Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth
Baggott got the idea to write
Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth and become a science activist when watching the
BBC program
What is Reality. In his opinion, the program started out well, but became what he calls "fairy tale physics" when it included interviews with theoretical physicists who talked about such ideas as
multiverse,
superstring theory, and
supersymmetry. These topics, according to Baggott, are fascinating to read about and are an entertaining way to make documentaries, sell books, or spend time at parties, but are "abstracted, theoretical speculation without any kind of empirical foundation" and "not science".
Farewell to Reality is Baggott's attempt to counteract the "fuzzy science theory" and advocate for evidence and facts. Baggott states, "When you start asking 'Do we live in a hologram?' Then you are crossing into
metaphysics, and you are heading down the path of allowing all kinds of things that have no evidence to back it up, like
creationism." Science writer
Philip Ball, in a review of
Farewell in
The Guardian, stated that Baggott was right "although his target is as much the way this science is marketed as what it contains." Ball cautioned Baggott about criticising scientists who speculate because "conjecture injects vitality into science." Baggott, along with
Jon Butterworth,
Hilary Rose and Stephen Minger, discussed the idea of futurist science theories with
BBC Radio 4 interviewer
Allan Little. They discussed the likelihood that string theory and other theories that have yet to show empirical data will eventually be proved. Baggott expressed concern that "a body of professional theorists want to change the definition of what it means to do science". He feels that empirical data provides an anchor for these people to "return to reality" and that science without evidence is "most dangerous". ==
Beyond Measure==