Dennis Overbye Retiring – Watts Up With That?

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.”

….

“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.”

….

“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.”

….

“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.”

….

“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.”

….

“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.”

….

“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.”

….

“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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