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‘Skeptics’ Guide to the Future’ is a grounded look ahead

What can we REALLY know about what’s to come?

As a long-time listener and Patreon supporter of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe (SGU) podcast team, I was glad to see them expand their media empire into books. Many people grow up with insufficient education in critical thinking or an understanding of the processes  we call “science,” and find themselves adrift among families of conspiracy theorists or those whose grasp of reality is otherwise untethered for various philosophical reasons.

The SGU’s first book, published in 2018, was timely. Even if you’re on board with the general concepts, it’s was still great to have a single volume you can give to people looking for gateway tools to sharpen their critical thinking skills.

Are we getting a Star Trek future, or are we getting Black Mirror? Maybe it’s some of both.

In their second book, the trio of brothers Steven, Jay, and Bob Novella offer The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future: What Yesterday’s Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow. It’s easy to get bogged down when we muse about the future with constant bad news, trying to assess what’s legit and what’s not. One way to cope with that is to spend time thinking about some of the better possible paths, and understand which ones are reality-based and which are pure science fiction, to spend some time imagining what’s to come. Are we getting a Star Trek future, or are we getting Black Mirror? Maybe it’s some of both.

Broken into five parts, with each chapter covering a specific topic, you don’t have to read Skeptics’ Guide to the Future all at once. The chapters stand independently, so you can pick them up and dive into a topic when you have a chance. The failures of past futurists are explored to provide humility about the difficulty of the predictions. Somewhat more speculative technology and its possible barriers are discussed. Rounding out the book is space travel and many concepts from science fiction. Which sci-fi gadgets are the most likely? Energy shields? Invisibility cloaks? Phasers? Lightsabers? Tricorders? Time travel TARDIS? No spoilers here.

Skeptics’ Guide to the Future also explores the technology of our past and present — from biology to engineering, transportation to materials science, AI and quantum computing, and more — with the critical thinking skills the SGU crew have honed on their weekly podcast. The authors have crafted a text that’s part James Burke’s Connections, part where-we-stand today, and part sci-fi fandom, extrapolating in a science-based way to consider the future of technology, while also pouring cold fusion on ideas that will always defy the “pesky laws of physics”. Although I do admit to enjoying the vision of a GMO cat with wings.

As a biologist, some of the tech, like genetic engineering, is deeply familiar to me, but even I was surprised at the possibility of sweet-smelling farts. Still, when I got to unfamiliar concepts like the space elevator, I was confident that the authors’ grasp of the issues would get me up to speed on the basics, and fairly evaluate the likelihood of the tech coming into use. Spiced with short fictional stories about future humans interacting with future technology, overall the book provided some nice mental exercises that straddle the gap between now and then.

We should all share the SGU team’s enthusiasm for the future and the desire for the realism on the paths there.

One itch that I kept wanting to see scratched, though, was the social and cultural barriers to adoption of many of the technologies. In the section on stem cells, for example, it’s noted that some sociocultural pushback has affected progress. Other than that, culture war issues are essentially ignored. The fact that almost all topics carry both a “utopian” and a “dystopian” path forward is mostly met with a shrug, and the awareness that tech “booby traps” are possible. But Skeptics’ Guide to the Future at least provides our foundation for a wrestling match with these ideas from a platform of solid information.

We should all share the SGU team’s enthusiasm for the future and the desire for the realism on the paths there. The future that will roll out before us will test many of these options, so it’s good to have some knowledge of the road signs and potholes to watch for, while knowing we’re probably not going to get that flying car.

The best summary of Skeptics’ Guide to the Future might come from p. 316 of the book itself:

There are some ideas worth exploring because they are interesting, not because they are plausible, and such ideas are most in need of some heavy skepticism when trying to imagine future technology.

Every February, to help celebrate Darwin Day, the Science section of AIPT cranks up the critical thinking for SKEPTICISM MONTH! Skepticism is an approach to evaluating claims that emphasizes evidence and applies the tools of science. All month we’ll be highlighting skepticism in pop culture, and skepticism *OF* pop culture. 

AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.

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