Relaunch of The CSW Page! Sorta...

In case you're wondering why The CSW page either looks completely awesome or completely messed up it's because we were planning on launching this redesign a little bit later, but decided to throw it up and modify it as we got feedback from various users.

If you're using Internet Explorer right now, there's a good chance this page looks like it was hit by a tornado. We're working on that, but we strongly suggest take a stand, defy Bill Gates, and switch to Firefox.

You might also notice that some of the pages from the old site have either been reintegrated into combined pages on the new site (such as the "About" page) and others have gone missing entirely. Those missing pages are still in the works and we'll be rolling them out shortly, but in the meantime you can check out some new content such as the "Green" page, our revamped "Events" page, complete with a list of this semester's events, and our "Multimedia" link to our videos on Google.

This redesign is really going to take your help to complete. Please include what operating system and browser you're using in any feedback you give us. As always, send compliments/complaints to me, Suhas, right here .

September 22nd, 2006

Posted by John Horgan, The Scientific Curmudgeon


This will be my last post as “The Scientific Curmudgeon.” Earlier today, I started blogging for Discover under the tag “Horganism.” I hope readers of this blog—and particularly those who keep me honest by giving me a dose of my own skeptical medicine—will check out Horganism. (On Discover.com, you can also find “The Final Frontier,” a 10th-anniversary update of The End of Science published in the October issue.) You’ll get the same perspective there that you’ve gotten here, as I explain in my first post, titled “What Is Horganism?”:

To the Nobel laureate Phil Anderson, who coined the term in an essay in Physics Today in 1999, “Horganism” connotes corrosive pessimism about science’s future. For the purposes of this blog—and because, hell, it’s my name—I’d like to define Horganism differently, as healthy skepticism toward faith of any kind, scientific, political, philosophical or spiritual. I understand faith’s appeal. Faith in scientific progress helps sustain researchers struggling to wrest truths from nature. Moreover, science has shown that faith in almost anything—from Zeus and Jesus to Freud and Prozac—can help us heal through the placebo effect, the tendency of our expectations to become self-fulfilling. But great harm has also been done in the name of faith, whether in a religion or in pseudo-scientific ideologies such as Marxism, Social Darwinism, eugenics or psychopharmacology. As my article in the October Discover should make clear, I still see lots of room for progress in science and other human endeavors. I even think we can end war! In other words, I’m a skeptic, but a hopeful one. And that’s the best definition I can think of for Horganism.

Please keep an eye on this website to stay informed about activities of the Center for Science Writings, such as my October 18 debate with Michio Kaku; our “Stevens 100 Greatest Science Books” list; our prizes for student essays; and our science-book award. Jim Weatherall and I also plan to post more science-related articles and interviews here. Whenever we do, I’ll be sure to let you know about it over at Horganism.