The Covid pandemic shed an unforgiving light on health and social care inequalities. The lessons have yet to be absorbed The fear that so many felt as the death toll rose during the Covid pandemic was magnified for Fiona Walker. “I know from experience they wouldn’t have valued my life,” she says, in a new report on the treatment of people with learning disabilities during the crisis. The 1.5 million people in the UK with learning disabilities, and their families, had reason for concern. Death rates in England were four to six times higher than average for people with learning disabilities. As is now well established, the pandemic did not create inequalities; it exposed and intensified them. People with learning disabilities die on average 19.5 years earlier than people without, and deaths are almost twice as likely to be classed as avoidable. Continue reading...
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Richard Dawkins’ first work has thrilled fans and frustrated critics for five decades. The science has moved on, but any writer looking to supplant its place must learn its lessons Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene was not predicted to be a success. Its initial print run, published this week in 1976, was just 5,000. It went on to sell millions, and is perhaps the most influential work of pop-science ever. For 50 years, it has been the go-to resource for the layperson seeking to understand evolution. What accounts for its enduring power? Prof Dawkins’ central claim, that “we are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes” was provocative, stripping the messy stuff of human and other life down to a simple law. And yet the book is primarily concerned with proving that complex, selfless behaviour such as altruism in animals can emerge from these basic “selfish” drives, satisfyingly resolving an apparent paradox. Prof Dawkins – a zoologist by training – also succeeded in conjuring entertaining, vividly drawn vignettes of the lives of animals, from lions and ants to hawks and honeybees, to make his points. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here . Continue reading...
Some of Britain's rarest and most threatened bats have been recorded in the south-west of England.
All but one of England's water companies were rated as "poor" or "requiring improvement" for environmental targets.