What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable

Couverture
Harper Collins, 13 oct. 2009 - 336 pages

The world's leading scientific thinkers explore bold, remarkable, perilous ideas that could change our lives—for better . . . or for worse . . .

From Copernicus to Darwin, to current-day thinkers, scientists have always promoted theories and unveiled discoveries that challenge everything society holds dear; ideas with both positive and dire consequences. Many thoughts that resonate today are dangerous not because they are assumed to be false, but because they might turn out to be true.

What do the world's leading scientists and thinkers consider to be their most dangerous idea? Through the leading online forum Edge (www.edge.org), the call went out, and this compelling and easily digestible volume collects the answers. From using medication to permanently alter our personalities to contemplating a universe in which we are utterly alone, to the idea that the universe might be fundamentally inexplicable, What Is Your Dangerous Idea? takes an unflinching look at the daring, breathtaking, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter our world and the way we live in it.

Contributors include
Daniel C. Dennett • Jared Diamond • Brian Greene • Matt Ridley • Howard Gardner and Freeman Dyson, among others

 

Table des matières

PREFACE
We Have No Souls
David Buss
Groups of People May Differ Genetically in Their Average Talents
Marionettes on Genetic Strings
Being Alone in the Universe
We Are Entirely Alone
The Idea That We Understand Plutonium
A Grand Narrative
Bertrand Russells Dangerous Idea
We Will Understand the Origin of Life Within the Next Five Years
Marco Iacoboni
Brains Cannot Become Minds Without Bodies
More Anonymity Is Good
Using Medications to Change Personality
Choosing the Sex of Ones Child

The Fight Against Global Warming Is Lost
Our Planet Is Not in Peril
The Human Brain Will Never Understand the Universe
Droits d'auteur

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À propos de l'auteur (2009)

The publisher of the online science salon Edge.org, John Brockman is the editor of Know This, This Idea Must Die, This Explains Everything, This Will Make You Smarter, and other volumes.

Informations bibliographiques