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I fear that I am not persuaded by your feature on how to get exactly what you want (10 May, p 32) . Your third item carefully explains that making up to three points is persuasive, but making as many as eight causes the listener to undervalue the whole deal. I felt persuaded. But by …

• In our illustration of the Earth circling the sun and galaxy (26 April, p 14) , the arrow showing the sun's direction orbiting the galaxy should have been pointing up; accordingly, our planet should have been shown closer to the centre of the galaxy in June, not December. In addition, the plane of Earth's …

Your report on suggestions that natural painkillers may block phobias (online news, 20 May) claims that opioid medications couldn't treat anxiety disorders because patients would "rapidly become addicted". That would be news to the millions of chronic pain patients who take opioids daily but do not suffer from addiction. In fact, only about 3 per …

Harro Drexler's enthusiasm for a direct carbon tax is admirable (17 May, p 22) . However, such taxes on pollution, energy and the like have two significant drawbacks that usually aren't mentioned: they are regressive, and they cause inflation. Both of these problems can be solved by putting all such taxes into an impregnable trust …

Recently you published a letter from Chris Adams drawing attention to the loose use of figures for carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, when what is really meant is CO 2 equivalent concentration – CO 2 eq (5 April, p 20) . He wrote that: "it is calculations based on this composite unit which show …

The theory that the repetitiveness of Ravel's Boléro is related to his neurodegenerative condition (3 May, p 46) is unconvincing. After Boléro , Ravel wrote two piano concertos, neither of which is especially repetitive. Boléro is, in any case, repetitive only if you concentrate on the theme. In the orchestration there is little repetition, as …

You quote Colin Renfrew's "sapient paradox" that while the human brain has changed little genetically in 60,000 years, behaviour changed suddenly 10,000 years ago (17 May, p 5) . Renfrew will no doubt be basing his view of human behaviour on an archaeological doctrine that if no evidence exists on land, then none exists. I …

David Bainbridge's description of consciousness (26 January, p 40) , including, for example, the fact that we do not know where in the brain consciousness happens, was evocative. Scott McCloud , in his book Understanding Comics , describes a comic's story as whatever is happening in the blank spaces between the panels. What if our …

While I am not a believer in the theory of intelligent design, I see no reason why it cannot be taught in schools alongside the theory of evolution – as long as it is kept neutral to any specific religion. The entire lesson can be summed up quite easily and will not burden the students …

Robert Matthews examines the nature of science by presenting two contrasting philosophical pictures: Karl Popper's image of scientists falsifying their theories in the light of negative evidence, and the Bayesian image of scientists assessing their theories by assigning probabilities to them. His article argues that the Bayesian image is a better representation of the nature …

Sherry Towers's experience and observations of the obstacles facing women in science (24 May, p 19) parallel the findings of the UK's Institute of Physics, which conducted a series of visits to university physics departments between 2003 and 2005 to investigate their "gender friendliness" – that is, how welcoming each was to female students and …

Hazel Muir argues that an increase in large-scale randomised controlled trials exploring the efficacy of national behaviour-change interventions will overpower the misguided forces of "common sense" currently influencing public policy decisions, and in this way produce more rational policies (24 May, p 40) . As a third-year public health PhD student, I disagree. Evidence, even …

I see that yet another process is to be developed to turn cellulose waste into liquid fuel – with genetically engineered, self-digesting maize plants (24 May, p 5) . Why do things the hard way? Why not just use such materials as fuel in industrial processes and for electricity generation? This would substitute for oil, …

Autism is not a "mental illness" (17 May, p 34) . People with autism or Asperger's syndrome refer to it as a "condition". They do not even like the term "disorder". It is incredibly disrespectful, hurtful and wrong to describe these people as having a mental illness. There is great debate in the world of …

Both Andy Coghlan in "Thank culture for your modern mind" (17 May, p 9) and Susan Greenfield in "Reinventing us" (17 May, p 48) refer to a study of London taxi drivers that showed them to possess a partially enlarged hippocampus. Unless this was a before-and-after study, is it not more plausible that only those …