This is my last Horganism post, or at least the last on Discover.com. I’ve enjoyed myself, in large part because you’ve been such smart responders. You’ve kept me on my toes by treating my skepticism skeptically. Thanks! I plan to start blogging again soon on the website of the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology, my academic home. Keep an eye out at stevens.edu/csw. Peace, John

Comments

[Andrei Kirilyuk]

Et voila, unexpected adieu, en pleine bataille! Fundamental unpredictability showing that Horganism is a quantum, not classical, entity, with its practically absent trajectory, quantum leaps, and now probable (always only probable!) quantum tunnelling to another realisation. We have here another quantum mystery because it is this Horganism version that has been extremely successful and interesting to everybody I guess, with the whole new revival of ultimately deep questioning on science, its problems and future. You don't abandon a successful enterprise in America, do you? Especially when it permits to all participants to enjoy themselves... Unless there's a yet more successful version in view, of course... In the absence of more detailed information, it remains only to make guesses. A suspense...

If this change is inevitable in this changing world, let it be. But it is an occasion to ask oneself what is so special in the Horganism endeavour. I think it's a sort of much greater interest in everything related to knowledge and its progress, the opposite to that mechanistic indifference and selfishness which unfortunately continue to grow in many professional science sources and institutions. In this sense Horganism is not just a “small blog”, but rather a source and attempt of another attitude to science (and everything else), the one that should normally dominate in a “society based on knowledge”. I like also to imagine it as a Way, in the Oriental sense, a Tao leading to another level of knowledge whose necessity does appear in the majority of John's posts. Let's hope that this interactive way continues, in one or another version, and thank you, John Horgan, for this part we have walked together with you.

P.S. Also, thinking about changes, maybe it would be worthwhile to create an e-mail list at your faculty devoted to relevant news on science and its communication? It could probably be maintained by your junior colleagues or even students and would conveniently complement communication by blogs more suitable for views expression than e.g. event/publication announcement.

[charles plymell]

Just finally learned how to get on this but I'll track you down on your new science sight.
Charles Plymell