John Horgan, science writer, skeptic's delight

[Mariah]

I want to alert anyone who doesn't already know about science writer John Horgan, science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, former senior writer for Scientific American, etc. If you haven't discovered him yet, you are in for a real treat.

He has tons of articles on his website in addition to excerpts from his many books. Take a good long look at http://johnhorgan.org/ especially the right sidebar links to several articles. Of special interest to us Randi fans are the articles on the lower end of the sidebar which are excerpts from his book Rational Mysticism. ---Mariah.

 

[RandFan]

I want to alert anyone who doesn't already know about science writer John Horgan, science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, former senior writer for Scientific American, etc. If you haven't discovered him yet, you are in for a real treat.

He has tons of articles on his website in addition to excerpts from his many books. Take a good long look at http://johnhorgan.org/ especially the right sidebar links to several articles. Of special interest to us Randi fans are the articles on the lower end of the sidebar which are excerpts from his book Rational Mysticism. ---Mariah.

I'm a big fan of Horgan having read his first two books. What is your take on him?

 

[Mariah]

So far, I think he's great. I emailed him and he did something I find is rare: He emailed back with a kind thank you. He might appreciate hearing from those of you who've read his books.

 

[Melendwyr]

This is the guy who wrote The End of Science, yes?

Bah! Excoriating criticism is his due, not praise. May his sandwiches be ever dry and tasteless!

 

[Mariah]

Yes, same guy, but the excerpts (only) I read from THE END OF SCIENCE didn't seem all that objectionable to me, although I can't say I agreed with him. Also, he bravely posts on his website the many criticisms he received from top scientists, including Davies, about his contrary view as expressed in that book. I do think he, Horgan, might be accused of "failure of the imagination."

 

[Fungrim]

Hum, the only thing I've read by him is his "In Defence of Common Sense", which was a New York Times OpEd.

Scientists' contempt for common sense has two unfortunate implications. One is that preposterousness, far from being a problem for a theory, is a measure of its profundity; hence the appeal, perhaps, of dubious propositions like multiple-personality disorders and multiple-universe theories. The other, even more insidious implication is that only scientists are really qualified to judge the work of other scientists.

Preposterousness is a measurement of a scientific ideas profundity? He's got to be kidding, right? And the second implication is just plain silly. Also, perhaps I'm missing something but I cannot see how the two implications follows from the premise, even if the premise is true. And the irony, he seems to like Einstein, but does he really think the theories of relativity was considered common sense when they where proposed?

I'm not very impressed. You can read the whole piece at Edge, here. And if you scroll down you can also read some fairly heavy critisism, from among others Leonard Susskind:

Instead of dyspeptically railing against what he plainly does not understand, Horgan would do better to take a few courses in algebra, calculus, quantum mechanics, and string theory. He might then appreciate, even celebrate, the wonderful and amazing capacity of the human mind to find uncommon ways to comprehend the incomprehensible.