Archive for August, 2008
Saturday, August 30th, 2008
On Second Comings, Cures for Cancer and the End of War
If visionaries keep predicting an event and it keeps failing to occur, at what point should we stop taking that prediction seriously? It depends on what’s being predicted. When it comes to Messiahs, for example, or Theories of Everything, I think we may already be at the point where we can dismiss the prophecies once [...]
5 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Friday, August 29th, 2008
Jeffrey Sachs’s Plan to Save the Planet
Can we end extreme poverty? Slow down runaway population growth in regions that can least afford it? Stop our despoliation of the land and oceans and destruction of wildlife? Curb devastating diseases like AIDS and malaria and ensure adequate health care for all? Reduce the risk of violent conflicts between or within nations triggered by [...]
5 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
Militarizing Neuroscience
A new report about potential military applications of neuroscience is stirring up a ruckus. The report, produced by the National Academy of Sciences for the Defense Intelligence Agency, is titled “Cognitive Neuroscience Research and National Security.” According to a dry-as-dust NAS press release, the report examines “neurophysiological advances in detecting and measuring indicators of psychological [...]
8 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
The Book Stinks, but the Review’s Great!
Just as certain films are vastly more entertaining than the books that inspired them (e.g., Blade Runner, based on Phillip Dick’s dreary Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), so are some book reviews. I would never dream of reading The Black Hole Wars, the new book by the physicist Leonard Susskind. He is a relentlessly [...]
8 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
I Lost My Yeti While Seaching for Mokele-mbembe.
Cryptozoology always fascinates me. Viscerally, I can’t get enough of those docu-dramas–Bigfoot, The Abominable Snowman, The Lochness Monster, Chupacabra–hell I’ll take short of Batboy, unicorns, and dinosaurs on Mars semi-seriously. It’s not that I think they actually exist. It’s that I want them to exist.
I think a lot of people might experience the same feeling. [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by Suhas Sreedhar
Friday, August 15th, 2008
Do You Believe in the “Natural Order of Things?”
Did you know you can justify a lot of crazy actions and ideas just by claiming they’re part of the “natural order of things?” It’s actually a very cool and useful trick, especially when it comes to those conveniently pseudoscientific fields like economics, sociology, psychology, medicine. All you need to do is 1) come up [...]
9 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by Suhas Sreedhar
Monday, August 11th, 2008
The Olympics and the End of War
Like many curmudgeons, I’m all soft and squishy inside. Watching the first few days of the Olympics, I keep getting a lump in my throat as affection for my species wells up in me. Yes, we’re profoundly flawed, greedy, selfish, aggressive, short-sighted, self-destructive. But we’re also profoundly gifted, capable of astonishing feats of creativity, fortitude, [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Sunday, August 10th, 2008
Wild-Bird Rehabber on YouTube!
In my last chat with George Johnson on Bloggingheads.tv, I mention that my wife, Suzie Gilbert, has written a memoir about her life as a wild bird rehabilitator, titled Flyaway: How a Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found Her Wings. (Flyaway is the name of Suzie’s nonprofit; alternate book titles were Biker Birds and [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Biowarfare and Friendly Fire
My son Mac and I have been watching Generation Kill, the HBO series about Marines rolling around Iraq in Hummers looking for trouble. Based on reporting by an embedded Rolling Stone reporter, the series suggests that the American soldiers fear being killed by other American soldiers at least as much as by Iraqis.
This friendly-fire irony [...]