Future Science: Essays from the Cutting Edge

by Max Brockman (Editor)

In this fascinating collection of writings that introduce the very latest theories and discoveries in science, editor Max Brockman presents the work of some of today’s brightest and most innovative young researchers. 
 
Future Science features eighteen young scientists, most of whom are presenting their work and ideas to a general audience for the first time. Included in this collection are

* William McEwan, a virologist, discussing his research into the biology of antiviral immunity

* Naomi Eisenberger, a neuroscientist, wondering how social rejection affects us physically

* Jon Kleinberg, a computer scientist, showing what massive datasets can teach us about society and ourselves

* Anthony Aguirre, a physicist, who gives readers a tantalizing glimpse of infinity

“ Future Science shares with the world a delightful secret that we academics have been keeping—that despite all the hysteria about how electronic media are dumbing down the next generation, a tidal wave of talent has been flooding into science, making their elders feel like the dumb ones. . . . It has a wealth of new and exciting ideas, and will help shake up our notions regarding the age, sex, color, and topic clichés of the current public perception of science.”
—Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Essays, Futurism, Psychology, Audiobook, Philosophy

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a compilation of 19 graduate and post-doc researchers' essays on a wide variety of topics; no sales pitch to cheapen or unify them.

[Ovidiu Neatu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Îi zice "Știința viitorului" dar un nume mai potrivit ar fi fost "Știința prezentului". Volumul nu își propune să descrie eu știu ce știință a viitorului ci vorbește despre experimente relativ recente și mai puțin de o anticipare a ceea ce ar putea deveni știința în viitor, deci titlul cărți este cam impropriu.

Dacă titlul nu se chiar potrivește cu conținutul nu înseamnă că este o carte de slabă calitate - e chiar contrariul. E vorba de o colecție de articole scrise de cercetători relativ tineri, destul de diversă, dar o marea majoritate se încadrează în neuroștiințe-psihologie-evoluție și prezintă experimente efectuate cu ajutorul tehnicilor de scanare ale creierului (fMRI). Multe din ele încearcă să răspundă la întrebări de genul: este altruismul înăscut? există vreo asemănare între durerea fizică și "durerea" pe care o resimțim la diferite evenimente din viața noastră socială? ce se întâmpla la nivelul creierului când luam decizii morale?. Mai sunt articole care discută pe marginea altor teme,dar mai puțin decât topicul sus menționat: genetică, un articol de fizică și restul articolelor sunt mai degrabă interdisciplinare.

Există un articol interesant legat de posibilitatea existenței vieții pe Europa scris de Kevin P. Hand. Individul a mai apărut în câteva documentare și a fost consilier științific la recent apărutul film, Europa Report.

Până acuma e cea mai bună carte pe care am citit-o din colecția "Anticipația" de la Nemira - de menționat că am mai citit Almanahul Anticipatia 2013, Lumea-după-Google și cărțuliile din seria CPSF, ce a mai rămas din colecție până acuma e doar ficțiune.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave up about 75% in as my brother took an interest in the book that I had long since lost. Billing itself as a series of essays by relatively young scientists working on the cutting edge of their fields, the back cover blurb mentions an interesting range of topics. Unfortunately the content doesn't reflect that at all. The vast majority of it is on mind and brain research and a smattering of other essays turn up on plant disease resistance, theoretical physics and analysis of large data sets. Unfortunately the neuroscience stuff tends to put me to sleep. Otherwise, a reasonably good set of essays, with a fairly high degree of variance in quality from one to the other.

[Skip (David) Everling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Brockman's other Edge Foundation based books, this one has lots of good, thought provoking essays. Quite a few from psychologists, I was pleased to discover. Naomi Eisenberger's essay on the science of rejection was very intriguing, in particular the finding that painkillers like Tylenol will also lessen the essentially physical pain of social rejection. Not every essay was as stimulating, but each author offered some insight into an interesting question.

I listened to the audiobook edition and very much enjoyed the multiple narrators for the different essays.

[Brendan · Rating 2 out of 5]

the best part was the Perdomo painting on the cover

[samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely explored some really interesting ideas and topics. Was very slow and took me an extremely long time.

[Kerem Cankocak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bu kitapta gezegen bilimciler, astrobiyologlar, bilişsel bilimciler, fizikçiler, biyologlar, evrenbilimciler, nörologlar, nörobiyologlar bilimin günümüzde ulaştığı sınırı gözler önüne sererken, yakın gelecekte bu alanlarda ne gibi gelişmeler beklediğimizi anlatıyorlar. Yazarlar, güneş sisteminde (ve evrende) başka yerlerde hayat olasılıkları, insan özgeciliğinin evrimsel kökenleri, antiviral bağışıklık biyolojisi, evrenin sonsuzluğun test edilebilirliği, stresin zihin ve vücut üzerindeki etkileri, internet çağında oluşturduğumuz muazzam veri gruplarından anlam çıkarmanın yöntemleri gibi çok çeşitli konularda okurun ufkunu açıyorlar.

“Gelecekte Bilim, biz akademiklerin sakladığı sırları açıklıyor...Tamamen yeni ve heyecan verici fikirlerle dolu... her yaştan ve cinsiyetten okurun bilim hakkındaki görüşlerini derinden sarsıyor.”
– Steven Pinker, Boş Sayfa’nın yazarı

Editör
MAX BROCKMAN
YAZARLAR
Kevin P. Hand, Felix Warneken, William McEwan,
Anthony Aguirre, Daniela Kaufer, Darlene Francis,
Jon Kleinberg, Coren Apicella, Laurie R. Santos,
Samuel M. McClure, Jennifer Jacquet,
Kirsten Bomblies, Asif A. Ghazanfar,
Naomi I. Eisenberger, Joshua Knobe,
Fiery Cushman, Liane Young,
Daniel Haun, Joan Y. Chiao

[Popa Mariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

O colectie de lucrari stiintifice. Unele dintre ipoteze deja s-au concretizat, acum dupa 8 ani de la scrierea cartii. Mi-a placut! Omenirea merge intr-o directie de neimaginat. Poate ar trebui sa citim mai mult SF. 🙂

“Explorarea oceanelor - descoperirea orasului pierdut
Copiii mici sunt dornici sa depuna eforturi pentru a se implica in ajutorarea celorlalti.
Adn-ul produce Arn, care produce proteina.
Cut si paste la nivel molecular - stiinta vaccinurilor
Medicamente in tratatea cancerului folosesc deja fuziunea domeniilor proteice.
Teoria relativitatii a lui Einstein - toti observatorii vor fi de acord doar asupra vitezei luminii

Diferentele dintre oameni sunt determinate de gene si de mediul in care au crescut.

Stresul poate afecta profund dezvoltarea neuronala la inceputul vietii, in perioada de extrema maleabilitate a creierului. Pe parcursul acestei ferestre temporale in dezvoltarea individului, neuronii cauta conexiuni in afara lor si formeaza conexiuni intre ei, pe baza stimulilor, alcatuind astfel retelele neuronale fundamentale ce vor influenta tiparele cognitive de-a lungul intregii vieti. Stresul timpuriu conduce la frica exagerata, anxietate.

Kuhn argumenteaza ca cercetarea este o incercare plina de inversunare si devotament, de a inghesui natura in cutiutele noastre conceptuale pe care ni le-a furnizat educatia profesionala.
Contagiune sociala. Se analizeaza cauzalitatea si predictibilitatea pentru a sti dinainte ce melodii, filme, carti vor avea succes, ce candidati politici vor atrage un sprijin larg, ce localitati urbane vor deveni iconice. Piesele invingatoare par sa aiba o insemnata conponenta accidentala.

Stiinta a contestat recent vechiul adagiu conform caruia frumusetea e in ochiul privitorului. Atractivitatea este sau nu legata de sanatate si/sau succesul in reproducere? In cadrul aceleiasi culturi sau in mai multe culturi, in ceea ce priveste preferintele in materie de atractivitate e posibil sa se datoreze expunerii repetate la standardele occidentale de frumusete.

Dependenta fata de punctul de referinta si aversiunea fata de pierdere pot fi la fel de adanc inradacinate in noi ca si unele dintre tendintele noastre cognitive evoluate. Cu unele schimbari subtile in folosirea cuvintelor si in definirea cadrului situatiei, ne putem modifica felul in care abordam instinctiv o problema si putem ajunge sa percepem optiunea cea mai rationala intr-un mod mai intuitiv.
Schimbarea propriului punct de referinta poate fi o strategie straveche, dobandita pe firul evolutiei, dar in acelasi timp e o tactica inteligenta. Si, asa cum v-ar spune orice jucator de golf, daca va uitati cu atentie, puteti gasi intotdeauna un putt mai prost.

Economistii si cei care fac jocurile politice au nevoie de metode eficiente pentru a-si cantari alegerile, astfel incat sa conceapa politici eficiente care sa promoveze economiile pentru pensie si sa incurajeze totodata cheltuielile la un nivel care sa mentina cresterea economica.
Satisfactia este strategia lui destul de bun. Daca o anumita procedura este explicata din perspectiva pierderilor, o vom evalua diferit fata de situatia in care ar fi abordata din punctul de vedere al castigului.
Deliberarea si puterea vointei sunt proprietati fundamentale ale procesului decizional.

A incerca sa vezi ce fac ceilalti este o parte fundamentala a firii umane. Sentimentul ca esti privit face sa se intensifice cooperarea, ca si capacitatea de a-i privi pe ceialalti.

Calea cea mai rodnica de a ibtele adaptarea imunitatii plantelor la temperaturi inalte va fi, probabil, investigatea solutiilor pe care ele le-au gasit in mod natural, prin evolutie, pentru a-si activa sistemul de aparare in conditii de temperatura mai ridica.

Creierul nostru, ca si aparatele de radio AM, face parte dintr-un sistem mai amplu (emitator, receptat de creierul unui ascultator, amplifacat de miscari faciale)

Toate maimutele mari non-umane prefera sa localizeze obiectele in raport cu peisajul din jur, mai degraba decat in relatie cu propriul corp.

La copiii oamenilor, aceasta tendinta de a se concentra pe mijloace(“asa se face”) apare in al doilea an de viata si atinge punctul de maxim intre trei si cinci ani, perioada in care, in mod esential, ei vor imita nediscriminatoriu orice le arata persoanele care au grija de ei, chiar si atunci cand actiunea demonstrata este - in privinta rezultatelor - in mod clar inferioara unei alternative evidente. Aceasta tendinta comportamentala conduce la o mai rapida si mai precisa adaptare a repertorului cultural specific.

Ca o concluzie, ideea pe care o sustin aici este aceea ca maturizarea lenta a creierului uman, angajarea de timpuriu in comportamente comunicationale, copierea fara discernamant a unui comportament, discriminarea in raport cu grupurile din afara si comportamentul nostru in general, specific mai degraba unei turme de oi sociale, ne pregatesc intr-un mod unic pentru a manifesta variatiile pe care le constatam la specia noastra pe intreg cuprinsul globului.

Indivizii cu o alela scurta a genei transportatoare de serotonina sunt predispusi la emotii negative, inclusiv la anxietate marita si inclinatia spre a capta mai ales informatii negative; ei prezinta de asemenea o puternica predispozitie spre depresie in fata stresurilor majore ale vietii, cum ar fi conflictele interpersonale, pierderile sau amenintarile.

Prin noile descoperiri ale stiintei, invatam permanent ca diversitatea umana este, probabil, cel mai pretios dar - oamenii se reinventeaza mereu si mereu, in maniere ce le permit adaptarea la mediul cultural cu care vin in contact direct.”

[Chanuwas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good set of essays representing intriguing research topic, even though most of them pay attention to psychology and neuroscience. I personally find some essays difficult to comprehend and also some of them are contentious because some conclusions seem to ignore other possibilities. Anyway they are interesting researches to read and you will be fascinated :)

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good hammock reading. A lot of fun thought experiments that pursue, as one of the essayists put it, "Squishy science." As fun for the rest of us to contemplate as it the scientists and researchers whose hard science make these flights possible.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, science magazine style book for passing the time on a lazy afternoon. I read it this Sunday while my husband watched golf.

[Dan Bernstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book contains essay covering many many topics, but they are within a smaller subset of science, mainly psychology and space. I would have preferring a little more variety.

[Subin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure that the title of the book suits the contains as all of the essays were about current research rather than future science. Probably the title is because all authors are postdoctoral researchers who are in the course of becoming leading scientists soon. The essay topics includes astronomy, biology, brain science, behavior science but psychology was the dominant topic; I would have loved to see more essays on physics and chemistry.

[Eduardo Hoppenstedt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Since it was published in 2011, it is now more like a "Present Science" book, but amazing, with diverse essays from so many different disciplines, all of them fascinating.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Should have called much of it ‘Questionable Science’

[G A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not many books around with reading scientific papers.

[Jerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huge variation in quality of essays with bad assumptions leading nowhere (Next Step: Infinity), but some are really worthwhile as in On The Coming Age of Ocean Exploration.

[Nick Carraway LLC · Rating 3 out of 5]

1) "As noted, the behavior of our little subjects did not seem to be driven by the expectation of praise or material reward. In several studies, the children's parents weren't in the room, and thus the helping cannot be explained by their desire to look good in front of Mom. In one study, children who were offered a toy for helping were no more likely to help than those chlidren who weren't. In fact, material rewards can even have a detrimental effect on helping: During the initial phase of another experiment, half the children received a reward for helping and the other half did not. Subsequently, when the chlidren again had the opportunity to help out but now without a reward being offered to those in either group, the children who had been rewarded initially were less likely to help spontaneously than the children from the no-reward group. This perhaps surprising result suggests that children's helping is intrinsically motivated rather than driven by the expectation of material reward."
- Felix Warneken, "Children's Helping Hands"

2) "This afternoon I received in the post a slim FedEx envelope containing four small vials of DNA. The DNA had been synthesized according to my instructions in under three weeks, at a cost of 39 U.S. cents per base pair (the rungs adenine-thymine or guanine-cytosine in the DNA ladder). The 10 micrograms I ordered are dried, flaky, and barely visible to the naked eye, yet once I have restored them in water and made an RNA copy of this template, they will encode a virus I have designed."
- William McEwan, "Molecular Cut and Paste: The New Generation of Biological Tools"

3) "The results indicated a strong role for accidental outcomes. When Player A chose the stingy die but it came up generous, on average Player B responded by rewarding her. And when Player A chose the generous die but it came up stingy, on average Player B responded by punishing her. Statistical analysis showed that Player B paid attention both to Player A's intentions and to the outcome of the roll but that outcomes mattered slightly more. It's behavior like this that puts the 'luck' into moral luck. Our impulse to punish somebody who causes harm to us sometimes depends on nothing more than a roll of the dice."
- Fiery Cushman, "Should the Law Depend on Luck?"

4) "As we hypothesized, we found that TMS to the control region made no difference in either experiment. However, TMS to the RTPJ made a significant difference in both experiments: moral judgments were based less on mental states and therefore more on outcomes. TMS to the RTPJ did not reverse moral judgments; attempted harms (harmful intent, neutral outcome) were still judged morally worse than accidents (neutral intent, harmful outcome). Crucially, though, disrupting RTPJ activity led to more lenient judgments of failed attempts to harm, based on the neutral outcome, and harsher judgments of accidents, based on the harmful outcome."
- Liane Young, "How We Read People's Moral Minds"

5) "Cross-cultural studies have demonstrated that humans from different cultural backgrounds might disagree about which of two lines is longer, whether green and blue are the same color, whether a pile of seven coins is smaller than a pile of eight, and whether a twig is to the left or the north of a pebble. It seems that even some of the most basic domains of human thought---spatial orientation, color perception, numbering---vary cross-culturally."
- Daniel Haun, "How Odd I Am!"

6) "In sum, my argument is that humans' slow brain maturation, their early communicative engagements, their unreflective copying of behaviors, their arbitrary discrimination against out-groups, and their general behavior as social sheep uniquely prepare them to display the intriguing variability we see in our species around the globe. This is not to say that conformism and prejudice are right and good. I do, however, argue that they are a part of being human and that they might help explain some differences between us and other animals. At the same time, I hope that understanding the origin and causes of these characteristics will help us overcome them occasionally."
- Ibid.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, a relatively snappy read, and occasionally some wonderful insights into current research. If, however, you're not particularly interested in neuroscience, you're going to find it a bit of a slog. The back of half of the book in particular seems almost exclusively focused on studies discussing various closely related issues in human psychology (including two - consecutive - near-indistinguishable essays on human morality). My personal favourite essay was William McEwan's "Molecular Cut-and-Paste", but I guess as a biochemist I'm pretty biased in that regard, and topic-wise it did seem fairly isolated in a sea of human psychology essays.
Still, as I say, it's generally a pretty easy read, which is no mean feat for science writing, and especially so for a book like this - a book that attempts (and succeeds!) to clearly communicate cutting-edge science is rare, even if it it does tail off toward the end.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this collection of essays on impulse at the Ann Arbor book festival a few years ago. It ended up being one of my road trip books over Christmas, and it was excellent for that purpose. I could read an essay or two to my husband when he wanted some distraction while driving but then not feel bad about reading on without him when he'd rather listen to music of have silence.

Like pretty much any collection of essays, I found that one fell flat for me and that a couple covered similar ground in a way that was repetitive, but overall I really enjoyed this collection. Most of the essays were strong, I learned new things about a wide variety of scientific disciplines, and several things I learned have entered into some of my everyday conversation. A solid collection.

[Mary Helene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can imagine a wide variety of situations where one might want to skim this book first for topics to talk about - long car rides, extended airport waits, constrained dinner parties where one wants to stay away from discussions of politics or religion. Since reading this collection of essays, I've summarized 4 or 5 of them to start animated discussions of what discovering water on another planet might mean, how behavior might be inherited and how we make decisions about punishment. Feeling dull? Read one of these essays.

[Gunderhaegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of essays from the forefront of science today is a fun read. The 10-page essays were written by enormously talented young researchers from top universities around the (mostly western) world. A majority of the authors do an admirable job of describing their area in an appetizing manner. My main gripe is the distribution of scientific areas. I'm as interested in behavioural science and neuroscience as the next scientist, but I think the editor could have found some cutting edge science in the not unimportant areas of science like physics, chemistry and medicine.

[orion_black · Rating 2 out of 5]

Como todo buen pesimista, no poseo una opinión de la especie humana particularmente elevada. Es por ello que me gusta leer sobre ciencia, pues me muestra la cara menos pedestre de la humanidad, una cara que hasta cierto punto me lleva a tener "esperanza".

El único problema con el libro es la inconstancia en la calidad de los ensayos, pues mientras unos te muestran una perspectiva fascinante otros se quedan en meros comentarios técnicos.

[Corinna Bechko · Rating 3 out of 5]

The essays were for the most part quite interesting, but they were far from varied. Perhaps 80% of this book was devoted to (human) psychology, neuroscience, and the study of diseases. The scant representation from other fields seemed out of place and lost. I had picked my copy up hoping for a broader array of disciplines and grew a bit weary of reading about people by the time I finished it. If you find humans fascinating though, this is the book for you.

[Steven Yenzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting if somewhat narrow range of essays by scientists about their work. I wish the collection hadn't been so focused on neurology, psychology, etc. There was very little beyond those fields. However, a lot of the content was very interesting, especially that focused on the evolutionary origins and sources of social constructs like shame. I love the idea of scientists writing about their cutting-edge work for a popular audience; I just wish the range of topics had been broader.

[Nikolai Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the essays were incredible, kept me up at night, and inspired long Wikipedia adventures. Some of the essays made me rethink the very idea of publicly funded research. The overabundance of soft science in this book made me wonder two things: a) are we no longer capable, as a society, of solving big problems? b) who picked out these stupid essays?

[LemontreeLime · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audiobook, which i suspect is why it ended up being really hard for me to focus on. The subjects of the essays were fascinating, but when it comes to science - sometimes physically reading it on your own makes retention of the material better. But still, this was an ambitious set of essays across the gamut of studies.

[Dave Garnand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful little essays that point to where we are heading in understanding ourselves and our world. This are short, quick reads a la Scientific American, teasers. If you love executive summaries of fascinating topics, this is a great little read. I stress: short writings.

[Pedro Plassen Lopes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Positive side : some of the topics shake some established pre-conceptions giving that 'why... why not?' feeling
Negative side : too many essays delve on sociology/psychology/anthropology areas. Science is more than that

[Kareen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good compilation of scientific essays from various fields. I like that the essays were written by young scientists whose voices and ideas would normally be buried under the stuffy, restrictive channels of academia.