Science: too hard for John Horgan
by Scott Wickham
The evening I stumbled into the Horgan-Maddox debate at Barnes & Noble was a very sad day to me. Surprisingly, almost a year later, the recollection of these events still makes me sad. John Maddox, a elderly and gracious thinker, stood at his podium while a younger John Horgan reclined in his seat at his table. While Maddox gave every question a moment's thought and well thought-out response, Horgan basically ignored and dismissed anything or anyone that he didn't agree with or understand.
I sat in pure amazement at some of the thoughts and facts that Maddox just tossed out, such as using cosmic rays in high-energy particle research. I sat in pure horror as Horgan failed to understand science, art, and the importance of the quest for understanding as being critical to being human.
Having John Horgan as the voice of world science is worse than having a priest teach you about sex. At least the priest knows that sex can be a beautiful and wonderful thing. But Horgan has no appreciation at all for the beauty and wonder of science. Since he doesn't understand science, he is forced to come up with a model that explains it to him. Unfortunately, his model is about as useful as using a portrait of Mozart to understand his music.
Alina recalled this about Horgan's point of view: "Everything that can be invented has already been invented. Diseases that have not already been cured, will never be cured, and to spend time researching them is just a waste of time and resources that can best be channeled elsewhere. Horgan also asserted that no diseases have been cured in a very long time (neglecting such facts as the development of vaccines for illnesses ranging from chicken pox to Hepatitis B, within only the last decade). His other main contention boiled down to, in effect, that 'Science is too hard,' as a justification to end all pursuit of complicated and theoretical knowledge because progress didn't happen quickly enough and required massive effort for "minimal" results. The entire argument might have been easier to accept, or at least contemplate, if some of his statements weren't simply, blatantly wrong (the disease comment being the most obvious -- but, then again, I know more about biology than I do about physics. He also discussed string theory, but, I don't know anything about that.)"
My thoughts on meeting Maddox were "What a great thinker!" He reminded me of the Freeman Dyson interview I read in Wired, in which the authors basically had to transcribe his words, because Dyson's thoughts were so far in the future beyond what most people were thinking today. That is the realm in which Maddox seemed to be working.
My thoughts on meeting Horgan was that he was a snake oil salesman pandering to the undereducated masses. Unfortunately, he does it well. And that is what made me sad, because most people will like his message of "Science is too hard," and that "Scientists are doing things that aren't important to us in society." And since he has a nice resume and drops the names of important scientists whom he talked to, it must be true.
One final note: The most accurate thought I have seen about Horgan came from the lay reviews on "Amazon.com" about his book: "This book would have better been titled Facing the Limits of John Horgan." (Editor's Note: Alina Adams is a romance novelist. Check out http://www.AlinaAdams.com for her profile.)
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