[extropy-chat] The End of Science ???

[BillK]

Discover Magazine  Vol. 27 No. 10    October 2006

The Final Frontier

Ten years after the publication of The End of Science, John Horgan
says the limits of scientific inquiry are more visible than ever.

<http://www.discover.com/issues/oct-06/cover/>

Ten years ago, science journalist John Horgan published a provocative
book suggesting that scientists had solved most of the universe's
major mysteries. The outcry was loud and immediate. Given the
tremendous advances since then, Discover invited Horgan to revisit his
argument and seek out the greatest advances yet to come.

Quote:
Over the past decade scientists have announced countless discoveries
that seem to undercut my thesis: cloned mammals (starting with Dolly
the sheep), a detailed map of the human genome, a computer that can
beat the world champion in chess, brain chips that let paralyzed
people control computers purely by thought, glimpses of planets around
other stars, and detailed measurements of the afterglow of the Big
Bang. Yet within these successes there are nagging hints that most of
what lies ahead involves filling in the blanks of today's big
scientific concepts, not uncovering totally new ones.
End quote.

He doesn't think much of nanotech, immortality, fusion energy,
multiverse, string theory, and many subjects popular in extropy-chat.
See article for details.


In his blog (lots of interesting stuff) at:
http://discovermagazine.typepad.com/horganism/2006/09/whacks_pats.html>
he gives severe advice to youngsters contemplating a career in science:

"By all means become a scientist. But don't think you're going to top
Newton or Darwin or Einstein or Watson/Crick by discovering something
as monumental as gravity or natural selection or quantum mechanics or
relativity or the double helix, because your chances are slim to none.
The era of those sorts of big discoveries is over. Also, don't go into
particle physics! Especially don't waste your time on string theory,
or loop-space theory, or multi-universe theories, or any of the other
pseudo-scientific crap in physics and cosmology that we science
journalists love so much. And don't follow Steve Wolfram and other
chaoplexologists chasing after a unified theory of
matter-life-consciousness-everything-under-the-sun. That's as futile
as trying to prove the existence of God. Pick a real-world problem
that you have some chance of resolving, preferably in a way that
improves peoples' lives. Do something useful with your talent! We need
your help."
----------

I also liked his point (which I've never heard before) that assuming
exponential development towards 'The Singularity' this means that
science R&D will be most prolific just before the crunch point of
'Nothing left to find out'.


BillK

PS
Isn't it nice the way the new Firefox 2 does spellcheck as you type
into web forms, like gmail?
At least if you type nonsense you've got to use valid dictionary words.  :)