| "WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND
ABOUT?" |
Was
läuft hier richtig?
Der neue Optimi
smus
der Wissenschaften kommt gerade zur rechten Zeit
RALF
BÖNT |
C'est la double question posée par John Brockman, éditeur
de Edge à plus de 160 "penseurs de la troisième
culture, ces savants et autres penseurs du monde empirique
qui, par leur travail ou leurs écrits prennent la
place des intellectuels traditionnels en rendant visibles
les sens profonds de nos vies, en redéfinissant autant
qui nous sommes que ce que nous sommes".
Ça change des unes constamment catastrophiques
de nos médias habituels. |
But when the scientific thinkers look beyond their own specializations
to the big picture, they continue to find cause for cheer — foreseeing
an end to war, for example, or the simultaneous solution
of our global warming and energy problems. The most general
grounds for optimism offered by these thinkers, though,
is that big-picture pessimism so often proves to be unfounded. |
 Global
warming, the war on terror and rampant consumerism getting
you down? Well, lighten up: here, 17 of the world's smartest
scientists and academics share their reasons to be cheerful |
Brockman's respondents were forward-looking, describing
cutting-edge research that will help combat global warming
and other looming problems. |
How Doomed Are We?
Edgie's Chris
Anderson of TED and Robert
Provine of University of Maryland as
the proponents of optimism on program concerning
Optimism and the Doomsday Clock |
a titillating
compilation |
Peering into their crystal telescopes, the world's leading
scientists see a magnificent future |
El foro virtual Edge propone buscar razones, no simplemente
deseos, para el optimismo. Edge es un club que reúne,
segén ellos mismos, algunas de las mentes más
interesantes del mundo. Su propósito es estimular
discusiones en las fronteras del conocimiento. La intención
es llegar al borde del conocimiento mundial, acercándose
a las mentes más complejas y refinadas, juntarlas
en un foro y hacerlos que se pregunten las preguntas
que ellos mismos se hacen. La fundación actúa,
de este modo, como surtidora de problemas y alojamiento
de réplicas. Cada ano se constituye como Centro
Mundial de Preguntas. |
God bless those upbeat scientists |
Looking
through rose-colored microscopes
Why some scientists are optimistic
about the future
|
One way or another the answers should give you a warm
glow — either because you agree, or because they
make you angry. |
Edge's future-themed article is making some news....
From the lips of contributors to the online magazine
Edge to God's ears (one wonders if She or It may be listening):
dozens of scientists and other thinkers have looked ahead
to the future. |
a Web site that aims to bridge the gap between scientists
and other thinkers |
[E]ven in the face of such threats as global warming and
religious fundamentalism, scientists remain positive about
the future. |
People's fascination for religion and superstition will
disappear within a few decades as television and the internet
make it easier to get information, and scientists get closer
to discovering a final theory of everything, leading thinkers
argue today. |
What are you optimistic about? Why? Tons of brilliant thinkers
respond. |
 What
Are You Optimistic About?
Posted by Hemos on Monday January 01, @08:43AM
from the explain-yourself dept. |
Intellectual impresario John Brockman puts his annual
Edge question to
leading thinkers. |
What are you optimistic about? Intellectual
impresario John Brockman puts his annual Edge question
to leading thinkers...
|
[A]ccording to Edge — the heady website for world-class
scientists and thinkers, and the brainchild of author and
entrepreneurial idea man, John Brockman, there's good news
ahead. |
KYUNG HANG (Soeul)
The
great
world-wide
scholars
talk
about
their
'dangerous
ideas'.
|
Most of the contributors appear to have
interpreted "dangerous" as
meaning something like "subversive," challenging
to one or another received orthodoxy. |
Meine
gefährlichste Idee. Seit nunmehr
neun Jahren startet die Stiftung Edge
mit einer Umfrage zu einem großen
generellen Thema ins neue Jahr. |
Crónicas
Bárbaras Ciencia racista, atractiva
pero muy peligrosa. |
(Sydney)
Into the minds of the believers. With
the aim of gathering ideas from the
world's leading thinkers on intellectual,
philosophical, artistic and literary
issues, US writer John Brockman established
The Edge Foundation in 1988. |
Royal
Society president Martin Rees said the
most dangerous idea was public concern
that science and technology were running
out of control. |
Audacious
Knowledge. What is a dangerous idea?
One not assumed to be false, but possibly
true?What do you believe is true even
though you cannot prove it?" |
Seductive
power of a hazardous idea. The responses
to Brockman's question do not directly
engage with each other, but they do worry
away at a core set of themes. |
Academics
see gene cloning perils, untamed global
warming and personality-changing drugs
as presenting the gravest dangers for
the future of civiliztion |
Risky
ideas; What do scientists currently regard
as the most dangerous thoughts? |
Be
Afraid. Edge.org canvassed scientists for
their "most dangerous idea." David
Buss, a psychologist at the University
of Texas, chose "The Evolution of
Evil." |
The
most dangerous idea. Brockman's challenge
is noteworthy because his buddies include
many of the world's greatest scientists:
Freeman Dyson, David Gelertner, J. Craig
Venter, Jared Diamond, Brian Greene. |
Dangerous
Ideas About Modern Life. Free will does
not exist. We are not always created
equal. Science will never be able to
address our deepest concerns. |
Genome
sequencing pioneer Craig Venter suggests
greater understanding of how genes influence
characteristics such as personality,
intelligence and athletic capability
could lead to conflict in society. |
The
wilder shores of creativity. He asked
his roster of thinkers [...] to nominate
an idea, not necessarily their own, they
consider dangerous not because it is
false, but because it might be true. |
From cloning to predetermination of sex:
the answers of investigators and philosophers
to a question on the online salon Edge. |
Who
controls humans? God? The genes? Or nevertheless
the computer? The on-line forum Edge
asked its yearly question — and
the answers raised more questions. |
La
pregunta de l'any. La web Edge.org penjarà l'1
de gener la pregunta de l'any. La del
2005 va ser resposta per 120 ments de
l'anomenada 'tercera cultura', que van
reflexionar sobre l'enunciat "Què creus
que és veritat tot i no poder-ho
demostrar?" |
THE HANKYOREH (Seoul)
 |
The
117 respondents include Richard Dawkins,
Freeman Dyson, Daniel Dennett, Jared
Diamond — and that's just the
D's! As you might expect, the submissions
are brilliant and very controversial. |
Gene
discoveries highlight dangers facing
society. Mankind's increasing understanding
of the way genes influence behaviour
and the issue's potential to cause ethical
and moral dilemmas is one of the biggest
dangers facing society, according to
leading scientists. |
Why
it can be a very smart move to start
life with a Jewish momma: There is one
dangerous idea that still trumps them
all: the notion that, as Steven Pinker
describes it, "groups of people
may differ genetically in their average
talents and temperaments". For "groups
of people", read "races." |
The
Earth can cope with global warming, schools
should be banned and we should learn
to love bacteria. These are among the
dangerous ideas revealed by a poll of
leading thinkers. |
Science
can be a risky game, as Galileo learned
to his cost. Now John Brockman asks over
a hundred thinkers, "What is your
most dangerous idea?" |
"Our
brains are constantly subjected to the
demands of multi-tasking and a seemingly
endless cacophony of information from
diverse sources. " |
Very
complex systems — whether organisms,
brains, the biosphere, or the universe
itself — were not constructed by
design; all have evolved. There is a
new set of metaphors to describe ourselves,
our minds, the universe, and all of the
things we know in it. |
John
Brockman Blogs Edge's Annual
Question on Huff Po |
What We
Believe but Cannot Prove: Today's
Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty
Edited
by John
Brockman
Introduction
by
Ian
McEwan |
|
| The
natural gift of consciousness should be treasured
all the more for its transience. |
|
The
answers...exert an un- questionable morbid
fascination — those are the very ideas
that scientists cannot confess in their technical
papers. |
|
"Fate
largo alle «beautiful minds» di
Roberto Casati;;
"La
terza cultura di John Brockman" di
Armando Massarenti |
|
God
(or Not), Physics and, of Course, Love: Scientists
Take a Leap: Fourteen scientists ponder everything
from string theory to true love. |
|
| Space
Without Time, Time Without Rest: John Brockman's
Question for the Republic of Wisdom — It
can be more thrilling to start the New Year
with a good question than with a good intention.
That's what John Brockman is doing for the
eight time in a row. |
|
| What
do you believe to be true, even though you
can't prove it? John Brockman asked over a
hundred scientists and intellectuals... more» ...
Edge |
|
That's
what online magazine The Edge — the
World Question Center asked over 120 scientists,
futurists, and other interesting minds. Their
answers are sometimes short and to the point |
|
| Science's
Scourge of Believers Declares His Faith
in Darwin... |
|
| Singolare
inchiesta in usa di un sito internet. Ha chiesto
ai signori della ricerca di svelare i loro "atti
di fede". Sono arrivate le risposte piu'
imprevedibili i fantasmi dello scienziato:
non ho prove ma ci credo. |
|
| To
celebrate the new year, online magazine Edge asked
some leading thinkers a simple question:
What do you believe but cannot prove? Here
is a selection of their responses... |
|
| Scientists
dream too — imagine that |
|
"Fantastically
stimulating ...Once
you start, you can't stop thinking about that
question. It's like the crack cocaine of the
thinking world." — BBC Radio 4 |
|
| Scientists,
increasingly, have become our public intellectuals,
to whom we look for explanations and solutions.
These may be partial and imperfect, but they
are more satisfactory than the alternatives. |
|
Bangladesh — The
cynic and the optimist, the agnostic and
the believer, the rationalist and the obscurantist,
the scientist and the speculative philosopher,
the realist and the idealist-all converge
on a critical point in their thought process
where reasoning loses its power. |
|
Il
Sole 24 Ore-Domenica Segnalate le vostre
cuioosita, chiederemo riposta alle persone
piu autorevoli |
|
| "So
now, into the breach comes John Brockman, the literary
agent and gadfly, whose online scientific salon,
Edge.org, has become one of the most interesting
stopping places on the Web. He begins every year
by posing a question to his distinguished roster
of authors and invited guests. Last year he asked
what sort of counsel each would offer George W.
Bush as the nation's top science adviser. This
time the question is "What's your law?" |
|
| "John
Brockman, a New York literary agent, writer and
impresario of the online salon Edge, figures it
is time for more scientists to get in on the whole
naming thing...As a New Year's exercise, he asked
scores of leading thinkers in the natural and social
sciences for "some bit of wisdom, some rule
of nature, some law-like pattern, either grand
or small, that you've noticed in the universe that
might as well be named after you." |
|
| "John
Brockman has posted an intriguing question on his
Edge website. Brockman advises his would-be legislators
to stick to the scientific disciplines." |
|
| "Everything
answers to the rule of law. Nature. Science. Society.
All of it obeys a set of codes...It's the thinker's
challenge to put words to these unwritten rules.
Do so, and he or she may go down in history. Like
a Newton or, more recently, a Gordon Moore, who
in 1965 coined the most cited theory of the technological
age, an observation on how computers grow exponentially
cheaper and more powerful... Recently, John Brockman
went looking for more laws." |
|
|
| "In
2002, he [Brockman] asked respondents to imagine
that they had been nominated as White House science
adviser and that President Bush had sought their
answer to 'What are the pressing scientific issues
for the nation and the world, and what is your
advice on how I can begin to deal with them?'Here
are excerpts of some of the responses. " |
|
| "Edge's
combination of political
engagement and blue-sky thinking
makes stimulating reading
for anyone seeking a glimpse
into the next decade." |
|
"Dear
W: Scientists Offer
President Advice on Policy" |
|
"There
are
84
responses,
ranging
in
topic
from
advanced
nanotechnology
to
the
psychology
of
foreign
cultures,
and
lots
of
ideas
regarding
science,
technology,
politics,
and
education." |
|
| "Brockman's
thinkers of the 'Third Culture,'
whether they, like Dawkins,
study evolutionary biology
at Oxford or, like Alan Alda,
portray scientists on Broadway,
know no taboos. Everything
is permitted, and nothing
is excluded from this intellectual
game." |
|
"The
responses are generally
written in an engaging,
casual style (perhaps encouraged
by the medium of e-mail),
and are often fascinating
and thought — provoking....
These are all wonderful,
intelligent questions..." |
 |
| "We
are interested in ‘thinking smart,'" declares
Brockman on the site, "we are not interested
in the anesthesiology of ‘wisdom.'" |
|
"INSPIRED
ARENA: Edge has been bringing together the world's
foremost scientific thinkers since 1998, and
the response to September 11 was measured and
uplifting." |
|
| "Responses
to this year's question are deliciously creative...
the variety astonishes. Edge continues
to launch intellectual skyrockets of stunning
brilliance. Nobody in the world is doing what Edge is
doing." |
|
"Once
a year, John Brockman of New York, a writer
and literary agent who represents many scientists,
poses a question in his online journal, The
Edge, and invites the thousand or so people
on his mailing list to answer it." |
 |
"Don't
assume for a second that Ted Koppel, Charlie
Rose and the editorial high command at the New
York Times have a handle on all the pressing
issues of the day.... a lengthy list of profound,
esoteric and outright entertaining responses. |
The
Greatest Inventions of the Past 2,000 Years
Edited
by John
Brockman
|
|
| "A terrific, thought provoking site." |
|
| "The
Power of Big Ideas" |
|
| "The
Nominees for Best Invention Of the Last Two Millennia
Are . . ." |
 |
"...Thoughtful and often surprising answers
....a fascinating survey of intellectual and
creative wonders of the world ..... Reading
them reminds me of how wondrous our world is." — Bill Gates, New York Times Syndicated
Column |
|
