Any stance we take towards the Singularity is one of distance and scepticism; the appropriate response to any teleology, no matter how grounded in rationality its authors and its followers claim. The mode of engagement to the concept is an assessment, not an acceptance, in the spirit of critical rationality.
John Horgan's rejection is an unsuitable stance, as engagement with the argument is dismissed for a portrayal of irrationality, structured as a chiliastic movement, no different from the Rapture. How can this description, presenting Kurzweil in the role of prophet, be true, wrapped in the opposition of Horgan? His critique fails a test of rationality: providing some meritorious proof that the Singularity movement approximates a blind faith in scientism.
The nearest that Horgan provides is scepticism on the scientific foundations of the new technology. In areas of such uncertainty, uncertainty is the best response. Even here Horgan has a searchlight amongst the pathways of the unknowable:
Actually, the major trend in both neuroscience and genetics over the past decade or two has been the discovery of deeper and deeper levels of complexity, which have thwarted medical applications. This theme emerged in several Times articles that bracketed its lengthy pro-Kurzweil press release. An excellent two-part report by Nicholas Wade and Andrew Pollack exposed how the decoding of the human genome has yielded little or no medical payoff. "Ten years after President Bill Clinton announced that the first draft of the human genome was complete, medicine has yet to see any large part of the promised benefits," Wade wrote. He added that "after 10 years of effort, geneticists are almost back to square one in knowing where to look for the roots of common disease.".
Not exactly the premise given in other sources, where the outcome of tis complexity and our understanding of oncology becomes a positive, not a negative. This piece will temper one's scepticism with sympathy for the Singularitarians. Their goal seems much more humanistic than this arid pitch.