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 10^th-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.

On Monday, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans. As the scale of the devastation became apparent, George Bush and Michael Chertoff, head of homeland security, insisted that no one could have foreseen such catastrophic failure of the levees. Actually, in 2001 the veteran science journalist Mark Fischetti predicted precisely such a catastrophe in a Scientific American article titled “Drowning New Orleans.”

By September 1, 2005, the media had discovered Fischetti and his article. Within a week, Fischetti had written an oped piece for the New York Times and appeared on CNN, CNBC, the History Channel and Meet the Press with Tim Russert. Yesterday, Fischetti—a friend and former colleague at IEEE Spectrum in the early 1980s and now an editor at Scientific American–spoke at Stevens about what New Orleans and other coastal regions can do to protect themselves against big storms. The solutions are grand in scale and extremely expensive; they involve building hundreds of miles of walls around the Mississippi delta. Fischetti argues that such measures are necessary for environmental, economic, cultural and humanitarian reasons, but he acknowledges that the measures raise all sorts of questions. We have posted “Drowning New Orleans”; “Protecting New Orleans,” a followup article published in Scientific American last February; and a short item on levees. We welcome your feedback.

So why has string theory persisted for more than two decades in spite of its hideous complexity, its blatant violation of Occam’s Razor, its lack of evidence, its failure even to offer testable predictions? The journalist Tom Siegfried raises this question in “A Great Unraveling,” his review of the anti-string books Not Even Wrong by Peter Woit and The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. (See my review of Woit on our website, and keep an eye on this space for our webcast of my interview with Woit here at Stevens.)

Siegfried notes that neither Smolin nor Woit “really confront the reason ideas in physics become majority viewpoints. When John Schwarz of Caltech and his few collaborators worked alone on string theory throughout the 1970’s, they wrote no books complaining about lack of resources. They worked until they found a striking result that mainstream physicists found worth pursuing. Physicists vote with their feet, which suggests that there is, after all, a way to prove string theory wrong — by finding a different theory and proving it right.”

I rarely agree with Siegfried, whose science journalism is too fawning for my tastes, but he makes an point here. The only way to displace a bad theory is to find a better theory. I made this point in the December 1996 Scientific American in an article titled “Why Freud Isn’t Dead,” an article for about why Freudian theories and treatments persist in spite of a century’s worth of vicious criticism.

Freudians cannot point to unambiguous evidence that psychoanalysis works, but neither can proponents of more modern treatments… The anti-Freudians argue, in effect, that psychoanalysis has no more scientific standing than phlogiston, the ethereal substance that 18th-century scientists thought gave rise to heat and fire. But the reason physicists do not still debate the phlogiston hypothesis is that advances in chemistry and thermodynamics have rendered it utterly obsolete. A century’s worth of research in psychology, neuroscience, pharmacology and other mind-related fields has not yielded a paradigm powerful enough to obviate Freud once and for all.

That is why string theory refuses to die, too. If string theory is phlogiston, so are all the other unified theories of physics.

In my Convocation speech last week, I said, “Before I took this job, some friends in academia warned me that students these days are apathetic and lazy. That’s not true of the students I’ve met here at Stevens.” Here’s an example: Komal, a student in my class who heads a dance troop at Stevens, is performing this weekend in NYC at Dance for Darfur, an event intended to raise awareness about the catastrophe taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan.

From the Dance for Darfur website:

The idea of Dance for Darfur was started in April of 2006 as a way to raise awareness, funds, and supplies for the refugees impacted by the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. It will be a “block-party” style philanthropic event located in New York City on September 16th, 2006 (rain date, September 17th, 2006) from 11am to 6pm, whose primary goal is to raise awareness about the tragic situations occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. Dance for Darfur’s secondary goals will be to raise as much money and supplies as possible for the refuges through various methods of fundraising.

Again from my speech: “We live in troubled times, and I tend to be a pessimist. But you young people make me hopeful about the future. That may sound like Convocation Day BS, but it’s true.”

Spent last night in Washington, D.C., on a magazine assignment, and this grey, damp morning, I took a jogging tour of the capital. Past the White House, ringed with barricades and guard posts, marked and unmarked security vehicles. Past the Washington Monument, America embodied as a sword. Past the duck-flecked reflecting pool and up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where Lincoln broods forever over whether preserving the Union–and even ending slavery–was worth a million lives. Was there no other way? Past the half-buried black gash of the Vietnam War Memorial, etched with the names of 58,000 Americans who died—for what again? Past the new memorial for World War II, an exuberant fountain ringed with columns bearing inscriptions like this from General George Marshall: “WE ARE DETERMINED THAT BEFORE THE SUN SETS ON THIS TERRIBLE STRUGGLE OUR FLAG WILL BE RECOGNIZED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD AS A SYMBOL OF FREEDOM ON THE ONE HAND AND OF OVERWHELMING FORCE ON THE OTHER.” Ah, World War II, the war that justifies war.

Almost literally in the shadow of the Washington Monument, on the edge of The Mall, I came upon a cluster of tents displaying posters and banners reading “Impeach Bush,” “Speak Truth to Power” and “Bush, Speak to Cindy,” meaning Cindy Sheehan, who became an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq after her son died there. The tents were empty except for two scruffy young men, making sure—they told me when I stopped to chat—that no one stole or vandalized the folding chairs or tables or other equipment. This is “Camp Democracy,” created by groups opposed to the war in Iraq and other adventures of the Bush administration. Of all the testaments to American character I saw this morning, only Camp Democracy made me feel a surge of patriotism.

The sun hasn’t come up yet, but color is already creeping into the cloudless sky. Looks like it will be a clear, cool, lovely day, just as it was five years ago.

My son and I went to see World Trade Center yesterday afternoon. Only a handful of other people in the theater, watching silently, except for a few sniffles. The film was less histrionic than I expected of Oliver Stone, and the theme simpler: Yes, 9/11 was a day of great evil, but it was also a day of great courage and selflessness and love. Humanity at its worst and best. The best redeems the worst.

This theme grips me emotionally but troubles me intellectually, because it comes too close to justifying war. For every episode of heroism in war, there are countless episodes of brutality, cowardice and absurd, senseless death and destruction. The best does not redeem the worst. Think Catch-22, not Saving Private Ryan.

War enthralls pacifists, too. Last week, I had students in my war class read William James’s great essay “The Moral Equivalent of War,” delivered as a speech at Stanford exactly 100 years ago. “I devoutly believe in the reign of peace,” James says. And yet he grants that war is the ultimate test of character, and “the possibility of violent death the soul of all romance.” If we rid ourselves of war, we must find some substitute “to redeem life from flat degeneration.” James suggests enlisting young men in a war “against nature,” that is, a public works program consisting of dirty, dangerous industrial jobs, like mining and fishing.

Lacking war, would we really find life so easy, so boring, that we would have to manufacture difficulties for ourselves? Life wasn’t easy for James, who was afflicted with depression and anxiety throughout adulthood. Let those who need an existential thrill take up bungee-cord jumping, or better yet go to Ethiopia to work in an orphanage for children with AIDS, as my sister Patty did recently. It’s time for humanity to grow up and leave its childish bloody games behind. Nothing redeems war.

In the latest Newsweek, Jerry Adler reports on “bone-rattling attacks” on faith carried out by “The New Naysayers,” the veteran religion-bashers Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and their young new ally Sam Harris. Harris’s The End of Faith was published in 2004, Dennett’s Breaking the Spell last February and Dawkins’s The God Delusion will be released next month. I sat next to Adler at a dinner party last spring and came away with the impression that he is as skeptical toward religion as are Dawkins et al—and, let’s face it, as are most intellectuals these days. So I was curious to see how he treated this topic.

As I expected—can it be otherwise for a mass-market essayist?–he panders to his audience, which is after all predominantly religious. (Adler notes that a recent Newsweek poll found that 92 percent of Americans believe in God and only 37 would vote for an atheist for President.) He does a fair job of summarizing the “highly inflammatory” arguments of Dennett/Dawkins/Harris, namely, that religions make false and contradictory claims and spur people to commit destructive acts. But Adler not-so-subtly distances himself from the skeptics’ viewpoints.

Take, for example, the claim that belief in a righteous God and divine laws prevents us from descending into savagery. Adler quotes this riposte by Dawkins: “Do you mean that the only reason you try to be good is to gain God’s approval and reward? That’s not morality, that’s just sucking up.” “That’s clever,” Adler replies dismissively. “But millions of Christians and Muslims believe that it was precisely God who turned them away from a life of immorality. Dawkins, of course, thinks they are deluding themselves. He is correct that the social utility of religion doesn’t prove anything about the existence of God. But for all his erudition, he seems not to have spent much time among ordinary Christians, who could have told him what God has meant to them.”

Actually, I bet Dawkins has spent more time talking to Christians, ordinary or extraordinary, than Adler. And what is Adler really saying here? Just this: we must give a pass to delusional beliefs that are held sincerely by millions of people, especially if they are Newsweek subscribers. I have my differences with Dawkins et al, but I admire their courage, especially compared to the cowardice that afflicts pop-culture intellectuals like Adler when they write about religion.

As I mentioned in my last post, the semester just started at Stevens, and I’m preoccupied with school stuff. Today, for example, is the Convocation Ceremony, and I’ve been asked to say something inspirational to the incoming freshmen. Inspiration is not one of my strengths, as the following excerpt from my speech probably indicates:

Now comes the part of my talk where I lay a guilt trip on you. Stevens is an elite school, which will prepare you for high-paying, prestigious jobs. Many of you are going to become leaders in your fields, with great power and influence over others. That gives you a special responsibility to think about the moral consequences of your work.

The Stevens Honor Code is a pledge to act ethically here at Stevens. But you should also start thinking about how to act ethically after you leave Stevens. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Science and engineering have improved peoples’ lives in countless ways, but they have also created environmental problems. There’s a movement, called green engineering, that tries to anticipate and reduce the environmental impact of technology. Here’s an idea: Why not form a Stevens club for green engineering? If you do that, the Center for Science Writings will help recruit members for you.

Here’s another ethical issue. The defense industry is a major employer and funder of engineers and scientists. You should think long and hard about whether your defense-related work will make the world a safer place. And I say this as someone who has consulted for the defense industry. Perhaps the Debating Team can take up this issue.

Your professors can tell you how they deal with ethical issues, but ultimately you must decide for yourselves what’s right or wrong. This is the paradox at the heart of higher education. We professors are older and supposedly wiser than you students, and our job is to give you the benefit of our experience. But if we really do our job well, you’ll end up questioning much of what we tell you. Sometimes you’ll decide that we’re full of it, and sometimes you’ll be right.

I also plan to say that the young people I’ve met at Stevens–and this applies even to the pessimists in my war class–make me optimistic about the future. That probably sounds like BS, but it happens to be true.