Archive for May, 2007
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
Student Presentations
This past spring students at the Stevens Institute of Technology were given an unusual final assignment for their American Technogenesis class, a study of innovation in American history. They had to write a journalistic account of an American innovator or innovation and then give a class presentation on the topic. The idea was to make the students delve into that nexus of history, technology, and business that defines innovation and
11 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by David Lefer
Saturday, May 26th, 2007
Religion, Ignorance and Arrogance: A Victorian Historian’s View
The historian Gabriel Finkelstein, who has contributed to this website before, recently sent me a bracing anti-religious diatribe from the Victorian-era book History of Civilization in England by Henry Thomas Buckle. “Buckle was an amazing fellow,” Gabriel says. “Read and walked like a fiend. Brilliant at chess. Died young.” His contemporary admirers included Darwin. Gabriel thought, rightly, that I would enjoy Buckle’s warning about the “combination of great ignorance
7 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Thursday, May 24th, 2007
Sandra Blakeslee on Bloggingheads
Sandra Blakeslee joins her fellow New York Times-er and Santa Fe-er George Johnson for the most recent Science Saturday chat on Bloggingheads. “Sandy” is a third-generation science writer; it’s obviously in her genes, which must explain the gracefulness with which she elucidates the daunting intricacies of modern neuroscience. Her son Matthew is a science writer too; they just co-wrote a book due out this fall, The Body Has
1 Comment » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007
RIP Stanley Miller, Ponderer of Life’s Origin
Today’s New York Times reports that Stanley Miller, a pioneer in studying the origin of life, died last Sunday. I devoted a section of The End of Science to Miller and the origin of life. Here it is, slightly edited:
If I were a creationist, I would cease attacking the theory of evolution–which is so well supported by the fossil record–and focus instead on the origin
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, May 21st, 2007
Revkin on Green News
New York Times environmental correspondent Andy Revkin has been busy keeping up with green events lately. He sent a link to a recent speech by Bill Clinton on the green-cities initiative, which you can access here. Last week he also sent the following note.
“Hi all, I attended a strange lunch at the UN today in which the “climate divide” (between the rich,
1 Comment » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007
Wilson, Horgan on SciAm.com
Thanks to my friend Steve Mirsky, those of you who missed Edward Wilson at Stevens last week can now hear the highlights of his conversation on a Scientific American podcast, www.sciam.com/podcast. At the end of Wilson’s talk, you can also hear Steve’s chat with a Sci-Am-staffer-turned-Bloggingheads-megapundit.
No Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Sunday, May 13th, 2007
Ed Wilson Backs Group Selection!
Last Wednesday, the great Edward O. Wilson visited Stevens to accept the first Center for Science Writings Green Book Award. He talked first to a crowd of 200 or so and then to a half-dozen of us over dinner. Wilson will be 78 on June 10, and yet he has more energy and enthusiasm for what he does than scientists a third his age. The highlights of his conversation: He
4 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007
Fat Chance
After reading Gina Kolata’s article in the Science Times today, “Genes Take Charge, and Diets Fall By the Wayside,”–which emphasizes the genetic basis of obesity and hence the difficulty of losing weight–I sought Ellen Ruppel Shell’s opinion. Ellen is a professor of science journalism at Boston University and the author of the excellent book “The Hungry Gene: The Science of Fat and the Future of Thin.” Here’s Ellen’s take
11 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, May 7th, 2007
Desperately Seeking Wisdom
If scientists can study happiness, why not wisdom? “Wisdom, long a subject for philosophers, is now being scrutinized by a cadre of scientific researchers. The trick lies not just in measuring something so fuzzy but also in defining it in the first place.” That’s the headline of a big feature in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine by Stephen S. Hall, who’s just the hard-headed sort needed to tackle
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
Einstein’s Political Genius
“President Bush allegedly seeks moral guidance by asking, ‘What would Jesus do?’ We’ve seen where that gets us. Perhaps politicians should ask, ‘What would Einstein do?’ Einstein would have been horrified by the cult of personality implicit in the question, but that’s just another reason for asking it.” That’s an excerpt from my review for the Chronicle of Higher Education of two new Einstein biographies, by Walter Isaacson and Jurgen Neffe. George Johnson and I also talk about the new biographies on Bloggingheads.tv.
5 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
Science, Hollywood-Style
The prestigious Griffiths Observatory in L.A. recently hired actors to deliver presentations at its revamped planetarium. The actors have neither the time nor the knowledge to answer any questions. Margaret Wertheim deplores this development in “Make astronomers the stars.” Now if the planetarium had hired science journalists instead of actors…
1 Comment » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan