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
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
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)
Bloomsday Tribute to James Joyce, Greatest Mind-Scientist Ever