Archive for April, 2007

Monthly Archive
Monday, April 30th, 2007

Undergraduate Prize

Some news for the Stevens community: we told the winners of this year’s CSW Prize for Excellent Undergraduate Science Writings of their distinction about a week and a half ago. Now that I’ve gotten final versions of the essays back, I’ve posted them with last year’s winners. This year’s winning essays are an exciting and well-rounded group: first place went to Chris Wightman ‘07, for

4 Comments » - Posted in Events by admin
Monday, April 30th, 2007

Poking the Green Bubble

Is there anybody—politician, corporate exec, movie star, pundit–who isn’t green, or portraying himself as such? The green movement is beginning to remind me of the internet craze of the late 90s, when media content and advertising seemed to merge into one gigantic advertorial. The internet bubble burst, of course, but the internet has nonetheless changed our lives in many ways. The green movement, I suspect, will soon pass through a

5 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Thursday, April 26th, 2007

George and John on Slate

George Johnson, my Bloggingheads.tv partner, and I are becoming the Frick and Frack of science journalism. We both have related essays in Slate’s new special issue on the brain. Or “Brain!” as Slate puts it. In “God Is in the Dendrites” George covers attempts to explain religion in neurobiological terms, and in “Spirit Tech” I report on “mystical technologies”—from brain chips to dimethytryptamine–that can induce religious experiences (see if you can spot the line where I take a vicious, gratuitious swipe at string theory). The issue has lots of other interesting stuff, including a piece on neuroplasticity “mania” and responses from leading mind-scientists to the question: How has learning about the brain changed the way you live? Guess George and I are gonna have to chat about all this on Bloggingheads.

3 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

Guns on Campus: An Exchange

At the beginning of my last “Science Saturday” chat with George Johnson on bloggingheads.tv, I castigated Bloggingheader Mickey Kauss for his “idiotic” suggestion that the Virginia Tech shooter might not have killed so many people if more of his fellow students had been armed. Gun-lovers are now of course calling me the idiot. Here is my lightly edited exchange with one viewer, who has a blog called

5 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

Violence and Nature/Nurture on Bloggingheads

George Johnson and I just did another “Science Saturday” for Bloggingheads.tv, and this week the overarching theme is nature/nurture. We start, unavoidably, with the Virginia shootings and go from there to the historical search for biological correlates of crime, neurological “solutions” to the problem of violence (such as lobotomies and implanted electrodes), the “situationality” of evil and finally a Brazilian tribe that challenges Noam Chomsky’s model of “the language instinct.” The link is here.

5 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, April 16th, 2007

Johnson and Horgan Back on Bloggingheads.tv!

Einstein’s pursuit of a unified theory and sweaty women. How Scientific American pissed off the Unabomber. What happens if the $8 billion Large Hadron Collider shoots a blank? Are electrons invented or discovered? Is there a gene for homosexuality or for sexual obsession with stuffed animals? The odd anti-progress of neuroscience. Kurt Vonnegut and the “Star Trek” effect. George Johnson and I chat about these and other topics in our second of what will now be a weekly feature on Bloggingheads.tv, called “Science Saturday.”  Let me answer one extremely important question raised by a sharp-eyed commenter: No, I am NOT wearing makeup.

4 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

Should Scientists Spin the Facts?

Chris Mooney of Republican War on Science fame sends the following note:

Hi John, Thought this would be of interest: my colleague Matthew Nisbet and I just came out with an article in Science [April 6 issue, restricted online access] outlining our argument for why scientists need to focus on “framing” to improve their communication techniques. We highlight climate change, evolution, and stem cell

14 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

John Timmer to Speak at Stevens

John’s on vacation this week, but he asked me to post this announcement, on behalf od the Graduate Student Society of Chemistry and Chemical Biology here at Stevens. It should be an interesting event, so if you’re around campus, consider stopping by.

The Graduate Student Society of Chemistry and Chemical Biology invites you to a special seminar on next Wednesday (4/4/2007) at 3:30pm in E222. The speaker will be Dr. John R. Timmer from Weill Cornell Medical College who is also a writer for popular technology website, Ars Technica (arstechnica.com) He is going to talk about ‘How scientists’ and the public’s views on science differ and how we can all begin to speak the same language’. Your attendance is highly appreciated.

1 Comment » - Posted in Events by admin