December 31, 2019

My Top 10 Columns of the Decade

Cross-Check began a decade ago. Here are columns that the author liked, even if readers didn’t

Logo for "Cross-check" symbolizes author's passion for science and hockey.

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

In 2010 I started writing this blog for Scientific American, after editors Mariette DiChristina and Phil Yam (who, sadly, are no longer with the magazine) gave it the okay. My old pal Robert Hutchinson, who knows my passion for hockey (and with whom I attended Trump’s inauguration two years ago), came up with the name “Cross-check.” Everybody else seems to be publishing best-of lists for the decade, so I figured I would too. Below are ten columns (plus five honorable mentions) that I’m especially fond of and that readers liked too. Or hated. Or at any rate clicked on. Happy New Year! – John Horgan

Dear "Skeptics," Bash Homeopathy and Bigfoot Less, Mammograms and War More

War Is Our Most Urgent Problem. Let’s Solve It

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Is Science Hitting a Wall?

A Dig Through Old Files Reminds Me Why I’m So Critical of Science

Why Study Humanities? What I Tell Engineering Freshmen

Mind–Body Problems: My Meta-Solution to the Mystery of Who We Really Are

Noam Chomsky Calls Trump and Republican Allies "Criminally Insane"

Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

A Buddhism Critic Goes on a Silent Buddhist Retreat

The Weirdness of Weirdness

Honorable Mentions:

Dispatch from the Desert of Consciousness Research (first of a series of reports on 2016 consciousness conference)

What Is Philosophy’s Point? (first of a series)

Kicking My Caffeine Addiction

Bloomsday Tribute to James Joyce, Greatest Mind-Scientist Ever

The Horgan Surface and the Death of Proof

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