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What Remains to Be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race
What wonders of science will the 21st century bring? John Maddox takes up this challenge by describing precisely what remains to be discovered. Building on twenty-three years' experience at the helm of the world's preeminent science magazine, Nature, Maddox identifies new areas of discovery in physics, biology, health, intelligence, and global catastrophe. As Maddox shows, the rate of scientific discovery will continue to accelerate, hurtling us toward ever more exciting discoveries in the next century.
448 pages, Paperback
First published October 20, 1998
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May 2, 2020
Picking up a copy of Scientific American has always been a humbling experience for me. The titles of the articles are always intriguing, but the articles themselves -- nine out of ten times -- are utterly incomprehensible.
I had just enough science in high school and college to recognize what sounds like a "break through," but not enough to make sense of it. I'm a serial science-breakthrough-reader, buying and reading book after book designed to explain quantum physics and related topics to the layperson. And each and every time, I come out with only the vaguest understanding of the reality described. I always figured that the barrier was math -- modern physicists thought in terms of mathematics, and the word explanations were just secondary. Another dimension was just another variable in an equation, in a branch of math that was several years, at least, beyond my introductory calculus class in college. I didn't understand the symbols, couldn't plug in values, couldn't make sense of results, much less understand how the equations were derived. As for biology, I know what a double helix looks like, but have no understanding of chemistry, and the complexities of proteins and DNA and RNA, all depend on chemistry.
In field, after field of science, for one reason or another, I couldn't understand the basics -- I could never hope to conduct an experiment of the kind that modern scientists do, much less draw the appropriate conclusions. I was condemned to be an outsider -- watching from the topmost row of the upper deck, unable to figure out what was happening on the field without radio commentary. In my ignorance, I had to take science on faith, rather than on its own terms. Rather than questioning natural processes directly in a laboratory, I could only question those who worked in laboratories, and I didn't even know enough to properly speak their language. In the history of science, I began to lose touch somewhere in the 17th century, with Newton.
My high school and college science classes didn't really teach me science. Rather they taught me the names and acts of the saints of science and the canon of faith that they profess has been revealed to them. Yes, I should revere Einstein, just as I should revere the doctrines of relativity and quantum physics. But the longer I was out of college and the faster the pace of scientific development, the more difficult it became for me to judge what was happening and assign the appropriate degree of holiness and divine truth to the major figures and the theories they espoused. How could I possibly determine how many quarks could dance on the head of a needle? How could I be sure there even were such things as "quarks"? Increasingly, it seemed that not only were energy and matter interchangeable, but reality and unreality as well. Or rather it seemed that all language was irrelevant -- trying to catch water in a sieve. All that mattered were the mathematical equations that resembled Sanskrit and that predicted and described the results of experiments that could only be performed in one or two specially-equipped laboratories.
Now, thanks to What Remains to Be Discovered by John Maddox, finally I have a framework for understanding current scientific developments -- a context or mind-map to relate them to. This former editor of Nature provides a very readable and helpful summary of all current scientific development. He does so with the tongue-in-cheek authority of a scientist who has been asked by editors to do the impossible -- to describe "what remains to be discovered," what science hasn't done yet, but will soon. He sets that tone in the subtitle: "Mapping the secrets of the universe, the origins of life, and the future of the human race." In the table of contents he describes Part One: Matter, "...in which the origins of the universe and of matter are explored, as well as the prospects for a theory of everything." Similarly, for Part Two: Life, he says, "... in which the origin of life is considered, as well as biological machinery, the riddle of the selfish gene, and the next human genome projects." And he finishes with Part Three: Our World, "... in which the nature of our brain is explained, as well as our greatest invention, mathematics, and how we will avoid the catastrophes of the future."
We soon learn that the author is, in fact, quite humble in dealing with the immense range of scientific inquiry, and is very reluctant to make the kinds of wild predictions that the title and table of contents would suggest. Rather, he carefully, and very readably presents an overview of what has happened up to now, with an emphasis on the last half of the twentieth century. He explains complicated concepts in simple language, points out how one field of inquiry depends on and influences others, and shows the general direction of scientific endeavor.
His approach differs radically from the writings of 19th century apostles of science or 20th century Marxists who believed in Progress and believed it was inevitable. Through Maddox' story we get a sense of the human drama of science -- the competition to be the "first," the exhilaration of making "discoveries." We learn to respect these new heroes and saints and to recognize the far-reaching practical implications of their seemingly abstruse theoretical pursuits. But at the same time, we come to realize that the "reality" they seek to understand is in large part an illusion. It is as if they were coming up with better and better ways to describe the Veil of Maya, without coming any closer to understanding or even glimpsing what lies beyond.
The title implies a concept of "discovery" that resembles the maps of the mid-19th century. Much of the world had been visited by European man. There were still some tracts of land marked "unknown," but it was inevitable that explorers would reach there soon and fill in all the gaps in "what remained to be discovered."
But, in fact, as Maddox gently and eloquently teaches us, the more we know, the more we know we don't know, and the more we know about the limitations of what man can ever know.
Consider this passage from Emerson's essay/portrait of Swedenborg in Representative Men:
"He was apt for cosmology, because of that native perception of identity which made mere size of no account to him. In the atom of magnetic iron, he saw the quality which would generate the spiral motion of sun and planet.
"The thoughts in which he lived were, the universality of each law in nature; the Platonic doctrine of the scale or degrees; the version or conversion of each into the other, and so the correspondence of all the parts; the fine secret that little explains large, and large little; the centrality of man in nature, and the connection that subsists throughout all things: he saw that the human body was strictly universal, or an instrument through which the soul feeds and is fed by the whole of matter...
"This theory dates from the oldest philosophers, and derives perhaps its best illustration from the newest. It is this: that nature iterates her means perpetually on successive planes. In the old aphorism, nature is always self-similar."
To Emerson and the thinkers who came before him, the world and our senses, nature and our ability to understand it seemed perfectly suited to one another. And what we learned about the world in our own scale, applied as well to the very small and the very large. By extension, well into the twentieth century, school children were taught an atom was like a solar system in miniature, with electrons orbiting around the nucleus.
In the modern science described by Maddox, our minds -- our ability to understand -- evolved as a practical mechanism to deal with the "reality" we encountered at the human scale.
Repeatedly, science has dethroned "man," disproving long-standing assumptions that gave us a false sense of being the center of the universe or the culmination of all of natural history. Now we realize that even our brains are not at the center of things, that we are not equipped to understand what lies beyond a very limited horizon, and that we cannot with any confidence predict that the workings of nature at the very small or very large will bear any resemblance at all to the world we see around us, or follow patterns that we would consider "logical" or could describe adequately with even the most advanced mathematics, or even that the same "laws" of physics apply throughout the universe at great distances as well as at different scales.
As Maddox says in his concluding chapter, "Unwilling or unable to accept the seemingly paradoxical behavior of single particles, such as electrons moving through both of two slits at the same time, for example, he [Albert Einstein] sought instead a set of equations whose elegance and symmetry would command respect, and by which even paradoxical phenomena would be explicable. Einstein's quest was no doubt impelled by his great success with the general theory of relativity (otherwise the theory of gravitation), which first won attention through its elegance. As the world now knows, it was a fruitless search. Quantum phenomena are often wrongly described as paradoxes for no better reason than that they conflict with the expectations of common sense, which themselves spring from human senses that have been honed by natural selection for telling what the macroscopic world is like. It is disconcerting that phenomena on the small scale are at odds with expectation, but there is a wealth of experimental data for which no other explanation is possible. How else than by experiment can reality be described?" (p. 373)
In context, that rhetorical question is far from rhetorical. Science, based on experiment, is reaching into a realm that our brains are ill-equipped to understand. And the experiments required to give us insight into the next lower order of magnitude -- quarks and gluons and gravitons -- require ever more sophisticated and expensive accelerators backed by ever more powerful computers to help capture and sort the results. The possible implications of these experiments to come are extraordinary and fascinating, but must wait until the next generation of accelerator is completed at CERN in 2005. Then to go beyond that level will require far more expensive experimental apparatus, taking many more years to construct; and then the next and the next... Indeed, a non-scientist, like myself, might well dream the impossible dream of a science that goes beyond science, a means of learning about "reality" and describing it without depending on experiments.
Speculating in a realm where Maddox certainly doesn't go in this book, I can't help but wonder that if our brains are limited by having evolved in the macroscopic world of our daily activity, then might it not be possible through computer simulation to let computer programs evolve specifically intended to "understand" or at least cope with the flavors of reality encountered at different sub-atomic scales?
So on the one hand, What Remains to Be Discovered provides a practical context for understanding today's science news and enjoying all those great articles in Scientific American. And on the other hand, it poses interesting questions about the nature of man and the knowability of the universe, taking us far beyond the realm of science.
I had just enough science in high school and college to recognize what sounds like a "break through," but not enough to make sense of it. I'm a serial science-breakthrough-reader, buying and reading book after book designed to explain quantum physics and related topics to the layperson. And each and every time, I come out with only the vaguest understanding of the reality described. I always figured that the barrier was math -- modern physicists thought in terms of mathematics, and the word explanations were just secondary. Another dimension was just another variable in an equation, in a branch of math that was several years, at least, beyond my introductory calculus class in college. I didn't understand the symbols, couldn't plug in values, couldn't make sense of results, much less understand how the equations were derived. As for biology, I know what a double helix looks like, but have no understanding of chemistry, and the complexities of proteins and DNA and RNA, all depend on chemistry.
In field, after field of science, for one reason or another, I couldn't understand the basics -- I could never hope to conduct an experiment of the kind that modern scientists do, much less draw the appropriate conclusions. I was condemned to be an outsider -- watching from the topmost row of the upper deck, unable to figure out what was happening on the field without radio commentary. In my ignorance, I had to take science on faith, rather than on its own terms. Rather than questioning natural processes directly in a laboratory, I could only question those who worked in laboratories, and I didn't even know enough to properly speak their language. In the history of science, I began to lose touch somewhere in the 17th century, with Newton.
My high school and college science classes didn't really teach me science. Rather they taught me the names and acts of the saints of science and the canon of faith that they profess has been revealed to them. Yes, I should revere Einstein, just as I should revere the doctrines of relativity and quantum physics. But the longer I was out of college and the faster the pace of scientific development, the more difficult it became for me to judge what was happening and assign the appropriate degree of holiness and divine truth to the major figures and the theories they espoused. How could I possibly determine how many quarks could dance on the head of a needle? How could I be sure there even were such things as "quarks"? Increasingly, it seemed that not only were energy and matter interchangeable, but reality and unreality as well. Or rather it seemed that all language was irrelevant -- trying to catch water in a sieve. All that mattered were the mathematical equations that resembled Sanskrit and that predicted and described the results of experiments that could only be performed in one or two specially-equipped laboratories.
Now, thanks to What Remains to Be Discovered by John Maddox, finally I have a framework for understanding current scientific developments -- a context or mind-map to relate them to. This former editor of Nature provides a very readable and helpful summary of all current scientific development. He does so with the tongue-in-cheek authority of a scientist who has been asked by editors to do the impossible -- to describe "what remains to be discovered," what science hasn't done yet, but will soon. He sets that tone in the subtitle: "Mapping the secrets of the universe, the origins of life, and the future of the human race." In the table of contents he describes Part One: Matter, "...in which the origins of the universe and of matter are explored, as well as the prospects for a theory of everything." Similarly, for Part Two: Life, he says, "... in which the origin of life is considered, as well as biological machinery, the riddle of the selfish gene, and the next human genome projects." And he finishes with Part Three: Our World, "... in which the nature of our brain is explained, as well as our greatest invention, mathematics, and how we will avoid the catastrophes of the future."
We soon learn that the author is, in fact, quite humble in dealing with the immense range of scientific inquiry, and is very reluctant to make the kinds of wild predictions that the title and table of contents would suggest. Rather, he carefully, and very readably presents an overview of what has happened up to now, with an emphasis on the last half of the twentieth century. He explains complicated concepts in simple language, points out how one field of inquiry depends on and influences others, and shows the general direction of scientific endeavor.
His approach differs radically from the writings of 19th century apostles of science or 20th century Marxists who believed in Progress and believed it was inevitable. Through Maddox' story we get a sense of the human drama of science -- the competition to be the "first," the exhilaration of making "discoveries." We learn to respect these new heroes and saints and to recognize the far-reaching practical implications of their seemingly abstruse theoretical pursuits. But at the same time, we come to realize that the "reality" they seek to understand is in large part an illusion. It is as if they were coming up with better and better ways to describe the Veil of Maya, without coming any closer to understanding or even glimpsing what lies beyond.
The title implies a concept of "discovery" that resembles the maps of the mid-19th century. Much of the world had been visited by European man. There were still some tracts of land marked "unknown," but it was inevitable that explorers would reach there soon and fill in all the gaps in "what remained to be discovered."
But, in fact, as Maddox gently and eloquently teaches us, the more we know, the more we know we don't know, and the more we know about the limitations of what man can ever know.
Consider this passage from Emerson's essay/portrait of Swedenborg in Representative Men:
"He was apt for cosmology, because of that native perception of identity which made mere size of no account to him. In the atom of magnetic iron, he saw the quality which would generate the spiral motion of sun and planet.
"The thoughts in which he lived were, the universality of each law in nature; the Platonic doctrine of the scale or degrees; the version or conversion of each into the other, and so the correspondence of all the parts; the fine secret that little explains large, and large little; the centrality of man in nature, and the connection that subsists throughout all things: he saw that the human body was strictly universal, or an instrument through which the soul feeds and is fed by the whole of matter...
"This theory dates from the oldest philosophers, and derives perhaps its best illustration from the newest. It is this: that nature iterates her means perpetually on successive planes. In the old aphorism, nature is always self-similar."
To Emerson and the thinkers who came before him, the world and our senses, nature and our ability to understand it seemed perfectly suited to one another. And what we learned about the world in our own scale, applied as well to the very small and the very large. By extension, well into the twentieth century, school children were taught an atom was like a solar system in miniature, with electrons orbiting around the nucleus.
In the modern science described by Maddox, our minds -- our ability to understand -- evolved as a practical mechanism to deal with the "reality" we encountered at the human scale.
Repeatedly, science has dethroned "man," disproving long-standing assumptions that gave us a false sense of being the center of the universe or the culmination of all of natural history. Now we realize that even our brains are not at the center of things, that we are not equipped to understand what lies beyond a very limited horizon, and that we cannot with any confidence predict that the workings of nature at the very small or very large will bear any resemblance at all to the world we see around us, or follow patterns that we would consider "logical" or could describe adequately with even the most advanced mathematics, or even that the same "laws" of physics apply throughout the universe at great distances as well as at different scales.
As Maddox says in his concluding chapter, "Unwilling or unable to accept the seemingly paradoxical behavior of single particles, such as electrons moving through both of two slits at the same time, for example, he [Albert Einstein] sought instead a set of equations whose elegance and symmetry would command respect, and by which even paradoxical phenomena would be explicable. Einstein's quest was no doubt impelled by his great success with the general theory of relativity (otherwise the theory of gravitation), which first won attention through its elegance. As the world now knows, it was a fruitless search. Quantum phenomena are often wrongly described as paradoxes for no better reason than that they conflict with the expectations of common sense, which themselves spring from human senses that have been honed by natural selection for telling what the macroscopic world is like. It is disconcerting that phenomena on the small scale are at odds with expectation, but there is a wealth of experimental data for which no other explanation is possible. How else than by experiment can reality be described?" (p. 373)
In context, that rhetorical question is far from rhetorical. Science, based on experiment, is reaching into a realm that our brains are ill-equipped to understand. And the experiments required to give us insight into the next lower order of magnitude -- quarks and gluons and gravitons -- require ever more sophisticated and expensive accelerators backed by ever more powerful computers to help capture and sort the results. The possible implications of these experiments to come are extraordinary and fascinating, but must wait until the next generation of accelerator is completed at CERN in 2005. Then to go beyond that level will require far more expensive experimental apparatus, taking many more years to construct; and then the next and the next... Indeed, a non-scientist, like myself, might well dream the impossible dream of a science that goes beyond science, a means of learning about "reality" and describing it without depending on experiments.
Speculating in a realm where Maddox certainly doesn't go in this book, I can't help but wonder that if our brains are limited by having evolved in the macroscopic world of our daily activity, then might it not be possible through computer simulation to let computer programs evolve specifically intended to "understand" or at least cope with the flavors of reality encountered at different sub-atomic scales?
So on the one hand, What Remains to Be Discovered provides a practical context for understanding today's science news and enjoying all those great articles in Scientific American. And on the other hand, it poses interesting questions about the nature of man and the knowability of the universe, taking us far beyond the realm of science.
March 21, 2013
Originally published on my blog here in September 1999.
John Maddox, having retired as editor of Nature, on of the most prestigious scientific journals, should be in a unique position to evaluate the state of scientific research at the end of the twentieth century and to look ahead to what we may see in the near future. He is not interested in developments in engineering and technology, but in work designed to improve our understanding of the universe around us. This contrasts with, say, the predictions made by Arthur C. Clarke at the beginning of 1999, which are full of technological items such as the date by which he would expect the establishment of a permanent manned base on the moon. The final chapter, which discusses natural and manmade disasters which might bring about the destruction of the human race, is the only place where technology and politics play much part; it makes the chapter seem rather separate from the rest of the book. The conclusion also acknowledges that applied science is important, even though it is not the main concern of the book.
Through the major part of the book, Maddox works through physics, biology, neurology and mathematics in that order, summarising the current position and looking at where profitable avenues for future research may lie. In his discussion, he takes an outsider's view of the particular area of science, sceptical of the enthusiasms which tend to dominate some specialities (the search for a 'theory of everything' in physics, for example) while taking a general pro-science and pro the standard models of science viewpoint. It is this calm appraisal which I felt to be most valuable in the book, and this is best represented in the chapters on physics. It enables him to say in his conclusion - and convince the reader that it is true - that "What stands out is that there is no field of science that is free from glaring ignorance, even contradiction."
I was rather surprised to read in the miniature biography on the inside of the book jacket that Maddox was originally a physicist before moving into journalism. The book gives me the impression that his main scientific interest is biological. (From reading the odd copy of Nature during his editorship, I had the same feeling about the journal.) This feeling is probably at least in part a consequence of my own different interests: physical sciences rather than biological.
This actually has an interesting connection with some of the things that Maddox has to say about the current state of the sciences. I have a tendency to appreciate the theoretical and philosophical, and this is today more the aspect presented by physics and mathematics than biology. Maddox criticises biologists, particularly those studying the mechanisms of the cell, for their dislike of predictive models and theories, describing much of their work as cataloguing rather than true science ("Oh look! This protein has this function in that structure! How fun!"). That is a sign of the comparative immaturity and difficulty of their subject - the cell and the human genome, both discussed at some length, are systems involving the interplay of thousands of mechanisms. (Maddox also points out that the main philosophical idea underpinning biology, the theory of evolution, is not predictive in the same way as, say, Einstein's theory of general relativity is. Given an organism and a change in the environment, it cannot tell you how that organism will adapt to meet that change.)
I felt that the section on mathematics betrayed least understanding, and I think that this is due to it being the subject I know best as well as being less congenial to Maddox.
John Maddox, having retired as editor of Nature, on of the most prestigious scientific journals, should be in a unique position to evaluate the state of scientific research at the end of the twentieth century and to look ahead to what we may see in the near future. He is not interested in developments in engineering and technology, but in work designed to improve our understanding of the universe around us. This contrasts with, say, the predictions made by Arthur C. Clarke at the beginning of 1999, which are full of technological items such as the date by which he would expect the establishment of a permanent manned base on the moon. The final chapter, which discusses natural and manmade disasters which might bring about the destruction of the human race, is the only place where technology and politics play much part; it makes the chapter seem rather separate from the rest of the book. The conclusion also acknowledges that applied science is important, even though it is not the main concern of the book.
Through the major part of the book, Maddox works through physics, biology, neurology and mathematics in that order, summarising the current position and looking at where profitable avenues for future research may lie. In his discussion, he takes an outsider's view of the particular area of science, sceptical of the enthusiasms which tend to dominate some specialities (the search for a 'theory of everything' in physics, for example) while taking a general pro-science and pro the standard models of science viewpoint. It is this calm appraisal which I felt to be most valuable in the book, and this is best represented in the chapters on physics. It enables him to say in his conclusion - and convince the reader that it is true - that "What stands out is that there is no field of science that is free from glaring ignorance, even contradiction."
I was rather surprised to read in the miniature biography on the inside of the book jacket that Maddox was originally a physicist before moving into journalism. The book gives me the impression that his main scientific interest is biological. (From reading the odd copy of Nature during his editorship, I had the same feeling about the journal.) This feeling is probably at least in part a consequence of my own different interests: physical sciences rather than biological.
This actually has an interesting connection with some of the things that Maddox has to say about the current state of the sciences. I have a tendency to appreciate the theoretical and philosophical, and this is today more the aspect presented by physics and mathematics than biology. Maddox criticises biologists, particularly those studying the mechanisms of the cell, for their dislike of predictive models and theories, describing much of their work as cataloguing rather than true science ("Oh look! This protein has this function in that structure! How fun!"). That is a sign of the comparative immaturity and difficulty of their subject - the cell and the human genome, both discussed at some length, are systems involving the interplay of thousands of mechanisms. (Maddox also points out that the main philosophical idea underpinning biology, the theory of evolution, is not predictive in the same way as, say, Einstein's theory of general relativity is. Given an organism and a change in the environment, it cannot tell you how that organism will adapt to meet that change.)
I felt that the section on mathematics betrayed least understanding, and I think that this is due to it being the subject I know best as well as being less congenial to Maddox.
April 17, 2020
This 1998 book from the former editor of Nature, John Maddox, aims to lay out an “an agenda for several decades, even centuries, of constructive discovery” in scientific research. It is an implicit response to John Horgan’s pessimistic “The End of Science”, written a few years earlier (and loathed by many scientists), although Horgan is not mentioned.
As other reviewers have noted, more time is spent in this book on describing what we currently know, rather than what remains to be discovered. Each chapter synthesizes our then-current knowledge of a scientific field, and then notes a few gaps or inconsistencies in our understanding, that could lead to productive research. Maddox notes that “it is possible to tell what loose ends are tangling before us, but not how they will be pulled together.”
This book does not cover all fields of science, but hits most of the big topics: cosmology and the evolution of the universe, particle physics and relativity, the origin of life, cell biology, genetics and evolution, the brain, mathematics, and (in the concluding chapter) some perils that may threaten humanity. I found Maddox’s writing style very appealing, He avoids jargon and complexity of language, yet treats the reader with respect and avoids the awkward attempts at humour and oversimplification that weaken many pop science books. Despite having read more detailed books on most of the fields covered here, I still learned a lot, although of course, some areas have advanced in the twenty years the book was published.
Maddox hits a winner right off the bat with his first problem, where he notes the discrepancies in estimates of the age of the universe. This problem was solved through better observations after the book was published (showing the potential that observation and experimentation still have to improve our scientific knowledge), but it also turned out that one contributing factor in the discrepancy in the age estimates was the fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, due to dark energy, a genuinely new and unexpected finding. I won’t go into detail on the other problems he raises, just noting that some have seen progress in the past two decades and some have not, but there are lots of interesting ideas.
So I’d highly recommend reading both Horgan’s “The End of Science” and this book, but “What Remains to be Discovered” offers a more constructive program for where science will go next.
As other reviewers have noted, more time is spent in this book on describing what we currently know, rather than what remains to be discovered. Each chapter synthesizes our then-current knowledge of a scientific field, and then notes a few gaps or inconsistencies in our understanding, that could lead to productive research. Maddox notes that “it is possible to tell what loose ends are tangling before us, but not how they will be pulled together.”
This book does not cover all fields of science, but hits most of the big topics: cosmology and the evolution of the universe, particle physics and relativity, the origin of life, cell biology, genetics and evolution, the brain, mathematics, and (in the concluding chapter) some perils that may threaten humanity. I found Maddox’s writing style very appealing, He avoids jargon and complexity of language, yet treats the reader with respect and avoids the awkward attempts at humour and oversimplification that weaken many pop science books. Despite having read more detailed books on most of the fields covered here, I still learned a lot, although of course, some areas have advanced in the twenty years the book was published.
Maddox hits a winner right off the bat with his first problem, where he notes the discrepancies in estimates of the age of the universe. This problem was solved through better observations after the book was published (showing the potential that observation and experimentation still have to improve our scientific knowledge), but it also turned out that one contributing factor in the discrepancy in the age estimates was the fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, due to dark energy, a genuinely new and unexpected finding. I won’t go into detail on the other problems he raises, just noting that some have seen progress in the past two decades and some have not, but there are lots of interesting ideas.
So I’d highly recommend reading both Horgan’s “The End of Science” and this book, but “What Remains to be Discovered” offers a more constructive program for where science will go next.
March 21, 2016
Although dated to a certain extant, this book covers what science has found and what is necessary to be found out still. Some things have been figured out or discovered since the books publication. The author did a very good job explaining the science that is currently known (1999) without undue technicalities. I felt my understanding of certain parts of science to have advanced. He also looks at different aspects of the areas he covers.
The author provides coverage of physics, the life sciences, and cognitive science. In physics he discusses cosmology, particle physics including quantum physics and the standard model, and the search for a theory of everything (TOE). In the life sciences he covers the origins of life, evolution, genetics, and embriology. The third part takes a look at cognitive science from two different ways of studying the brain: computer modeling and neuroscience, as well as a chapter on threats to human existence, such as climate change, asteriod or comet strikes, and genetic change. What follows is some of the highlights that impressed me.
In physics the author presents several problems with the big bang theory. One is the need for inflation, a rapid expansion of the universe soon after the intial start. This necessitates multiple universes, which cannot or is not likely to be born out by experiments, among other issues. A dated part of the book is on the speed of expansion of the universe. While he mentions dark matter as an ongoing exploration, he does not mention dark energy, not discovered until after 1999. This was discover when the available type 1a supernovas were observed, and showed that the expansion is actually speeding up, not slowing down, as was thought at the time of the book's publication. On the standard model, it has since gain support due to the discovery of the Higgs boson, theorized to provide mass to the different particles by its associated field. He seems to believe that the search for a (TOE) is misdirected, although he does present the hope that string theory may eventually reveal it.
In life sciences, when discussing the origin of life, the author presents a plausable explanation, and believes that an RNA world could provide the answer. In going over genetics he mentions three things that are dated: the mapping of the human genome, the computer speed and storage neceessary for its analysis, and the total number of genes. The human genome has been mapped ahead of schedule and computers are now vastly faster and storage vastly small. Even with the mapping complete and the computers of today being much more able to provide analysis, the problem of what all these genes actually do still remains. As for the number of genes, it is now known that there are 30,000 genes, not 100,000 as thought at the time of the book. One thing he is big on is the need for computer modeling.
In the final part, the author discusses the problem of human induced global warming and its accompanying climate change. The need for better models was presented. The most interesting thing he touch on for me, which he mentions in the life sciences part, was that the human genome could degrade to the point that humans would become extinct, mainly due to the continue accumulation of junk DNA.
This would be a good book for anyone interested in science. You would see how it works through its history, what it still needs to discover, and some possible surprises to come. The text is on the non-technical side, but it is not dummied down. I would say an intelligent high school student would be able to grasp the book's material.
The author provides coverage of physics, the life sciences, and cognitive science. In physics he discusses cosmology, particle physics including quantum physics and the standard model, and the search for a theory of everything (TOE). In the life sciences he covers the origins of life, evolution, genetics, and embriology. The third part takes a look at cognitive science from two different ways of studying the brain: computer modeling and neuroscience, as well as a chapter on threats to human existence, such as climate change, asteriod or comet strikes, and genetic change. What follows is some of the highlights that impressed me.
In physics the author presents several problems with the big bang theory. One is the need for inflation, a rapid expansion of the universe soon after the intial start. This necessitates multiple universes, which cannot or is not likely to be born out by experiments, among other issues. A dated part of the book is on the speed of expansion of the universe. While he mentions dark matter as an ongoing exploration, he does not mention dark energy, not discovered until after 1999. This was discover when the available type 1a supernovas were observed, and showed that the expansion is actually speeding up, not slowing down, as was thought at the time of the book's publication. On the standard model, it has since gain support due to the discovery of the Higgs boson, theorized to provide mass to the different particles by its associated field. He seems to believe that the search for a (TOE) is misdirected, although he does present the hope that string theory may eventually reveal it.
In life sciences, when discussing the origin of life, the author presents a plausable explanation, and believes that an RNA world could provide the answer. In going over genetics he mentions three things that are dated: the mapping of the human genome, the computer speed and storage neceessary for its analysis, and the total number of genes. The human genome has been mapped ahead of schedule and computers are now vastly faster and storage vastly small. Even with the mapping complete and the computers of today being much more able to provide analysis, the problem of what all these genes actually do still remains. As for the number of genes, it is now known that there are 30,000 genes, not 100,000 as thought at the time of the book. One thing he is big on is the need for computer modeling.
In the final part, the author discusses the problem of human induced global warming and its accompanying climate change. The need for better models was presented. The most interesting thing he touch on for me, which he mentions in the life sciences part, was that the human genome could degrade to the point that humans would become extinct, mainly due to the continue accumulation of junk DNA.
This would be a good book for anyone interested in science. You would see how it works through its history, what it still needs to discover, and some possible surprises to come. The text is on the non-technical side, but it is not dummied down. I would say an intelligent high school student would be able to grasp the book's material.
December 1, 2023
Albeit a little dated, an interesting reflection on where lead scientists of the early 2000s were looking for the next great discoveries. Interestingly, much more progresses has been made in physics than biology if one takes Maddox's perspective.
November 28, 2024
Good read for a summary of the history behind the dominating paradigm of natural phenomena as well as the focus of scientific applications by the end of the 20th century. Interesting read at present to compare how far science has come in a quarter of a century.
December 25, 2013
There is a cornucopian optimism that many of us have when we look at science from a distance which leads to a false optimism about the future; that the revolutions in transport, computing, materials and medicine over the last century will be replicated in the next. And as a result, many of the current problems we face, will be solved by scientific breakthroughs and humanity will continue to progress 'upwards'. There are problems with this picture, one of them addressed by Kaku, namely that it is not a picture given by scientists. An observation I've found interesting is how much science fiction conceived as recently as the 70s, does not foresee the future at all well (which was not necessarily the point of the stories). So, romance aside, have we discovered all there is to know?
This book was written in 1998 and as a result is now a bit dated, but it attempts to address the question. This is evident in the discussion of cosmology, which did not clearly capture the then emerging picture of the accelerating expansion of the universe,which seems like a well established orthodoxy now. Likewise, the Higgs particle has now been confirmed. Many of the big cosmology questions mentioned otherwise seem too big, beyond the horizon science is able to answer, whilst on a smaller scale we continue to learn strange details about planets, stars and galaxies.
A more interesting view on life is presented. In this case, despite the huge advances in unravelling the human genome and the workings of the cell, we have only succeeded to date in naming the parts, and only rudimentary understanding of how the components work together to function. The analogy is to 19th century chemistry, where parts were known but not really how they produced new substances, or 19th century predarwinian biology where much botanising took place to name the species without a means of relating them to one another. There are certainly many questions here, life's origins for one remain obscure, whilst human genetics are also a puzzle, not least because there is potential that our genome is unstable and may not have long left.
Further questions are probed into the nature of consciousness and whether mathematics is absolute or merely a representation of reality, which are more than just philosophical questions. Perhaps more tangibly, threats to the the earth from within (climate change) and without (asteroid impact) are discussed, seriously but with recognition that politics can hinder rather than help find the answers needed.
I was not persuaded that there are many big scientific questions that have not been addressed fairly well already. Of course, it is hard to see outside of existing paradigms, but this may be because we have seen, however dimly, all there is to see. This is not to say that we no longer have much to learn. Rather, I suspect that there are fascinating adventures ahead, but they relate more to engineering and technology, applying the science we know and continue to refine, creatively and meaningfully to enhance our world and our lives. What is also central, but easily overlooked is that science is not separate from social change, and indeed, there is as much about the way we get along with eachother which will have a far greater influence than any scientific discoveries.
So, what remains? An interesting review of scientific progress, and perhaps fewer questions than one might suppose, at least of the kind popularly conceived. But on the other hand, we have a fascinating technology future ahead of us, which will no doubt continue to surprise both young and old.
This book was written in 1998 and as a result is now a bit dated, but it attempts to address the question. This is evident in the discussion of cosmology, which did not clearly capture the then emerging picture of the accelerating expansion of the universe,which seems like a well established orthodoxy now. Likewise, the Higgs particle has now been confirmed. Many of the big cosmology questions mentioned otherwise seem too big, beyond the horizon science is able to answer, whilst on a smaller scale we continue to learn strange details about planets, stars and galaxies.
A more interesting view on life is presented. In this case, despite the huge advances in unravelling the human genome and the workings of the cell, we have only succeeded to date in naming the parts, and only rudimentary understanding of how the components work together to function. The analogy is to 19th century chemistry, where parts were known but not really how they produced new substances, or 19th century predarwinian biology where much botanising took place to name the species without a means of relating them to one another. There are certainly many questions here, life's origins for one remain obscure, whilst human genetics are also a puzzle, not least because there is potential that our genome is unstable and may not have long left.
Further questions are probed into the nature of consciousness and whether mathematics is absolute or merely a representation of reality, which are more than just philosophical questions. Perhaps more tangibly, threats to the the earth from within (climate change) and without (asteroid impact) are discussed, seriously but with recognition that politics can hinder rather than help find the answers needed.
I was not persuaded that there are many big scientific questions that have not been addressed fairly well already. Of course, it is hard to see outside of existing paradigms, but this may be because we have seen, however dimly, all there is to see. This is not to say that we no longer have much to learn. Rather, I suspect that there are fascinating adventures ahead, but they relate more to engineering and technology, applying the science we know and continue to refine, creatively and meaningfully to enhance our world and our lives. What is also central, but easily overlooked is that science is not separate from social change, and indeed, there is as much about the way we get along with eachother which will have a far greater influence than any scientific discoveries.
So, what remains? An interesting review of scientific progress, and perhaps fewer questions than one might suppose, at least of the kind popularly conceived. But on the other hand, we have a fascinating technology future ahead of us, which will no doubt continue to surprise both young and old.
June 24, 2007
John Maddox was the editor of the prestigious science journal Nature for many years, and because of this I hoped that he would have some deep insight into the future directions of science. Unfortunately, his book is almost entirely concerned with explaining the current state of scientific knowledge rather than likely future discoveries. The first 50 pages or so covers physics, but the only field that he seems to believe is worth discussing is astrophysics, such as the dark matter problem. Unhappily for him (and for readers), half of what he writes may have become obsolete a year after publication with the discovery that supernova appear to be accelerating away from us (indicating that the vacuum may have a non-zero energy density). The most interesting section of the book is a discussion of how life, in the sense of a non-trivial self-replicator, may have first arisen. He even includes a simple model of how it might have happened, not as a serious suggestion but rather as a framework for thinking about the problem.
April 7, 2016
There is an old saying about how one should not judge books by their covers. This one justifies a corollary: don't judge a book by its title. "What Remains To Be Discovered" is a very well researched and well written history of science up until its publication date. And it is thoroughly worth reading for what it does well. But what it lacks is any reasonable consideration of scientific discoveries beyond those already on the verge of being published. This is not because its was published in 1998. It is because Maddox never ventures to speculate at all about, well, what remains to be discovered. My hopes were for a bit of insight and what I got was a history lesson. The lesson was happily received, but it left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied.
January 23, 2016
Though slightly aspirational in places (to some extent you can only hypothesize about which important scientific discoveries are 'due', because the majority of future technological advances haven't even been theorised yet) this did also contain a lot of context and explained current scientific doctrine with some clarity. For me, it managed to explain Special Relativity in a way that I understood it a little better (how the usual relationship between force and acceleration doesn't hold true at velocities close to the speed of light) - which was good, even if I have since forgotten it.
August 11, 2016
In many ways it's a highly outdated book (CERN, Human Gemome Project), and in whole it seems to be badly edited, discursive and its's mainly talking about the history of the given field of science. Clearly not a must. The hungarian translation is slobby.
Want to read
December 31, 2008Given to me by CC. will be an interesting read
September 11, 2021
A good book, but with science, things move on. Unavoidably dated.
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