Edge in the News
ZOOM: Edge Question
EL MUNDO — Spain
[1.1.08]
At the beginning of each year is a great event in the Anglo-Saxon culture, or rather, in the social life of that culture...The event is called the Edge Annual Question, bringing together much of the most interesting
Anthropologist Richard Wrangham has introduced a subtle shift in the explanation of the evolutionary history of man: he once believed it to be caused by eating meat, now he believes that the decisive factor is the kitchen, ie, changing from raw to cooked. The response from the musician Brian Eno explains how he went from revolution to evolution, and how he left Maoism for Darwin. ...
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From theories of evolution to differences among races, some scholars' mea culpa are online
LONDON — "When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy, when God changes your mind, that's faith, when facts change your mind, that's science". This is the introduction to the year’s question as posed by a cultural association to which belong the principal thinkers of this moment, from Richard Dawkins, British evolutionary biologist and author of cult book The Selfish Gene, to psychologist Steven Pinker, passing through music producer Brian Eno.
Hundreds responded to the challenge (perhaps in part because the answers to preceding questions were published as books) and revealed widespread reversals of opinions—sometimes dramatic, sometimes gracious.
Even the best minds of this world sometimes have to accept that they were wrong. Scientists to answer the question of Edge Foundation, which they change their mind — and why.
The responses of the intellectuals are personal, sometimes very technical, but also political. They cover a wide range of what people employed: Climate change, the difference between men and women, but also the question of the existence of God.
UN'ASSOCIAZIONE CULTURALE HA CHIESTO A LUMINARI E
FILOSOFI DI RACCONTARE I PROPRI ERRORI
Quando lo scienza confessa: ho sbagliato
Dalle teorie sull'evoluzione alle differenze tra razze,
in rete i mea culpa degli studiosi
LONDRA — «Quando pensare modifica la tua opinione è filosofia, quando Dio ti fa cambiare idea è fede. Quando i fatti ti fanno vedere le cose in modo diverso è scienza». Questa l'introduzione al quesito per l'anno posto da un'associazione culturale cui aderiscono i principali pensatori del momento, da Richard Dawkins, lo zoologo britannico autore del libro culto Il gene egoista e più recentemente L'illusione di Dio, allo psicologo Steven Pinker passando per il musicista produttoreBrian Eno.
Se nel 2006 aveva domandato ai suoi iscritti quale fosse l'idea più pericolosa e nel 2007 su che cosa si sentissero ottimisti, per il 2008Edge (il sito è www.edge.org) ha lanciato una provocazione: su cosa avete cambiato idea? E perché? L'obiettivo era spingere gli scienziati, gli scrittori e i ricercatori che utilizzano regolarmente il sito ad ammettere, in un certo senso, i propri errori.
Centinaia di loro hanno raccolto l'invito (a tanta solerzia ha forse contribuito il fatto che le ultime edizioni delle risposte sono state pubblicate sotto forma di libro), rivelando una gamma di dietro front tra il clamoroso e il simpatico.
At the beginning of each year is a great event in the Anglo-Saxon culture, or rather, in the social life of that culture...The event is called the Edge Annual Question, bringing together much of the most interesting
Anthropologist Richard Wrangham has introduced a subtle shift in the explanation of the evolutionary history of man: he once believed it to be caused by eating meat, now he believes that the decisive factor is the kitchen, ie, changing from raw to cooked. The response from the musician Brian Eno explains how he went from revolution to evolution, and how he left Maoism for Darwin. ...
What did you change your mind about in 2007? The world's intellectual elite spread some New Year humility.When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science.
So goes the preamble to the annual New Year question from online intellectual salon edge.org. Publisher John Brockman has gathered philosophers, scientists, futurists, thinkers and journalists to answer the question, "What have you changed your mind about? Why?"
Since I wrote my piece on this year's show of scientific humility for the New Year's day paper some big names have added their thoughts to the mix.
Here's evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on how being a "flip-flopper" is no bad thing in science:
When a politician changes his mind, he is a "flip-flopper". Politicians will do almost anything to disown the virtue - as some of us might see it - of flexibility. Margaret Thatcher said, "The lady is not for turning." Tony Blair said, "I don't have a reverse gear." Leading Democratic presidential candidates, whose original decision to vote in favour of invading Iraq had been based on information believed in good faith but now known to be false, still stand by their earlier error for fear of the dread accusation: "flip-flopper".
How very different is the world of science. Scientists actually gain kudos through changing their minds. If a scientist cannot come up with an example where he has changed his mind during his career, he is hidebound, rigid, inflexible, dogmatic!
The controversial geneticist Craig Venter has had a change of heart about the capacity of our planet to soak up the punishment humanity is throwing at it:
Like many or perhaps most I wanted to believe that our oceans and atmosphere were basically unlimited sinks with an endless capacity to absorb the waste products of human existence. I wanted to believe that solving the carbon fuel problem was for future generations and that the big concern was the limited supply of oil not the rate of adding carbon to the atmosphere.
The evidence is now "irrefutable" that global warming is caused by humans and is a serious threat, he said.
Our planet is in crisis, and we need to mobilise all of our intellectual forces to save it. One solution could lie in building a scientifically literate society in order to survive. There are those who like to believe that the future of life on Earth will continue as it has in the past, but unfortunately for humanity, the natural world around us does not care what we believe. But believing that we can do something to change our situation using our knowledge can very much affect the environment in which we live.
There are also interesting contributions from Simon Baron-Cohen, the University of Cambridge autism researcher who has changed his mind about equality; psychologist Susan Blackmore, who has gone from embracing the paranormal to debunking it; and artist and composerBrian Eno, who was once seduced by Maoism, but now believes it is a "monstrosity".
What did you change your mind about in 2007?
chrisd writes
"The Edge 2008 question (with answers) is in. This year, the question is: 'What did you change your mind about and why?'. Answers are featured from scientists as diverse as Richard Dawkins, Simon Baron-Cohen, George Church,David Brin, J. Craig Venter and the Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, among others. Very interesting to read. For instance, Stewart Brand writes that he now realizes that 'Good old stuff sucks' and Sam Harris has decided that 'Mother Nature is Not Our Friend.' What did Slashdot readers change their minds about in 2007?"
It takes a lot to admit that you have changed your mind about something but dozens of leading scientists, scholars and intellectuals have done just that for a New York-based website that describes itself as an influential on-line salon for free thinkers.
This year's annual question posed by www.edge.org asks visitors to the site to submit a short explanation to address the issue of what you have changed your mind about and why? Previous questions on the site have been along the lines of, what is your most dangerous idea? And, what are you optimistic about? "When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy. When God changes your mind, that's faith. When facts change your mind, that's science. And science is what's on the minds of the world-class scientists and thinkers on Edge," said John Brockman, the New York literary agent behind the website.
Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist and language expert, said he has changed his mind about whether humans are still evolving. He used to believe people have so isolated themselves from natural selection that evolution had stopped, but now he is not so sure.
"I've had to question the overall assumption that human evolution pretty much stopped at the time of the agricultural revolution," Professor Pinker said. New studies suggest that thousands of genes have been subjected to strong natural selection over the past several thousand years, which means evolution is far from over for man."
David Buss of the University of Texas, an evolutionary psychologist, has changed his mind about the complexity of female sexuality. He now believes women are far more complex and devious in their sexual strategies than he had imagined. "Researchers discovered 28 tactics women use to derogate sexual competitors, from pointing out that her rival's thighs are heavy to telling others that the rival has a sexually transmitted disease," Dr Buss said. "Women's sexual strategies include at least 19 tactics of mate retention, ranging from vigilance to violence and 29 tactics of ridding themselves of unwanted mates, including having sex as a way to say goodbye," he said.
Helena Cronin, a philosopher at the London School of Economics, turns her attention to why men appear far more successful than women, by persistently walking off with the top positions and prizes in life from being heads of state to winning Nobels.
Dr Cronin used to think it was down to sex differences in innate talents, tastes and temperament. But now she believes it has also something to do with the fact that women cluster around a statistical average, whereas men are more likely to be represented at the extreme ends of the normal spectrum both at the top and the bottom.
Some replies to the Edge question ponder the perennial problem of God. Professor Patrick Bateson of Cambridge University has changed his mind on what to call himself after meeting a virulent creationist. He is no longer an agnostic but an atheist. Meanwhile the actor and writer Alan Alda said that he has changed his mind about God twice.
What did you change your mind about in 2007? The world's intellectual elite spread some New Year humility.
James Randerson, science correspondent
Since I wrote my piece on this year's show of scientific humility for the New Year's day paper some big names have added their thoughts to the mix.
Here's evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on how being a "flip-flopper" is no bad thing in science...
The controversial geneticist Craig Venter has had a change of heart about the capacity of our planet to soak up the punishment humanity is throwing at it...
There are also interesting contributions from Simon Baron-Cohen, the University of Cambridge autism researcher who has changed his mind about equality; psychologist Susan Blackmore, who has gone from embracing the paranormal to debunking it; and artist and composerBrian Eno, who was once seduced by Maoism, but now believes it is a "monstrosity".
What did you change your mind about in 2007?
The new year is traditionally a time when people tend to look back and try to work out where it all went wrong – and how to get it right in the future.
This time the Edge Foundation asked a number of leading scientists and thinkers why they had changed their minds on some of the pivotal issues in their fields. The foundation, a chat forum for intellectuals, posed the question: “When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy. When God changes your mind, that’s faith. When facts change your mind, that’s science. What have you changed your mind about? Why?”
The group’s responses covered controversial issues, including climate change, whether God or souls exist and defining when humanity began.
Todd Feinberg
Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the US
“I have come to believe that an individual consciousness represents an entity that is so personal and ontologically unique that it qualifies as something that we might as well call ‘a soul’.”
He previously believed that the notion of a soul was a fanciful religious invention but became convinced that the brain and the mind could be regarded as separate, though dependent, entities. He says that the soul dies with the body.
Daniel Gilbert
Professor of Psychology, Harvard
“Six years ago I changed my mind about the benefit of being able to change my mind. The willingness to change one’s mind is a sign of intelligence, but the freedom to do so comes at a cost.”
In 2002 he and Jane Ebert discovered that people were usually happier with decisions that they could not change because they concentrated on the positive aspects. When thinking about reversible decisions they were more objective. The finding, he said, suggested that marriage could prompt love, so he proposed to his girlfriend: “She said yes, and it turned out that the data were right: I love my wife more than I loved my girlfriend.”
Roger Schank
Psychologist and computer scientist, Engines for Education Inc.
In the 1970s he was convinced that machines as smart as people would be created within his lifetime. But the complexities of human thinking have persuaded him he was wrong. “AI in the traditional sense will not happen in my lifetime nor in my grandson’s lifetime,” he said. “Perhaps a new kind of machine intelligence will one day evolve and be smarter than us, but we are a long way from that.”
Patrick Bateson
Professor of Ethology, Cambridge
A confirmed agnostic, he was converted to atheism after attending a dinner where he tried to converse with a woman who was a creationist.
“For many years what had been good enough for Darwin was good enough for me. Not long after that dreadful dinner, Richard Dawkins wrote to me to ask whether I would publicly affirm my atheism. I could see no reason why not.”
Laurence Smith
Professor of Geography, UCLA
As a believer in global warming, the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and droughts in the US hardened his conviction that man-made climate change was real. “The sea ice collapse changed my mind that it will be decades before we see the real impacts of the warming. I now believe they will happen much sooner.”
Richard Wrangham
Professor of Biology and Anthropology, Harvard University
“I used to think that human origins were explained by meat-eating. In a rethinking of conventional wisdom I now think that cooking was the major advance that turned ape into human. Cooked food is the signature feature of human diet.”
Timothy Taylor
Archaeologist, University of Bradford
“Where once I would have striven to see Incan child sacrifice ‘in their terms’, I am increasingly committed to seeing it in ours,” he said. He felt that relativism had a role to play but should be limited because researchers had a duty to employ moral discrimination when assessing ancient cultures. The Incas, he said, must be understood as having had a sadistic leadership.
Rupert Sheldrake
Biologist, London He came to the conclusion that scepticism was a weapon rather than a virtue after watching creationists employ it to denigrate theories on fossils, natural selection and evolution. “Is this because they are seeking truth? No. They believe they already know the truth. Scepticism is a weapon to defend their beliefs by attacking their opponents.”
Helena Cronin, a philosopher at the London School of Economics, turns her attention to why men appear far more successful than women, by persistently walking off with the top positions and prizes in life — from being heads of state to winning Nobels.
Dr Cronin used to think it was down to sex differences in innate talents, tastes and temperament. But now she believes it has also something to do with the fact that women cluster around a statistical average, whereas men are more likely to be represented at the extreme ends of the normal spectrum — both at the top and the bottom.
Some replies to the Edge question ponder the perennial problem of God. Professor Patrick Bateson of Cambridge University has changed his mind on what to call himself after meeting a virulent creationist. He is no longer an agnostic but an atheist. Meanwhile the actor and writer Alan Alda said that he has changed his mind about God — twice.
What have you changed your mind about? Why?
Posted by Zonk on Tuesday January 01, @12:41PM
from the read-dawkins'-it's-awesome dept. chrisd writes
"The Edge 2008 question (with answers) is in. This year, the question is: 'What did you change your mind about and why?'. Answers are featured from scientists as diverse as Richard Dawkins, Simon Baron-Cohen, George Church, David Brin, J. Craig Venter and the Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, among others. Very interesting to read. For instance, Stewart Brand writes that he now realizes that 'Good old stuff sucks' and Sam Harris has decided that 'Mother Nature is Not Our Friend.' What did Slashdot readers change their minds about in 2007?"
This year's Big Question at Edge from John Brockman, et al., is this, What have you changed your mind about? This is, at least, an interesting question, so I'll start by saying that what I've changed my mind about is whether, in general, the Edge's annual question is worth reading. Okay, sometimes it is.
That said, are any specific answers to this year's Big Question worth reading? Somewhat surprisingly, yes. Granted, some of the answers are just wankery, scientists and others saying that they used to think we wouldn't solve Problem X, and now they think we will, someday, etc. Or, worse yet, there is a passel of up-with-the-environment puffery, where the previously unconverted become carbon holy-rollers.
Forgive me, but I don't care about answers that show how you are getting smarter and smarter, every day. I want to know about real and relevant -- and, ideally, embarrassing-- things about which you changed your mind, and why. Because how smart people convince themselves to do dumb things -- or at least wrong things -- is too important to be turned into an onanistic exercise. And don't even get me started about the number of people who turned this into an exercise in extolling the merits of changing one's mind.
Something that struck me in doing a quick read of the contributions is that one large group who changes their mind all the time is not represented. And that is, of course, anyone to do with capital markets. Imagine asking a question like the above to a successful fund manger, to Jim Rogers, to Philip Carret, Michael Steinhardt, or to Jim Simons. Instead of a long and ponderous answer about a decade-old inconsequential change of heart on an academic inanity, you would get a litany of things, some within the last few hours, of material matters on which they had been dead wrong -- with, sometimes, many millions of dollars in consequences. Investment pros are, in a sense, among the world's foremost experts at changing their mind. I remember talking to Andy Kessler a year or so ago about this, about how important it is to remain totally flexible and uncommitted in capital markets.
So, what would I say in response to this question? Well there is the cutesy grad-school essay-ready response I gave above about the question itself. And there is, of course, the age-old dilemma about whether ballad bands can do speed metal music, as opposed to vice-versa, but I'll leave that aside momentarily.
There are so many things I've changed my mind about I've lost track, and the pace is picking up. I don't even know where to begin. For example, I was dead wrong about Apple stock for years, to the point that early on I called iPod a fad and said some silly things about how if Apple's share price was above the then level I would eat my column. That was stupid, and I changed my mind and publicly flipped a year or so later, in time to ride along with Apple on its current advance. Why was I wrong? Because, in short, I got stuck using the past as a lens -- a mistake, as Warren Buffett has said, because if the past were such a good predictor all the best investors would be librarians -- and assumed that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would always fumble new product launches, forgetting that a context switch had happened, with Jobs' Apple finally going from weakness (business sales) to strength (consumer products).
I used to take much more pride in working things through, coming to a firm conclusion, and sticking to it. No longer. Like Billy Pilgrim, I feel increasingly unstuck in time, with everything more tenuous, and with it much more important to change my mind, and to do it quickly and with less overwhelming data than I might have tried to obtain in the past. At least as importantly, it's easy to wander from firm convictions to utter inflexibility, and, at least as a prophylactic to the latter, it's better to err on the side of flexible convictions.
Sadly, however, what I have not changed my mind about is citizens of this planet's capacity to do the same. In particular, the current political season in the U.S. is utterly depressing, with horrible, pandering, unthinking views getting more play than anything even remotely rational. If anything, people feel more fixed in unfalsifiable world views, whether built on faith or superstition or pride or ignorance, the result is the same: A planet of people who should all change their mind about important things much more often, but don't.
Here are a couple worth reading. Feel free to add more.
- Economist Dan Kahneman on the aspiration treadmill
- Clay Shirky on science and religion
- Nassim Taleb on .... nothing (okay, incomplete, but I still like the semiotic pun)
And who do I wish was on the list? Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Lloyd Blankfein, Stan O'Neal, Angelo Mozilo, Jim Cramer, Rupert Murdoch, and many, many others.
...I eventually offered some ideas and he jumped on one: my skepticism about the term "social software" after Clay Shirky's "Social Software Summit" in November 2002. As it turns out, Clay was right and I was wrong. This was a powerful meme indeed, just five years early.
Here's what I wrote for the 2008 Edge question. As I suspected, it's a meager offering at a remarkable feast of the intellect. Use it, if you must, as an entry point to an amazing group of reflections on science, culture, and the evolution of ideas. Reading the Edge question is like being invited to dinner with some of the most interesting people on the planet.
What have you changed your mind about, and why? John Brockman’s Edge put the question to over a hundred scientists and scholars...more»
The changes of mind that gave philosophers and scientists new insights
James Randerson, science correspondent
They are the intellectual elite, the brains the rest of us rely on to make sense of the universe and answer the big questions. But in a refreshing show of new year humility, the world's best thinkers have admitted that from time to time even they are forced to change their minds.
When tackling subjects as diverse as human evolution, the laws of physics and sexual politics, scientists and philosophers, includingSteven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Paul Davies and Richard Wrangham, all confessed yesterday to a change of heart.
The display of scientific modesty was brought about by the annual new year's question posed by the website edge.org, which drew responses from more than 120 of the world's greatest thinkers.
They are some of the world’s most introspective philosophers and rabble-rousing clerics. A few write searing works of fiction and uncover the mysteries of the human mind. Others are at the forefront of modern finance, politics, and human rights. In the second Foreign Policy/Prospectlist of top public intellectuals, we reveal the thinkers who are shaping the tenor of our time.
[ED. NOTE: Among the FP/Prospect Top 100 list are 10 ten Edgecontributors. Congratulations to Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett,Jared Diamond, Howard Gardner, Neil Gershenfeld, Daniel Kahneman,Steven Pinker, V.S. Ramachandran, Lee Smolin, J. Craig Venter, E.O. Wilson]
What have you changed your mind about, and why? John Brockman’s Edge put the question to over a hundred scientists and scholars... more»
It's becoming something of a New Year ritual. For almost a decade, the website www.edge.org has been asking a selection of eminent thinkers and scholars to answer a single question and publishing the results on 1 January.
In the past it has presented such posers as "What do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?" and "What is the most important invention of the past 2,000 years?"
This year Edge wanted to know: "What have you changed your mind about and why?" As usual, it's a good question. And the responses of the likes of Steven Pinker and Helena Cronin are as fascinating and weighty as one would imagine.
But we cannot help wishing that some of that formidable bank of grey matter could be pointed in a more mundane direction too from time to time.
Could this stellar brains-trust not be asked to tackle a few supplementary questions? We can think of a few. How about: "Why did Network Rail schedule extensive engineering works over the busy Christmas holiday period?" And: "What is it about England and penalties?" While we're at it how about a definitive answer to: "Why did the chicken cross the road?" And finally: "What is it about the evening of 31 December that compels us to stay up too late, pay more than is reasonable for services and drink more than is sensible?"
While you're pondering on that, we would like to wish all our readers a very happy and (suitably questioning) New Year.
IN BRIEF: What Are You Optimistic About?
THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
[12.31.07]
To non-scientists, it may not be obvious that science tends to be an optimistic endeavour. While academics working in the arts or humanities may be more equivocal abut the state of the world, those working in science tend to be hopeful, at least about furthering the limits of human knowledge and the possibilities of what can be known in the future. These are essentially optimistic goals.
What Are You Optimistic About? is a collection of essays from "the world’s leading scientists and thinkers" addressing the 2007 annual question posed by John Brockman on his website www.edge.org. Like its predecessors from previous years, it covers an impressively wide range of topics, including the futures of religion, the origins of the universe, climate change, neuroscience, human relationships, medicine, artificial intelligence, communications and psychology, among others. Inevitably, many important ideas get brief, superficial discussion, but as a whole the collection provides an overview of where the work in a number of interesting fields is heading, and makes both engaging and consoling predictions about the future. As Brockman is careful to articulate in his introduction, not all of these things will come to pass, but some certainly will.
Almost all the contributions are written by scientists or at least "thinkers in the empirical world": people Brockman considers to be the new intellectuals of modern culture. Steven Pinker explains why the decline in violence in the world will continue; Dan Sperber considers altruism on the web; and Oliver Morton writes on how solar energy can save the planet. A number of these essays assert confidently that we are living in a time of shifting paradigms, but they rarely agree on precise terms, and some hopes for the future openly contradict others. The most memorable moments in the collection do not come from ambitious contributions on the showstopper science of torpedoed religion, cancer cures and climate reversals. Instead they come when the contributors address wider hopes for human ingenuity, our capacity for progress and problem-solving. The edge question for 2008 is: what have you changed your mind about? This will surely provoke another stimulating array of responses, profiling issues and ideas where recent data are challenging preconceptions and highlighting the topics on the brink of breakthrough and development
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