Science and Scientism (Robert Wright & John Horgan)

Robert Wright's Nonzero

Nonzero

News & Politics, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.7 • 618 Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2019

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is scientism, and who is doing it? ... Postmodernism and whether science just tells "stories" ... John criticizes the "ideological fervor" of evolutionary psychology ... The hubris of scientists in the '80s and '90s ... Has science reached its fundamental limits in trying to explain consciousness? ... John wins his Nobel Prize "long bet" on string theory ... The various corrupting influences on scientists ... A brief debate on higher purpose ...

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a podcast from Meaning of Life TV.
0:08.3	Hi, John.
0:09.8	Hey, Bob.
0:11.0	How you doing?
0:12.3	I'm doing very well.
0:14.4	Indian summer.
0:15.7	What's that?
0:16.7	It's Indian summer here in Hoboken.
0:18.8	I assume.
0:19.4	You mean Native American summer, I think.
0:21.5	Yesterday, by the way, was Columbus Day, was it not?
0:24.9	Yes, it was.
0:26.1	And I woke up in the woods in the Hudson Highlands.
0:29.5	I went on a two-day retreat, just hiking in the woods to try to, you know, gather my thoughts.
0:38.4	Yeah, well, you've got the kind of job where you get to do that.
0:41.0	You get a lot of holidays and stuff, I guess.
0:42.9	You get a whole summer off.
0:43.9	You're kind of an academic, notwithstanding your background in journalism.
0:47.7	Let me tell people about you in case you don't know.
0:49.4	You're John Horgan, famous science journalist.
0:51.3	You have like a blog at Scientific American, where you write contentious
0:56.4	stuff that leads scientists to denounce you.
	...

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