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Ian Goldin, quoted in the article ¡°Multidisciplinary research ¡®career suicide¡¯ for junior academics¡± (News, 3 May), seems to view top journals as highly specialised. I know that Science and Nature don¡¯t generally include Classics, but I think they are fairly interdisciplinary.

Perhaps he should read them more closely. The advances in archaeology and the tracking of peoples using mutation rates may cast a wee bit of light on Classics. I think that his pessimism for junior academics pursuing interdisciplinary research is unwarranted. And while I¡¯m glad he feels that the study of the humanities involves a skill set of enquiry based on evidence, a more multidisciplinary view would reveal that the same is true of science.

Richard C. Hartley
Professor of chemical biology
University of Glasgow

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