Archive for January, 2008
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
Is Inflationary Cosmology Dead?
On Tuesday night I appeared at a Borders bookstore in Manhattan to promote the book “What Are You Optimistic About?” Just published by Harper Collins, the book consists of responses to the annual question that John Brockman posed on his website Edge.org a year ago. My response was, of course, “War Will End.”
My fellow speakers [...]
No Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
The Stuff of Thought with Steven Pinker – 12 January 2007
Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, is one of the world’s most renowned experimental psychologists. Delving into the realms of language and human cognition, Pinker has authored seven books, including the bestsellers How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate, and The Language Instinct. Pinker came to Stevens on Wednesday, December [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Events, Multimedia by Rand HOPPE
Monday, January 28th, 2008
Science (and Philosophy and Math and Religion) Saturday
Artificial bacteria, the RNA-world theory of life’s origin, cosmic brains, voting whales, pragmatism versus inspiration as a style of presidential leadership, gum that doesn’t stick to your shoes, the bandwidth of FedEx—George Johnson and I mull over these and other topics in our new Science Saturday. See also the chat I had a week earlier [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, January 14th, 2008
Whack/Pat for Green Award Winner
In yesterday’s New York Times Book Review, my fellow Bloggingheads.tv pundit Matthew Yglesias scrutinizes Break Through, to which we just gave the 2008 Green Book Award. Echoing the diverse responses to the book, Yglesias says Nordhaus and Shellenberger “persuasively argue” that environmentalists “should focus on building a politics of shared hope rather than relying on a politics of fear.” But he faults them for: 1, getting sidetracked in a critique of science as a purveyor of absolute truths; and, 2, implying that limitations and innovation are mutually exclusive strategies.
4 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Thursday, January 10th, 2008
Environmental critique wins Green Book Award
It’s official: We’re giving the 2008 Green Book Award to Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger for Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. Suhas has already written in this space about the book, which expands on a widely discussed 2004 essay “The Death of Environmentalism.”
1 Comment » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
Linguistic Smackdown
In his new book The Stuff of Thought—and in his recent appearance at Stevens—the psychologist Steve Pinker criticizes the linguist George Lakoff for asserting that language is fundamentally, inescapably metaphorical. Pinker also faults Lakoff for asserting that packaging issues in clever metaphors is the key to winning elections; in one example mocked by Pinker, Lakoff [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
Rage at ‘Roids
Okay so the Mitchell Report came out, a bunch of people were named, blah blah blah and the media’s gotten to dine like piranhas. And now all I hear is “cheating, cheating, cheating” whenever I turn on ESPN or make the mistake of visiting some sports news site. But honestly, why should anyone care? You can dice this thing any way you want and discover that the core of the controversy is hollow.
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by Suhas Sreedhar
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Experts Doubting Experts
In our latest Science Saturday, George Johnson and I ramble past Godel, the mind-body problem, terrorists’ motivations, happiness and the Edge annual question: What have you changed your mind about? I note that several respondents to this question confess that they no longer trust experts; this is ironic, since of course all the Edgies are [...]
6 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
“Two Thousand Long, Long Years”
As reported HERE, the NAS has felt that it is important to devote its resources to writing a 70-page primer explaining the differences between science and religion to the layperson and asserting that they’re apparently not incompatible. And here I thought we had better things to worry about. Silly me.
3 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by Suhas Sreedhar
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
Edge Question: What Have You Changed Your Mind About?
Late each year, the science agent/impresario John Brockman asks a bunch of scientists, philosophers, journalists and other eggheads a Big Question. On New Year’s Day he posts the responses on his website, Edge.org, and later in the year he publishes them as a book. Here is this year’s question, which comes with pre- and post-amble:
16 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
A Pat for Bloggingheads.tv
Congrats to Bob Wright, the science-journalist-turned-cosmic-pundit, for another successful year of running Bloggingheads.tv, where all manner of pundits jaw on camera about all manner of stuff: politics, philosophy, religion, and culture high and low. This past year, Bob expanded his pundit pool, brought in bigtime ringers (including, for a one-time chat that must have made [...]