffects and injury to health. We have our knowledge of nutrition, clean water, sanitation, the vacuum cleaner and the washing machine with hot water to thank for the decline of smallpox. Alison Watson, Wincanton

n What a wonderful article you published by John Humphrey’s regarding brother Graham. I moved here in 1983 when Graham was a weekly feature at Sherborne Market and often wondered what happened to Graham, who was so helpful, as is his successor. The new BV magazine certainly features some fascinating articles, thank you so much. Ann Bennett, Milborne Port

A huge well done to Patrick!

An eight-year-old boy has raised £345 for his school after walking a mile a day for five days. Patrick Doyle, a pupil in year 3 at Archbishop Wake Primary School, decided to help raise money towards a multi-use games area (MUGA). The school has a huge playing field, however this is mostly unusable during autumn/winter months as the ground is too wet. A MUGA would enable the children to use the space all year round. A spokesman for the school, Anna Butler said: “We are all so proud of him. Such kindness at this time touches us all!”

SO PROUD: Year 3 pupil Patrick Doyle

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