Introduction
By John Brockman

Much of Colin Renfrew's early work was in the field of European prehistory, looking at processes of culture change, and he came to realize that many of the diffusionist ideas current in the fifties and sixties were based on assumptions which undervalued the originality and the creativity of the cultures of prehistoric Europe. Innovations were often seen as originating in the Near East and spreading to Europe by a process of diffusion.

But fortunately the radiocarbon revolution confirmed that many European innovations were of earlier date than their supposed Near Eastern prototypes. More recently he looked at comparable assumptions surrounding the question of the Indo-European languages and other aspects of the early cultures of Europe which were often ascribed to the effects of incoming Indo-European tribes supposedly arriving at the beginning of the bronze age. This has led to a wider interest in the prehistory of languages, and the implications which the distribution of language families in the world carry for our understanding of the prehistoric past.

Introduction
By John Brockman

Brian Goodwin looks on biology as an exact science, and sees the "new biology" less as a historical science than as an enterprise similar to physics in its emphasis on principles of order. He represents the structuralist approach, which resonates with D'Arcy Thompson's idea that evolutionary variation is constrained by structural laws; not all forms are possible. These ideas are now connected with new principles of dynamic emergence from complex systems, as developed within the sciences of complexity. Goodwin is strongly opposed to the reductionist view of the ultra-Darwinians, and much more comfortable with the complexity ideas of Stuart Kauffman and with Francisco Varela's holistic approach to biology. In this interview he explores the need to develop ways of perceiving and understanding wholes that are required within a science of qualities.

—JB

 We create tools and we are molded by our use of them. In our lifetime technology has changed the world as it changes our minds. Consider the great power in new imaging techniques made possible through technological development. One example: during the moon landing in the late '60s I recall the stunning televised image of the earth as seen from the moon: night and day at the same time -- all times all the time -- no matter what the time. And my watch told me the correct time was 3 pm.

A generation later, the advent of the PC and the current communications revolution are changing our worlds and our minds to such an extent that the biggest change is the rate of change. Nowhere is this more evident than in the graphical imaging power of today's desktop machines.

Corbis is a company whose headquarters is outside Seattle in Bellevue, Washington. They also have offices in New York and London. The business is building a digital visual library, and it's an endeavor that's been underway for almost 7 years. According to Doug Rowan, president of Corbis, it has accelerated quite a bit in the last three years, and the company ended 1996 with nearly one million high resolution photographs richly catalogued in the library.

The central concept of Corbis is to provide a very rich set of digital visual images that attempt to capture the entire human experience throughout history, so it includes such diverse topics as fine art, science, nature, technology, wild life, history, celebrity, sports, etc. Corbis licenses pictures for people to use in print and electronic publishing and produces CD-ROM products such as "Leonardo da Vinci", "FDR", and "The Passion for Art."

Doug Rowan, president and CEO of Corbis, worked for 22 years at IBM in a variety of marketing positions. He left IBM 12 years ago and since that time has worked in several companies which did imaging on the desktop. It was that 12 years and that journey that gave him an obsession with the technology of digital content, and the way that digital content is going to change communication. He was an engineer who got drawn into sales and marketing, and he's been returning to technology every since.  

Lee Smolin: The idea of inflation has probably been the most influential idea in cosmology in the last fifteen years, and it's Alan's idea. It's an idea that hasn't entirely convinced me, and I'm not alone in this, but it's had an enormous effect on everybody's thinking.?

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ALAN GUTH is a physicist; Victor F. Weisskopf Professor of Physics at MIT; author of The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins, forthcoming, 1997.

Alan Guth's Edge Bio Page

Lee Smolin: Roger Penrose is the most important physicist to work in relativity theory except for Einstein. He's the most creative person and the person who has contributed the most ideas to what we do. He's one of the very few people I've met in my life who, without reservation, I call a genius. Roger is the kind of person who has something original to say—something you've never heard before—on almost any subject that comes up.

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ROGER PENROSE is a mathematical physicist; the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford; author of Techniques of Differential Topology in Relativity (1972), Spinors and Space-time, with W. Rindler, 2 vols. (1984, 1986), The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics (1989), Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness (1994) (with Stephen Hawking), The Nature of Space and Time (1996); coeditor with C.J. Isham and Dennis W. Sciama of Quantum Gravity 2: A Second Oxford Symposium (1981), and with C.J. Isham of Quantum Concepts in Space and Time (1986). Roger Penrose's Edge Bio Page