The End of Science

The End of Science – John Horgan

Has science already made its greatest discoveries?

In The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, award-winning science journalist John Horgan makes a provocative argument: that the era of truly revolutionary discoveries, comparable to evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics and the structure of DNA, may be coming to an end. The biggest answers about how the universe works may already have been found, and many remaining questions may lie beyond the reach of experiment.

To test this idea, Horgan interviewed many of the most influential scientists and thinkers of his time, including Stephen Hawking, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, Noam Chomsky, Roger Penrose and Edward O. Wilson. Through lively, revealing and sometimes combative conversations, he explores the frontiers of physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, chaos and complexity theory, and philosophy, and asks whether these fields are approaching their limits.

Horgan introduces the idea of ironic science, speculative theorizing that can never be proven or disproven, and considers what it means for the future of human curiosity.

Witty, opinionated and often controversial, The End of Science sparked widespread debate when it was published and remains a fascinating portrait of scientific giants and the big questions they grappled with. It is essential reading for anyone interested in science, philosophy and the limits of knowledge.