Archive for October, 2007
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
James Watson and Free Speech
We couldn’t avoid talking about the James Watson affair at the “Is Science Near Its Limits” meeting in Lisbon. After Watson ascribed Africa’s problems to the genetic inferiority of blacks, London’s Museum of Science canceled a lecture by him, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory forced him to step down as chancellor. George Steiner, the literary critic who organized the Lisbon conference, was outraged by what he felt were violations
8 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, October 29th, 2007
More on “Is Science Near Its Limits?”
In my last post, I mentioned that at a conference I just attended in Lisbon, titled “Is Science Near Its Limits?”, the neuroscientist Wolf Singer advocated investigating paranormal phenomena. Afterwards I sought the opinion of another speaker, the physicist Freeman Dyson. Several years ago, Dyson confessed in an essay in the New York Review of Books that he believed in psychic phenomena. In Lisbon, Dyson affirmed his belief in
4 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Sunday, October 28th, 2007
Eminent Neuroscientist Urges Research on ESP
In my “Introduction to Journalism” class at Stevens, I tell students not to “bury the lede”; if you’ve got news, start your story with it. Of course, determining what’s newsworthy is highly subjective. For example, I just spent the last two days in Lisbon, Portugal, attending a conference titled, “Is Science Near Its Limits?”
The conference was organized by George Steiner, the eminent cultural critic, and
10 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Saturday, October 27th, 2007
Putting a Bow on Watson
Now that the James Watson soap opera of last week has more or less ended, let’s take a look at what this drama has taught us:
1) Science and Scientists Aren’t Always Separate
Why were Watson’s invitations to speak at the London Museum of Science and the University of Edinburgh revoked? Watson was set to talk about the “DNA, Dolly, and other Dangerous Ideas: The Destiny of 21st Century
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by Suhas Sreedhar
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
So Easy a Caveman Can Do It…
A recent discovery indicates Neanderthals possessed a gene called FOXP2 (much to the chagrin of ABC as they’re now 0 for 2 on cavemen-related issues) that, in modern humans, is thought to be responsible for language and speech. So is it possible that Neanderthals were as intelligent and culturally sophisticated as our own ancestors? (And if so, can we replace all the fortune-tellers and
3 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by Suhas Sreedhar
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
Times Helps Sale Sell Secession
Peter Applebome of the New York Times just did a great article on my neighbor Kirk Sale, an anarchist/Luddite urging states and other regions to secede from the U.S. Pardon my immodesty, but I broke the story of Kirk’s secession movement on Bloggingheads.tv last July after attending Kirk’s 70th birthday party. As someone who thinks one-worldism is our surest hope for peace, I’m ambivalent about Kirk’s revival of small-is-beautiful politics, but I was still thrilled for the terrific PR he got from the Times. At the very least, I hope the secession movement catches on enough to make leaders of our bloated, corrupt mega-government nervous.
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
John Timpane on “Unfortunate” James Watson
James Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix, has a history of sticking his foot in his mouth. He’s done it again. The London Times recently quoted the 79-year-old geneticist saying he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.” And so on. His
No Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Friday, October 19th, 2007
What’s Your Formula?
For years, the science agent and impresario John Brockman has posed cosmic questions to science pundits: What are you optimistic about? What is the greatest invention? What is your dangerous idea? He posts the answers on his website, Edge.org, and publishes them as a book. Brockman’s latest project, a collaboration with the Serpentine Gallery in London, asks, What is your formula? Your equation? Your algorithm? He’s just posted the results. I submitted a formula linking choice and utopia. My answers to the three previous questions, by the way, were: “War will end,” “Free will” and “We have no souls.”
7 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Friday, October 12th, 2007
Science and Media Panel at NYU
My friend Kate Seip of the Science Communication Consortium has organized some great events recently, including a talk by Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet at the New York Academy of Sciences last summer and one last month by Sheila Jasanoff at Columbia. The SCC’s next event is a panel discussion on “How various media outlets are used to popularize, communicate, and promote science.” That’s Thursday, October 18th, 7pm, at the
3 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, October 8th, 2007
Does Reality Have a Point Or Is It Just One Long Digression?
George Johnson and I chat about this and other mysteries—including Gary Taubes on diet/exercise/weight, the downside of big brains, human-enhanced algorithms, the prophecies of AI-pioneer Herbert Simon, Roger Penrose’s microtubule-based theory of consciousness, Tristram Shandy, Twin Peaks, Vonnegut’s novel Galapagos and more!—on the latest edition of Science Saturday on Bloggingheads.tv.
1 Comment » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
Edward Rothstein’s War Fatalism
I expect nasty right-wingers like Dick Cheney to believe that war is forever. What bothers me is when a nice liberal intellectual—a New York Times writer, fer crissake!–espouses this fatalism. This week Edward Rothstein, whose “Connections” column I usually love, ponders “The War,” Ken Burns’s 15-hour documentary about World War II. Rothstein, incredibly, faults “The War” for being too anti-war! Burns, Rothstein says, focuses on the suffering of soldiers
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, October 1st, 2007
More Doubts about “Framing”
I’m wary of Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet’s “framing” schtick, which I’ve addressed here and here. Mooney and Nisbet say scientists shouldn’t simply present “facts” (whatever those are) about issues such as global warming, stem cells, genetically modified foods, intelligent design and so on; instead, scientists should “frame” issues so that the public sees them in the proper light.
First, framing is just a synonym for spinning. Scientists