Divine Help

Sir / In the article on the brain [Jan. 14], TIME does not refer even once to the designer and creator of the brain. It gives credit to Beethoven for his Symphony No. 5 in C Minor but not to God for the brain. In previous centuries men studied the brain and its functions and at the same time admired and acknowledged its designer. In our humanistic and scientific period, we admire the marvel of the brain and that is all. It is too bad because the scientific people who leave out the most important fact about creation do not know the satisfactions they are missing!

(THE REV ) MAURICE FITZGERALD, C.S.P

Oak Ridge, N.J.

Sir / Professor Hans-Lukas Teuber is mistaken in thinking that those who fear a future full of "mind control" are expressing their mistrust of science or scientific knowledge.

If the dangers of misuse of knowledge are not taken into account as research progresses, and if adequate safeguards against inhuman and unconstitutional use are not enacted in advance, we have here all the potential for a rerun of the Inquisition and the blasted hopes of the Manhattan Project rolled into one.

(THE REV.) PETER HOFFMANN

Chicago

Sir / Once again scientists spend their shortsighted efforts on trying to discover how something works, this time the brain, admittedly a challenge. And when they find out, aside from the medical benefits, what can we possibly say other than "big deal"? The human race will still plod hopelessly along, never really knowing why.

L.M. HADDAD, M.D.

Savannah, Ga.

Sir / I wish that some mention had been made of the field of scientific inquiry labeled "artificial intelligence." In laboratories around the country, workers in this field are constructing computer systems that display what would be interpreted as intelligent behavior if observed in human beings. The study of these artificially intelligent entities provides many insights both into the logical structure of the human brain and into the very nature of intelligence.

GARY G. HENDRIX

Austin, Texas

The Monitor

Sir / Re your article "Ideas v. Goods" [Jan. 14]: it is sometimes shocking how intellectuals such as Professor Coase use faulty logic to arrive at improbable theses.

To examine only the similarities between the marketing of ideas and products is to overlook the very important differences between these two acts, i.e., the empirical observation that a free press, with all its faults, has been able to help us monitor our Government and help prevent it from becoming a totally self-serving institution.

LLOYD MARKS

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir / The debate over the First Amendment prompts one to propose that the cult of a free press with "objective" reporting of "all the news that's fit to print" can become just as dogmatic as the dogma of papal infallibility in Roman Catholicism, or finding the "correct" party line in Marxism-Leninism. Marx and Freud have virtually destroyed the doctrine of detached objectivity and have instead shown how people think or react according to their social class or emotional needs.

BRIAN THRIPPLETON

Oakville, Ont.

Sir / You state that Professor Coase is "a British economist with no discernible political ax to grind." Maybe so. Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that he isn't a member (or honorary member) of, say, the A.D.A. Economists, including this one, do have political viewpoints.

JUDD HAMMACK

Associate Professor of Economics and Statistics California State University Los Angeles

Is Anyone Listening?

Sir / Re "The Congress: Out Listening to the People" [Jan. 14]: I say it is disheartening to the American public to see its Representatives in Washington pussyfooting on the matter of impeachment. Only through impeachment proceedings can President Nixon be found guilty or innocent, and Congress should get on with it. There is everywhere in the land a cry for "put up or shut up," and if Congressmen on leave did not get this message, they were not talking with enough people.

CHARLES D. HARRINGTON

Gastonia, N.C.

Sir / As you pointed out. Congressmen found that the voters were concerned about energy and, I imagine, other things as well. The issues of Watergate and the Nixon resignation are not the things on their minds. How about you and the "Eastern Establishment" getting in tune with the rest of the country?

MELVIN I. ROTH, M.D.

Phoenix, Ariz.

Sir / Men like Congressman Alphpnzo Bell are the ones who give politicians bad images. An elected Representative who insists that his personal conscience is more important than the wishes of his constituents reflects the very Nixonian arrogance that has created such a mess in the first place. Mr. Bell may very well find out that one of the wishes of his constituents is that he no longer be their Representative.

RALPH G. WILSON

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Dark Hour

Sir / Little children walking to school in the dark? No, mothers are driving them. This is saving energy? No matter how Congress legislates, there are only a limited number of hours of daylight. We on the western edge of a time zone are using more electricity to cope with the extra hour of morning darkness than we did with the hour of evening darkness.

(MRS.) LYNN WARD

St. Joseph, Mich.

Sir / Before long Johnny will again be illiterate: it is too dark to read and too cold to hold a pencil in the schoolroom.

BARBARA ARDINGER

Carbondale, Ill.

Sir / What is my reaction to Daylight Saving Time at this cold, dark season of the year? It is this: the Nixon Administration has not seen the light for so long that it thinks it fitting for the rest of the population to be in the dark at least part of the time.

MARIANNA BYG

Columbus

Decisive Cut

Sir / If Alexander Solzhenitsyn's voice is stilled, the wilderness of silent acceptance becomes deeper. The voices of free people everywhere must resound to save this eloquent voice. The chains still remain and must be severed link by heavy link. The liberty of one man can be a decisive cut.

G.L. BEAGAN

West Kingston, R.I.

Sir / Three cheers for Solzhenitsyn! He is one of the greatest men of our time. Few of us in America can appreciate his tremendous courage. The Russian government understandably hates him, for governments are like individuals: the more they deserve criticism, the less they can tolerate it.

CHARLES EDELMAN

Los Angeles

A Hex for a Whammy

Sir / You really wowed me with the whammy you whacked on The Exorcist [Jan. 14]. What the devil got into you? For those who appreciated the film as a brutal but brilliant portrayal of the power of faith in God, I say a hex on you, Jay Cocks!

SUSAN TIETZ

Park Forest South, Ill.

Welcome Guests

Sir / In your book review of The Way to Go [Jan. 21], which makes a compelling case for a return to the railroads as the primary U.S. transportation system, you might have noted that in countries where train passengers are treated like welcome guests, railroads make money instead of costing governments and stockholders billions. The Canadian National Railroad, one of the world's best, has shown operating profits for all but three of the past 25 years.

JOHN BLASHILL

Montreal

Eating and Promotions

Sir / Instead. of obesity being the reason why middle-income executives get less prominent positions and fewer promotions, as Robert Half claims [Jan. 14], perhaps the reverse is true: that because of an inferior job, giving rise to feelings of frustration and inadequacy, such executives eat excessively to ease their unhappiness.

KAREN TAYLOR

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir / Do we actually discriminate against fat people, or do fat people lack the spark and drive to achieve the $25,000-to-$40,000 earnings bracket, just as they lack the self-discipline to keep their body in the proper weight bracket?

JOHN C. STOVER. D.V.M.

Jackson, Mich.

Constant Cloud

Sir / What cold comfort, except for the medical profession, is Reader Dr. Salvatore J. Angelo's "realization that American medicine is the last bulwark of free enterprise in the country, free to a great extent of government control" [Jan. 7].

The American people, despite insurance schemes, have hanging over their heads the constant cloud of chronic illness and inability to pay. Only those who have experienced its benefits, either for themselves or their families, can appreciate the blessings of the British National Health Service, despite its shortcomings.

MAURICE MAHONEY

London

Last Year's Echo

Sir / Does anyone else in the U.S. find it somewhat ironic that Judge John Sirica is this year's Man of the Year for having the courage to investigate what last year's Man of the Year and his hand-picked advisers did all year?

DIANE L. MUEHL

Schenevus. N.Y

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