{"id":2929,"date":"2008-04-09T17:02:07","date_gmt":"2008-04-09T21:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/?p=2929"},"modified":"2008-04-09T17:16:44","modified_gmt":"2008-04-09T21:16:44","slug":"smackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2008\/04\/09\/smackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Smackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/oh2.jpg\" title=\"oh2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/oh2.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"oh2.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>From the letters to the editor of The New York Times Book Review.<br \/>\n(Travis, please read)<\/p>\n<p>To the Editor:<\/p>\n<p>Pamela Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s riveting, ribald and sophisticated review of Mary Roach\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (March 30) is accompanied by an intriguing pink portrait of a hypothetical organic molecular entity. Perhaps this molecular banner was meant to represent the pheromonic chemical science behind sex research. If so, with its dozen brazen errors, among them dangling, flaccid atoms, the flagrant partnering of carbons with a harem of five bonds and a menage a trois of oxygens and hydrogens, it was a lesson in aberration.  Could it be that this molecule was so captivated by its inclusion in Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s review that it wantonly chose to form new, revealing bonding relationships, ones that are simply unheard of in our more staid prudish chemistry?<\/p>\n<p>Alan M Rosan<br \/>\nMadison, J.J.<\/p>\n<p>The writer is a professor of chemistry at Drew University.<\/p>\n<p>To the Editor:<\/p>\n<p>The figure accompanying the review of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bonk\u00e2\u20ac\u009d made me cringe. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure what its use is, other than to give the article a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scientific\u00e2\u20ac\u009d feel. It is the chemical equivalent of stinging together a bunch of English words in random order. Sure, it may look like a paragraph to someone who doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak English, but for those who do, it is nothing short of atrocious.  Please, in the future, have someone with at least a semester of undergraduate chemistry take a look at such figures &#8211;  any of my students would be able to identify at least two dozen errors in this figure.<\/p>\n<p>Dan Willenbring<br \/>\nDavis, CA.<\/p>\n<p>The writer is a graduate student in the chemistry department at the University of California, Davis.<\/p>\n<p>*****************<\/p>\n<p>I added the editor&#8217;s reply to the comments section so you all could have time to ponder what these erudite folks are complaining about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the letters to the editor of The New York Times Book Review. (Travis, please read) To the Editor: Pamela Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s riveting, ribald and sophisticated review of Mary Roach\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (March 30) is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2008\/04\/09\/smackdown\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}