News Note by Kip Hansen — 21 December 2024
I often poke fun, mock and criticize the science reporting in the New York Times. It has been some time, maybe more than a decade, since I have had faith in the Times’ science desk to report straightforward, unbiased and plain-language explanatory science, medical and environmental news. Gone are the days of the often very good Andy Revkin and several others (remind me of their names in the comments, please) that tried to write rationally about the swirling controversies in science and medicine at the turn of the century.
But there was always one science journalist that could always counted on to give it to us straight – regardless of the fact that many of his topics were fantastical far-out speculations from my generation of physicists, astronomers and philosophers of science that may or may not have ingested far too many hallucinogens in their late-1960’s university years.
That would be:
Dennis Overbye
There is a seemingly endless list of this journalistic output at his “by line” page here. He wrote the Out There column in the Space and Astronomy section of the Times.
Overbye gives his own “eulogy” upon retirement in a piece titled: A Solstice of the Soul. Recommended reading for all science and astronomy folk.
In it he makes these important points about science:
“After 50 years and $10 billion, physicists finally discovered the Higgs boson (or “God particle”). It was the missing key to physicists’ best, but still unsatisfying, theory of nature yet, called the Standard Model.”
….
“Astronomers discovered that there are billions of possibly habitable planets in the galaxy.”
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“At the same time, they have had to accept that 95 percent of the cosmos consists of invisible ‘dark matter’ that binds stars in galaxies and a ‘dark energy’ that pushes those same galaxies apart ever faster. Nobody knows what this dark stuff is.”
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“I came of age in the Sputnik era, when science and space exploration suddenly became a national priority in the United States. …. Scientists were potential saviors and heroes; everything was possible. Later, giant particle accelerators were built to explore the mysteries of inner space. The Berlin Wall fell. The fruits of innovation flowed: the transistor, the internet, CT scans and MRIs, global positioning systems, Nobel Prizes.”
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“The political response to Covid has cast doubt on the very concept of public health; the political response to climate change has cast doubt on the concept of scientific expertise.”
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“Artificial intelligence has become frighteningly smart. Silicon Valley has led us to new realms of loneliness, squinting at tiny screens for fragile intimations of community.”
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“And yet science, proceeding on skepticism, not certainty, is arguably the most successful human activity of all time. Its truths are temporary; progress, the saying goes, comes only at the funerals of philosophers and cosmologists.”
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“We don’t know why there is something instead of nothing at all. Or why God plays dice, as Einstein put it as he mulled the randomness implicit in quantum mechanics, the house rules of the subatomic realm.”
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“John Archibald Wheeler, the physicist who pioneered the study of black holes, liked to say, “We will first understand how simple the universe is when we realize how strange it is”. ….
“Going forward” Overbye says, “my money is on confusion.”
….
Fare well, Dennis. But, I’m sure that you will continue writing and publishing in the NY Times, despite official retirement. I sure hope so….
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Author’s Comment:
Love ‘im or hate ‘im, he set the bar, sometimes too high, for his fellow journalists at the Times. I, for one, will miss his columns.
Don’t fret, he won’t be able to quit writing. There are several authors here that will attest to the fact that once it is in you blood, you can’t stop, even if you are determined to do so. I am a successful quitter: I quit drugs, quit alcohol, quit tobacco even! I have tried to quit writing … more than once, but it has done me little good – I’ve slowed down but can’t give it up.
By the way, we need more good writers here …. more good journalistic plain language explanations the basics of science that affect climate, exposés of media-as-propaganda, debunking of the endlessly repeated Climate Crisis Talking Points (all which are false) and just plain interesting things about science and nature. Chip in, use the Submit a Story link.
Thanks for reading.
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If you’re going to school these days, Astronomy 101 is a good class to take. On another note I finally made the effort to see the Andromeda galaxy. I needed binoculars to see it. Naked eye? I must be too old [80] to see it. Should be overhead just after dark these days in December.
And if you spend too much time staring through the binoculars trying to find that galaxy — you get The Andromeda Strain.
HA…Ha… ha! So, smarty pants, have you seen it?
Yes, I saw it when it first came out more than fifty years ago and thought it was a very good film. Some of the film critics at the time didn’t like it. Some critics today still don’t like it. IMHO, all those critics can just stuff it.
Andromeda galaxy is a naked eye galaxy. But your eyes must be good at dark adaption, cataract free and the skies must be clear and dark. Binoculars overcome all these problems.
The best way to see it with the naked eye is by using averted vision. This allows the light to fall on the sides of your retina which contain more of the light sensitive rod cells. It looks like a very faint fuzzy q-tip with no sharp pinpoint stars.
It isn’t hard to see if the sky is dark enough — and you don’t have cataracts.
“If you’re going to school these days, Astronomy 101 is a good class to take.”
I recall from that course a formula to determine the gravitational force between any 2 objects in the universe. I’d sometimes explain that formula to a woman I liked, saying, that whether she likes me or not- we are attracted to each other. Sometimes that trick succeeded in getting their attention!
And if you get lucky, you might see some of the “invasion of the drones”.
Steve ==> I use a free windows program called Stellarium, which makes it very easy to find celestial objects by name and properly set-up for one’s location, easy to find them in the local sky.
Kip, nice essay. Great to honor a scientific writer inspiration.
My ‘scientific life’ was strongly influenced by several science writers of that caliber—most notably Stephen Gould, a Harvard polymath triple endowed professor of geology, paleontology, and evolution. His 1000+ page tome on Punctuated Equilibrium (analogy pruned bushes) still has a place of honor on my Chicagoland bookshelf. Other earlier Gould books that all should want to read include ‘The Panda’s Thumb’ (it isn’t, an example of parallel evolution) and Wonderful Life (misinterpretation of the Burgess Shale ‘Cambrian Explosion’ fossils— explaining the ‘arms evolution’ of exoskeletons and eyes).
For me, writing was never easy, even for the many formerly straightforward
technical posts offered here. Now that my beloved Patricia is gone, never is also more accurate than easy, as her guiding spirit is no longer with me.
Gould was just about the best science writer ever. All his This View of Life columns and collections were essential, as was Wonderful Life. Slightly verbose and esoteric in his more expansive mood, Gould’s interpretation of natural selection and contingency will always be of fundamental importance. He warred with the natural selection absolutists and I think he was right in most all the big issues. Gould left us too early and his views of the Burgess Shale might be different today, although he did live to see the early results from China. Like Overbye, Gould understood that science gets overconfident at its peril. Overbye’s great book on Sandage and cosmology was wonderful. Sandage is sadly rapidly falling into distant memory but the Hubble tension to me is something that he would see as the “confusion” in cosmology that is only widening with the James Webb space telescope. The concept of inflation in cosmology is a great example of the overconfidence in cosmology. On that, I would refer you my favorite science writer of all: David Lindley. His The End of Physics is more relevant today than ever. His book Where Does the Weirdness Go? on quantum theory is masterly in debunking the Schrodinger’s cat nonsense.
My understand of the Schrodinger’s Cat thing was that he offered it as a way to show how ridiculous is the concept it illustrates.
probability distribution = mathematical function ≠ cat
Rud ==> Ah, but she might still be ‘there’ for you, if you reach out.
Thanks, Kip! Personally, I am always in the market for another good writer; at the moment science journalist Gary Taubes is at the top of my list! His books on health and nutrition are a testament to how far we have strayed from actual science! When government bureaucrats and venal corporate technocrats become interchangeable cogs in the machine you have the epitome of Fascism; this time with a smiley face over their cold, dark hearts!
I’ll have to see if the library has either of his books; but the quote, “Going forward…my money is on confusion.” piques my interest. Chaos, strangeness, and confusion are so much better with a large dollop of humor mixed in!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the real science realists here at WUWT; to the alarmists, a wet and sloppy cow belch, or, perhaps, something from the other end!
abo man ==> Yes, Taubes is very good as well, in a very difficult, convoluted, mixed up, often un-scientific field.
re: “ It was the missing key to physicists’ best, but still unsatisfying, theory of nature yet, called the Standard Model.””
Any competing models? Yes … but “they aren’t taught” (and it isn’t polite to mention them in mixed company.)
The SM is a kludge, a hodge-podge of formulae put forth 100 yrs ago and muddled with frequently since; one CHOOSES the degree of calculation accuracy in multi-term expressions when doing computations in lieu of more fundamental numerical, integral relationships between involved between the physical entities and particles.
I’m waiting for your book on the topic. 😇
_Jim ==> I’m with you there….we are better off saying “We don’t yet know….but our current best guess is something along the lines of…..”
Kip,
Nicholas Wade was a good science writer for Nature, Science, and NYT.
Bill ==> Wade was quite good, and wrote some important books. wasn’t afraid to write about racial differences, particularly important in medicine.
Don’t stop writing, Kip! We need voices like yours.
Tom ==> I try — hoping my mind stays sharp.
Thanks Kip.
Two thoughts:
#1: on Astronomy – find a good planetarium and visit. {Lists on the internet are not complete. I did not find the Lydig at Central Washington University; completed in 2015. It is one of the largest planetariums in the state of Washington. }
#2 Science of “the small”
Try the book by Matt Strassler: “Waves in an Impossible Sea”
John ==> Strassler had an interesting viewpoint…..one I don’t particularly agree with, but interesting
One of his better quips in Lonely Hearts was “Science advances, funeral by funeral.” Pleasing to see an echo of it in the quotes above.
Another great science writer worth remembering, who is unfortunately no longer with us, was Nigel Calder. Folks here may know him for championing Svensmark’s theories in The Chilling Stars, but he was founding editor of New Scientist back in the 50s and 60s when it was worth reading.
John ==> Calder was one of the brave and the best. Oddly, there is another Nigel Calder, equally famous, in the sailing community.
Thanks for that. I didn’t know Calder was a supporter of Svensmark’s nucleation ideas.
I started my long career of “science reading” with the New Scientist in the early 60’s. I subscribed to the New Scientist for 40 years until it became absolutely unreadable due to idiotic climate propaganda inserted into literally every article. Tracking the developing of subatomic particles in the 60’s was captivating. That mag was life altering.
When Stephen J Gould took over as editor in the ’70’s it became partially unreadable as his politics included politicising science to the point of misery. I believe that ultimately that editorial bent was thereafter entrenched leading to the insanity of the 2000’s when it became parrot cage lining. What a loss. Science didn’t change, but articles about it sure did. New budding science writers couldn’t get anything published without parroting climate “memes”.
So, one might say, scientific journals descend one editor at a time. Witness the suppression, bias and “management of the message” that goes on now. I am so sick of reading papers that start off with genuflections to the mullahs of the journals. They should call them madrassas where there is no room for a New Scientist. I was happy this week to read that due to a proper application of the bending of space-time, dark energy “accelerating the expansion of the universe” has been dealt a death-blow. There is no such thing. Never was.
Next, I’d be happy to see the idea that there can be more than one type of dark matter brought forth. The idea of three additional types of matter has been in print for more than 100 years. Another that needs to die is the shibboleth that there are places in the universe containing absolutely nothing.
Crispin ==> ah yes, the new “there is no dark matter” paper. Time will tell — maybe some one will even admit to not knowing. That whole subject is in such a state of infancy that I am willing to wait for it to grow up a little before doing more than dipping a toe in.
At east most advanced physicists are willing to admit that it is all still in the stage of competing hypotheses.
Kip, thanks for the info on Dennis Overbye retiring from the NYT. His column was one of the few reasons I still subscribe… other reasons include: 1) the Times daily crossword puzzle; 2) occasional very good reporting on current issues: 3) good writing / coverage on Arts and Music; 4) to follow the bias and overboard exaggeration and lies they report on climate change etc. I suggested to him by email that he might consider occasional writing for the WSJ which I believe would welcome him..
Danley ==> and I hope he does continue to write and write for a broader field –such as the WSJ.
He avoided the whole Climate Crisis Controversy and withheld his views on the topic until his goodbye piece featured here, with this:
” the political response to climate change has cast doubt on the concept of scientific expertise.”
Such a simple and honest criticism of the entire field.