John Horgan, a science writer, became famous for his 1996 book The End of Science. In it, he claimed that fundamental science, the kind of science that made big discoveries such as the structure of DNA and evolution, was ending. All the fundamentally changing views of the universe were already known.We have learned a lot about dark matter, dark energies, the Higgs Boson and other evidence that quantum mechanics might have fundamental flaws. Although string theory may not be tested and thus die, it became a major topic. You may argue that Horgans is correct and these discoveries aren't fundamental, but I wouldn't bet on humanity ever reaching the end world-changing scientific discoveries about universe. Horgan still defended his previous conclusion in Scientific American in 2015. Horgan wasn't advocating science stop, but rather the sad conclusion that we had discovered pretty much all of the fundamental truths.He was, and I believe he is, wrong.Horgan now has an opinion piece in Scientific American. It is again science-dissing. He criticizes scientism as science that exceeds its boundaries and infringes on other methods of knowing such as religion. Horgan's new opinion piece is a bit of science-dissing in that it criticizes scientism, which he defines as science overstepping its boundaries and impinging on other ways of knowing like religion (!Horgan's main goal is consilience. This term was first used by E. O. Wilson in a book titled that. It proposes a broad project: The absorption of all forms and endeavors into science. This would cover morality, art and psychology as well as literature, philosophy, and the like. Wilson claimed that all knowledge should be analysed using science's toolkit, and leave no space for the humanities.To read the full article, click on this screenshotMy first response was one that I made to Adam Gopnik at Letter about ways of knowing. Religion (see Horgans title), and ingestion of Ayahuasca (which Horgan tried) are not ways of knowing.Horgan states that these mystical, drug-induced visions can be a glimpse into truths otherwise hidden. The truth that the universe is one does not exist except in the trivial meaning that it is all made up of matter and energy.My views on science, broadly interpreted, have been presented in the exchange with Gopnik. I won't repeat them here but I do deny Horgans claim there are other ways to know about the cosmos than using the empirical toolkits of science. (See also pp. (See also pp.185-196 in Faith Versus Fact. ).Horgan is correct, however, that the Grand Project to encapsulate art, literature, and morality into the hard sciences is futile. Horgan's description is not supported by Wilson, and I don't know of any other scientist who agrees with him. Sam Harris believes science can decide what is right or wrong, but few scientists agree with him (I also disagree). Even the most scientific scholar I know, Steve Pinker doesn't believe that full consilience can be achieved. Pinker stated in The New Republic that full consilience is possible.Scientists often mistake intelligibility for a sin called reductionism. It is important to not ignore the richness of complex events by explaining them in terms deeper principles. A rational thinker wouldn't attempt to explain World War I using biology, chemistry, and physics. This is in contrast to the more subtle language of the goals and perceptions of leaders in 1914 Europe. A curious person could also legitimately question why human minds have such perceptual and goal-oriented perceptions, including tribalism, overconfidence and a sense of honor that became a fatal combination in that historic moment.Pinker's last sentence raises an important point. This is the subject of the below short piece from The New Republic. (Click on the screenshot; Leon Wieseltier, New Republic editor, later attacked this piece)This article should be read as a treatment for Horgans. Pinker is not calling for ingestion of all sciences, but for an expansion of humanities using science's toolkit. Science can certainly inform morality, art and analysis of literature, politics, history, and politics. Here's Pinkers' view:The malaise in the humanities is rightly attributed to anti-intellectual trends and the commercialization of universities. An honest assessment would show that not all of the damage has been caused by us. Humanities are still reeling from the postmodernism disaster with its dogmatic relativism and defiant obstrusm. They have also failed to establish a progressive agenda. Many university presidents and provosts complained to me that scientists come to their offices to announce new research opportunities and ask for the funds to support them. It is a request for respect for the traditional way that things are done when a scholar in humanities drops by. These ways are worthy of respect. There is no substitute for the depth and breadth of knowledge that erudite scholars have when it comes to individual works. These are not the only ways to understand. The humanities have many possibilities to innovate in understanding if they can find a balance with science. Human brains are the source of art, culture, society, and other creative outputs. They are born in our faculties for perception, thought and emotion and then they accumulate and spread through the epidemiological dynamic by which one person influences another. We should be curious to learn more about these connections. Both sides would win. Both sides would win. The humanities would have more of the scientific explanatory depth, and the progressive agenda that appeals most to donors and deans. With the help of natural experiments and valid ecological phenomena, scientists could challenge their theories. This consilience can be a fact accompli in some disciplines. Archeology is no longer a field of art history but a science that uses high-tech technology. Linguistics, the philosophy of mind, and neuroscience are both influenced by Linguistics.Science has altered religion (I wouldn't use the term enriched), at the least in terms science disproving some foundational claims of religion like the existence a creation event of biological existence by God, Adam and Eve, the Exodus and so forth. Any morality that derives its strength from religion is in danger of losing a lot of ground.Horgan, however, is next.First, I deny that there is a way to know about the universe (which, after all, Horgan means with fundamental knowledge). This does not require the empirical science toolkit: observation, testing and doubting. Predictions are also possible.Horgan however has other points. Horgan doesn't believe that consilience is possible. He is probably correct. We simply won't have the knowledge necessary to link all human endeavours using scientific hypotheses. Some depend on historical or evolutionary events that are unknown, while others rely on inaccessible knowledge. Even if all phenomena can be reduced to the motions and molecules of molecules in principle, science will not be able to explain why Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina as he did, or how it affects us each individually. It is not something that I know of, except Ed Wilson, to think we should do, even though Darwinian analyses of certain parts of literature are possible.Horgan goes even further and argues that scientific disciplines have not yet achieved consilience. Horgan goes further, arguing that we have not yet achieved consilience within scientific disciplines. We don't know how the brain produces consciousness and we still disagree with evolutionary biologists about the importance and necessity of group selection. Horgan's argument for greater consilience cannot be supported by the existence of unsolved issues, some of them never solved. We can't even imagine what science will discover in the next few decades. Pinker also notes that consilience has been achieved in archaeology as well as linguistics.Horgan believes consilience is impossible for these reasons.Science is moving away form consilience, which implies convergence towards a consensus.That's something I would also disagree with. Scientists agree on more truths than they did 200 years ago. There is a consensus on the main features of evolution, the structure of molecules, how DNA and metabolism work and the age of the Universe. We also have agreement about who the ancestors were and the fundamental particles. Although we may not agree on everything, it is true that science is moving away form consilience. This is not true. There is a lot more consensus now than there was in the past. There was much debate when I was young about whether continents move. Now we know they do.Horgan also asserts that consilience is not only impossible but undesirable. Horgan says that he used to think it was desirable but then realized that there are many ways of knowing. Horgan's argument for pluralism stems from the fact that it allows him to bring more knowledge on unsolved problems. His claim is weak.However, pluralism is becoming a counterweight to our desire for certainty. Pluralism is particularly important in the area of our ideas about who and what we should be. We can limit our ability to create new possibilities and to improve ourselves if we stick to one self-conception. Wilson recognizes that consilience can be a reductionist enterprise. This will lead to a loss of many different ways of looking at the world. Take a look at how Wilson treats mystical visions. These visions allow us to see truths that are hidden beneath the surface of things. These experiences, to my mind, are a way for us to feel the inexplicable strangeness of existence that transcends all of our knowledge and expressions. According to William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, mystical experience should not be used as a means of denying reality. . . Wilson is gracious and courtly in person as well as on the page. His consilience project is a result of excessive faith in science or scientism. Wilson and Pinker both embrace the term "scientism" and are likely to believe that excessive faith in science is absurd. Scientists need to stop fantasizing about conquering every culture, and achieving omniscience. This is evident in the failure of physics and biology to reach consilience. Scientists should be humbler.That's all. (The replication crisis's relevance is not clear, and it isnt universal. It's all about other ways of knowing. Horgan goes on a lengthy digression about the vision that shamans have of snakes. Wilson suggests this vision could be genetically ingrained into our psyches. We may also learn from drugs like ayahuasca how they can unleash our neurons to create these visions of evolutionary-installed fear. The tools of science can be applied to a shamans' vision.Horgan's last sentence is a good example. Scientists should be humbler, in other words. This is right from theologians. Horgan, although I agree with him, is being soft on belief. He implied, as he did, that religion had something to say about truth and scientists should be able to give Horgan a break. Horgan doesn't like the scientific analysis of religion that would be required to determine why religion exists. Who needs to be humble? Because they have far less doubt than scientists, the religionists!Horgan puts it this way:Wilson didn't need to be worried. Scientists are less likely to be omniscient than ever. Humans are too creative, diverse, and contradictory to accept a single worldview. We will continue to debate who we are, and reinvent ourselves, inspired by science and mysticism, as well.There is nothing wrong with a lot of this: worldviews can include subjective issues from beyond science. We will continue to make futile arguments about who and what we are. Arguments that may be partially settled by evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology, however. This is not the point. Horgan argues that there are other methods of understanding the world than science and that science should not be allowed to get too close to the humanities. This is a strawman. It is a straw man to say that science will or should completely subsume literature, music, art, or any other form of artistic expression. However, Pinker is correct in asserting that scientists should not be told to stop influencing the humanities.I'll close with Pinkers' lovely New Republic article in which he addresses critics who claim that scientific practices are simplistic and naive.The adjectives are important, so critics need to be careful. It is the belief that academia's legacy silos should be strengthened and that we should continue to be content with the current way of understanding the world that is most navel-like. Our understandings of politics, culture and morality can learn a lot from our best understanding of the physical universe as well as our species' makeup.Sometimes, when I read Horgan and see his constant criticisms of the limits of science, focus on scientific disagreements while ignoring genuine consiliences, as well as his claim that science is only one way of knowing, I wonder if Horgan, despite being a teacher in science writing, really likes science.h/t Hos
