Sir, - Dr William Reville's attempt to assuage the conscience of middle-class Ireland (Science Today, October 26th) is both a setback to and an advance in efforts to improve the public's awareness of science.
By claiming that science can pronounce on social issues such as poverty and class structure, Dr Reville promotes a false image of science in the public mind. However, by exhibiting what the Harvard University scientist and prolific populiser of science Stephen Jay Gould calls "the tenacity of unconscious bias in the interest of a preconceived idea", Dr Reville has shown that scientists too are human. - Yours, etc., Dr Ian Hughes,
Head of School of Science and Technology,
Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.