Archive for January, 2009
Saturday, January 31st, 2009
Is There An “Art Instinct”?
Is the human propensity to create and respond to art (meaning music, literature, dance as well as fine arts per se) in some sense a biological rather than purely cultural phenomenon? Did our aesthetic capacity evolve in the same sense that language apparently did hundreds of thousands of years ago? The philosopher Denis Dutton argues [...]
8 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Saturday, January 24th, 2009
60 Minutes’ Misleading Mind Reading Report: A Clarification
I talk about the subject of my last post–“60 Minutes’ Misleading Mind Reading Report”–with George Johnson in a Bloggingheads.tv show aired today. In this chat, I confusingly lump “window” together with words in the “dwelling” category, such as “apartment” and “igloo.” Because it is a manipulable object, “window” actually belongs in the “tool” category, along [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Friday, January 23rd, 2009
60 Minutes’ Misleading “Mind Reading” Report
Earlier this month, CBS’s 60 Minutes, one of the world’s most respected and highest rated news shows, presented what seems to be persuasive evidence that bran scans can read our thoughts with incredible—and I use this adjective advisedly–specificity. “How Technology May Soon ‘Read’ Your Mind,” reported by Leslie Stahl, begins:
How often have you wondered what [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
When Technology Bites Back
At 3:30 p.m. on January 15, as a PATH train bore me from Hoboken toward Manhattan, a drama was unfolding directly above me on the Hudson River. Shortly after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, US Airways Flight 1549 lost power in both engines–apparently after colliding with a flock of geese–and crashed into the river. None [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, January 19th, 2009
Dying for Freedom of the Press
George Johnson and I have been bitching and moaning about the woes of science journalism lately on Bloggingheads.tv. So have the science journalists Carl Zimmer and Chris Mooney. In this era of radical downsizing of all media, how are we going to keep the masses informed and, more importantly, make a living? But I just [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
Radical Transparency and World Peace
Edge.org just published responses to its annual question: “What will change everything? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” George Johnson and I talk about the responses on Bloggingheads.tv today (posted around 10 am). I didn’t submit my response to Edge’s impresario, John Brockman, by the December 31 deadline, [...]