The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7214 p340
7 September 2002

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Truth in question [more]
Bedtime beverage [more]
Centre of controversy [more]

Truth in question

In a world where corruption of thoughts and deeds seems to be on the increase, the learned professions, as well as those less learned, are coming under more and more scathing criticism from ordinary people. The scandals that hit the headlines from time to time do nothing to ease this sorry situation.

In 1625 Francis Bacon commented in his essay 'Of truth': "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer." And three centuries later the playwright and diplomat Jean Giraudou made the cynical comment in his 'La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieue' (1935): "No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth. "

Recently (PJ, 1 June, p778) I referred to the argument put forward by a United States district judge that since fingerprint identification is subject to error in interpretation it does not meet the criteria for sound evidence in a criminal trial. This is an example of the failure of lawyers and scientists to determine within their respective fields of expertise what is truth and what is not.

The question whether science means different things to scientists and lawyers was taken up by David Faigman, a professor of law in the university of California, in Science for 19 July. He pointed out that in the case at issue the judge utterly failed to appreciate the culture attending scientific testing of hypotheses. Science does not exist in an agreed textbook passed by a committee. It is "a process or method by which factual statements or predictions about the world are devised, tested, evaluated, revised, replaced, rejected, or accepted." The legal question is how much and what kind of testing should be necessary to justify its acceptance as evidence.

Faigman comments: "Most judges and lawyers have little creativity when it comes to conceptualising how certain empirical statements might be examined ... If lawyers and judges are going to improve their comprehension of these and other subjects, bridges must be built between the legal and scientific communities."

The immediate problem in achieving this is that the two disciplines start from different platforms. Positive law is a system of rules and penalties laid down either by common usage or by authoritative decree. It need not be based on logic. Legal systems are natural, logical, moral or cultural in substance, but legal thinking is inherently subjective, whereas scientific thinking aims to be essentially objective and need have no social impact. Neither need be dependent on moral considerations.

It is important to realise that science is based upon phenomena that may be observed directly or inferred from other observations. It was Isaac Newton who considered that if phenomena were collected and compared they would lead to a concept of natural law, something with which we tamper at our imminent peril. Later philosophers of science have argued that many things too small or too remote for direct observation can nevertheless be established by inference. Hence the corpus of scientific philosophy. Inferences, however, must be verified or falsified by experiment. Hence laboratories and their equipment.

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Bedtime beverage

It has become almost a convention, encouraged by writers like Dorothy L. Sayers, that cocoa or chocolate is the evening comfort indulged in by female undergraduates during university term-time. In fact the history of the cocoa-drinkers stretches much further into the murky past, as is described in a paper by anthropologists of the University of Texas, published in Nature for 18 July.

An archaeological site of the Maya culture excavated at Colha in northern Belize in Central America has yielded several spouted ceramic vessels containing residues left from the preparation of foods and beverages. Analysis of these by high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry has established that the preclassical Maya consumed preparations of Theobroma cacao as early as 600BC. This finding pushes back the earliest chemical evidence for cocoa drinking by a millennium. The Colha site is recognised for its production of spouted vessels manufactured only during the period 900BC to AD250. They have been recovered from burial sites of evidently elite individuals, typically in conjunction with bowls, dishes and plates. The spouted vessels were presumably used in the same way as our modern teapots, to dispense liquid from the spout.

From an analysis of domestic vessels of the classic period and documents dating from the Spanish conquests, liquid chocolate was shaken to produce a foam or was poured from one vessel into another, air being introduced via the spout. At the time of the Spanish invasions, the resultant cocoa was consumed with most meals, usually mixed with water, maize, chilli and honey, thus providing a variety of different beverages.

Samples analysed from 14 vessels recovered at Colha were identified by their theobromine content and the presence of other methylxanthines. The same method has been used to identify cacao residues from ceramic vessels derived from an early classic tomb, also Maya, at Rio Azul in north-eastern Guatemala, dating from AD460–480.

All the evidence supports the idea that our familiar cocoa habit has its roots in the Maya and Aztec preculture and that northern Belize may have been a principal production area for Theobroma cacao.

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Centre of controversy

In 1957 a strange parchment was discovered, bound with a 15th century manuscript entitled "Tartar relation" and purporting to be a medieval map showing Greenland and North America and depicting the journey of Leif Ericsson to Canada in the 10th century. The keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum pronounced it a forgery, and it found its way to Yale University. Despite the fact that archaeologists have established that the Vikings made their way to the New World before Columbus, the so-called Vinland map was always controversial.

More arguments over the notorious map have been published in Nature for 8 August. Historians have argued that it cannot be genuine since there are errors in some of the Latin inscriptions, and the map is orientated towards the north whereas medieval maps were orientated towards the east.

Then there are more serious analytical questions. In 1974 crystals of anatase, which is a titanium dioxide mineral, were found in the pigments. Titanium paints and writing materials have been manufactured only since 1923. Lines on the map, studied by laser Raman microscopy, have revealed black centres of carbon with yellowish edges of anatase, suggesting an attempt at forgery. Other experts disagree, arguing that the mere presence of anatase does not afford conclusive proof of a later origin.

Carbon dating of the parchment on which the map is drawn has yielded a date between 1423 and 1445, which fails to prove authenticity but does indicate some doubts over arguments raised by critics.

So the controversy goes on.

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