End Of Science

Propelled by a series of interviews with luminaries of modern science such as Stephen Hawking, Thomas Kuhn, Lynn Margulis, Roger Penrose, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Weinberg, E. O. Wilson, and Karl Popper, science writer John Horgan makes the case that science as we have known it--of startling revelations about heretofore unrecognized aspects of reality--is over. There will be no more discoveries like those of evolution or quantum mechanics; rather, all the big questions that can be answered have been answered, all the knowledge worth pursuing has become known. The point is not that the search for a final "theory of everything" has reached its successful conclusion, but rather that the world cannot give us one. According to Horgan, modern endeavors such as string theory are "ironic" and even "theological" in nature, not scientific, and as a result it is no surprise that no one can think of a means to confirm them. It was a controversial argument in 1996, and it remains one today, still firing up debates in labs and on the internet, not least because--as Horgan details in a lengthy new introduction--ironic science is more prevalent and powerful than ever. Still, while Horgan offers his critique, grounded in the thinking of the world's leading researchers, he offers homage, too. If science is ending, he maintains, it is only because it has done its work so well.