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Edge Question
This Idea Is Brilliant: Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know – An MIT Technology Review Best Book on Science
The latest volume in the bestselling series from Edge.org—dubbed “the world’s smartest website” by The Guardian—brings together 206 of the world’s most innovative thinkers to discuss the scientific concepts that everyone should know.
As science informs public policy, decision making, and so many aspects of our everyday lives, a scientifically literate society is crucial. In that spirit, Edge.org publisher and author of Know This, John Brockman, asks 206 of the world’s most brilliant minds the 2017 Edge Question: What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?
Contributors include: author of The God Delusion RICHARD DAWKINS on using animals’ “Genetic Book of the Dead” to reconstruct ecological history; MacArthur Fellow REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN on “scientific realism,” the idea that scientific theories explain phenomena beyond what we can see and touch; author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics CARLO ROVELLI on “relative information,” which governs the physical world around us; theoretical physicist LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS on the hidden blessings of “uncertainty”; cognitive scientist and author of The Language Instinct STEVEN PINKER on “The Second Law of Thermodynamics”; biogerontologist AUBREY DE GREY on why “maladaptive traits” have been conserved evolutionarily; musician BRIAN ENO on “confirmation bias” in the internet age; Man Booker-winning author of Atonement IAN MCEWAN on the “Navier-Stokes Equations,” which govern everything from weather prediction to aircraft design and blood flow; plus pieces from RICHARD THALER, JARED DIAMOND, NICHOLAS CARR, JANNA LEVIN, LISA RANDALL, KEVIN KELLY, DANIEL COLEMAN, FRANK WILCZEK, RORY SUTHERLAND, NINA JABLONSKI, MARTIN REES, ALISON GOPNIK, and many, many others.
547 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 16, 2018
About the author
John Brockman
68 books619 followersJohn Brockman is an American literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He established the Edge Foundation, an organization that brings together leading edge thinkers across a broad range of scientific and technical fields.
He is author and editor of several books, including: The Third Culture (1995); The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years (2000); The Next Fifty Years (2002) and The New Humanists (2003).
He has the distinction of being the only person to have been profiled on Page One of the "Science Times" (1997) and the "Arts & Leisure" (1966), both supplements of The New York Times.
He is author and editor of several books, including: The Third Culture (1995); The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years (2000); The Next Fifty Years (2002) and The New Humanists (2003).
He has the distinction of being the only person to have been profiled on Page One of the "Science Times" (1997) and the "Arts & Leisure" (1966), both supplements of The New York Times.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
December 16, 2019
Edge or no edge - a fun walk in the garden of ideas, overused and niche ones.
Ideas that I love:
- The Longevity Factor
- The Illusion of Explanatory Depth
- Synaptic Transfer
- Emergence
- Babylonian Lottery
- Referential Opacity
- Antagonistic Pleiotropy
- Transcriptome
- Fallibilism
- Equipoise
- Ansatz
- Homophily
- Lenghth-biased sampling
- Construal
- Bisociation
- Decentering
- Verbak overshadowing
- Liminality
- Non-ergodic
Other nifty stuff:
Q:
If you asked 100 people on the street if they understand how a refrigerator works, most would say yes. But ask them to produce a detailed, step-by-step explanation of exactly how, and you’d likely hear silence or stammering. This powerful but inaccurate feeling of knowing is what Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil in 2002 termed the illusion of explanatory depth (IOED), stating, “Most people feel they understand the world with far greater detail, coherence, and depth than they really do.” (c)
Q:
“Like all men in Babylon, I have been proconsul; like all, I have been a slave.”
—Jorge Luis Borges, Lottery in Babylon
The lottery in Babylon begins as a simple game of chance. Tickets are sold, winners are drawn, a prize awarded. Over time, the game evolves. Punishments are doled out alongside prizes. Eventually the lottery becomes compulsory. Its cadence increases, until the outcomes of its drawings come to underpin everything. Mundane events and life turns are subject to the lottery’s “intensification of chance.” Or perhaps, as Borges suggests, it’s the lottery’s explanatory power that grows, as well as that of its shadowy operator, the Company, until all occurrences are recast in light of its odds.
“Babylonian lottery” is a term borrowed from literature, for which no scientific term exists. It describes the slow encroachment of programmatic chance, or what we like to refer to today as “algorithms.”
Today, as in Babylon, we feel the weight of these algorithms. They amplify our product choices and news recommendations; they’re embedded in our financial markets. While we may not have direct experience building algorithms—or, for that matter, understand their reach, just as the Babylonians never saw the Company—we believe them to be all-encompassing. (c)
Q:
“Non-ergodic” is a fundamental but too little known scientific concept. Non-ergodicity stands in contrast to “ergodicity.” “Ergodic” means that the system in question visits all its possible states. In statistical mechanics, this is based on the famous “ergodic hypothesis,” which, mathematically, gives up integration of Newton’s equations of motion for the system. Ergodic systems have no deep sense of “history.” Non-ergodic systems don’t visit all their possible states. In physics, perhaps the most familiar case of a non-ergodic system is a spin glass that breaks ergodicity and visits only a tiny subset of its possible states—hence, exhibits history in a deep sense.
Even more profound, the evolution of life in our biosphere is deeply non-ergodic and historical. The universe won’t create all possible life-forms. This, together with heritable variation, is the substantial basis for Darwinism, without yet specifying the means of heritable variation, whose basis Darwin did not know. Non-ergodicity gives us history. (c)
Ideas that I love:
- The Longevity Factor
- The Illusion of Explanatory Depth
- Synaptic Transfer
- Emergence
- Babylonian Lottery
- Referential Opacity
- Antagonistic Pleiotropy
- Transcriptome
- Fallibilism
- Equipoise
- Ansatz
- Homophily
- Lenghth-biased sampling
- Construal
- Bisociation
- Decentering
- Verbak overshadowing
- Liminality
- Non-ergodic
Other nifty stuff:
Q:
If you asked 100 people on the street if they understand how a refrigerator works, most would say yes. But ask them to produce a detailed, step-by-step explanation of exactly how, and you’d likely hear silence or stammering. This powerful but inaccurate feeling of knowing is what Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil in 2002 termed the illusion of explanatory depth (IOED), stating, “Most people feel they understand the world with far greater detail, coherence, and depth than they really do.” (c)
Q:
“Like all men in Babylon, I have been proconsul; like all, I have been a slave.”
—Jorge Luis Borges, Lottery in Babylon
The lottery in Babylon begins as a simple game of chance. Tickets are sold, winners are drawn, a prize awarded. Over time, the game evolves. Punishments are doled out alongside prizes. Eventually the lottery becomes compulsory. Its cadence increases, until the outcomes of its drawings come to underpin everything. Mundane events and life turns are subject to the lottery’s “intensification of chance.” Or perhaps, as Borges suggests, it’s the lottery’s explanatory power that grows, as well as that of its shadowy operator, the Company, until all occurrences are recast in light of its odds.
“Babylonian lottery” is a term borrowed from literature, for which no scientific term exists. It describes the slow encroachment of programmatic chance, or what we like to refer to today as “algorithms.”
Today, as in Babylon, we feel the weight of these algorithms. They amplify our product choices and news recommendations; they’re embedded in our financial markets. While we may not have direct experience building algorithms—or, for that matter, understand their reach, just as the Babylonians never saw the Company—we believe them to be all-encompassing. (c)
Q:
“Non-ergodic” is a fundamental but too little known scientific concept. Non-ergodicity stands in contrast to “ergodicity.” “Ergodic” means that the system in question visits all its possible states. In statistical mechanics, this is based on the famous “ergodic hypothesis,” which, mathematically, gives up integration of Newton’s equations of motion for the system. Ergodic systems have no deep sense of “history.” Non-ergodic systems don’t visit all their possible states. In physics, perhaps the most familiar case of a non-ergodic system is a spin glass that breaks ergodicity and visits only a tiny subset of its possible states—hence, exhibits history in a deep sense.
Even more profound, the evolution of life in our biosphere is deeply non-ergodic and historical. The universe won’t create all possible life-forms. This, together with heritable variation, is the substantial basis for Darwinism, without yet specifying the means of heritable variation, whose basis Darwin did not know. Non-ergodicity gives us history. (c)
October 30, 2020
More people need to read this book. No matter what the topic, whether you have a good technical grasp of it or have never heard of it before, this book is almost guaranteed to make you think on a deeper level without spoon-feeding you hundreds of pages of superfluous basics to increase page count. Ideas are put forward in short well written chapters and just enough information is provided so that you GET the concept; you are then free to choose whether to further research the topic at your own convenience or pursue the next interesting idea a page or two away.
February 5, 2025
This volume brings together 206 responses to Edge.org’s 2017 question: “What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?”
Respondents ranged from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Brian Eno, Carlo Rovelli and Jared Diamond to individuals with far lower public profiles. The length of the responses are short, anywhere from a few paragraphs to a couple of pages. Most of the responses are intended to gently encourage readers to think more deeply about a topic, although others are more strident about its significance.
It has taken me over 6 months to work my way through this, and I have to say that by the end I had forgotten much of what I read at the beginning, even when I found the idea stimulating at the time I read it. My appreciation for the authors’ comments came more readily on topics I am more familiar with (e.g. randomized controlled trials), and I’ve retained those concepts more consistently.
In the end, 206 thought-provoking ideas was probably just too much for me. Maybe I will dip into it again from time to time and focus on one or two at a time but I’m OK to let it rest for now.
Respondents ranged from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Brian Eno, Carlo Rovelli and Jared Diamond to individuals with far lower public profiles. The length of the responses are short, anywhere from a few paragraphs to a couple of pages. Most of the responses are intended to gently encourage readers to think more deeply about a topic, although others are more strident about its significance.
It has taken me over 6 months to work my way through this, and I have to say that by the end I had forgotten much of what I read at the beginning, even when I found the idea stimulating at the time I read it. My appreciation for the authors’ comments came more readily on topics I am more familiar with (e.g. randomized controlled trials), and I’ve retained those concepts more consistently.
In the end, 206 thought-provoking ideas was probably just too much for me. Maybe I will dip into it again from time to time and focus on one or two at a time but I’m OK to let it rest for now.
July 5, 2022
I listened to this, but also have the ebook. Excellent narration, but text is mandatory as the short (1-2 pages) essays are often dense & need some studying. For instance, one essay is about "comparative advantage" which discusses tariffs & trade, not something I'm normally too interested in, but I took notice over the simplified example of just how specialization can make even the poorer of two reciprocating trade partners richer. It was brilliant & opened a whole new avenue of thought for me.
The sheer number of essays also requires breaks. There are 175 of them & each is thought provoking. I was surprised how interesting I found almost all of them even though some were fairly esoteric, but they were usually basic principles for the various fields, some spanning many. Any practicing scientist might do well to read this as it would open new avenues of thought within their own field.
Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think is my current text read & its claims are bolstered by quite a few of the essays in this book. Diverse scientists mention how his writing made them change the way they view their own fields. That's great for me since I'm something of a fan & it reinforces my belief in the importance of this book.
Highly recommended to one & all.
The sheer number of essays also requires breaks. There are 175 of them & each is thought provoking. I was surprised how interesting I found almost all of them even though some were fairly esoteric, but they were usually basic principles for the various fields, some spanning many. Any practicing scientist might do well to read this as it would open new avenues of thought within their own field.
Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think is my current text read & its claims are bolstered by quite a few of the essays in this book. Diverse scientists mention how his writing made them change the way they view their own fields. That's great for me since I'm something of a fan & it reinforces my belief in the importance of this book.
Highly recommended to one & all.
September 19, 2018
No matter who you are or where you're coming from, this should be a must-read.
It doesn't require much in the way of any scientific background, prior knowledge level, or anything. BUT it does highlight, in a long series of short essays, the most important thinking we've probably glossed over or never looked carefully at.
As a whole, this non-fiction builds one hell of a glorious picture. Just from core ideas explained clearly, these numerous essays range from something as simple as the need for us all to remember how to COUNT, or knowing Numerical Significance, all the way to the concept of Epigenetics, Semiotics, or an honest plethora of other awesome ideas.
The point here is not to dive deep into any, but at least understand what they are so as to more richly inform ourselves so we might apply THESE SAME IDEAS across all fields.
For me, this is the essence of creativity and righteous thinking. We need to cross-pollinate ideas. Every field grows richer with new thinking. And that includes all us laymen or writers or just plain thinkers.
I enjoyed this book immensely for that reason. :) I think I might need to subscribe to the Edge to get more of this stuff. :)
It doesn't require much in the way of any scientific background, prior knowledge level, or anything. BUT it does highlight, in a long series of short essays, the most important thinking we've probably glossed over or never looked carefully at.
As a whole, this non-fiction builds one hell of a glorious picture. Just from core ideas explained clearly, these numerous essays range from something as simple as the need for us all to remember how to COUNT, or knowing Numerical Significance, all the way to the concept of Epigenetics, Semiotics, or an honest plethora of other awesome ideas.
The point here is not to dive deep into any, but at least understand what they are so as to more richly inform ourselves so we might apply THESE SAME IDEAS across all fields.
For me, this is the essence of creativity and righteous thinking. We need to cross-pollinate ideas. Every field grows richer with new thinking. And that includes all us laymen or writers or just plain thinkers.
I enjoyed this book immensely for that reason. :) I think I might need to subscribe to the Edge to get more of this stuff. :)
January 16, 2023
Edge.org is the online science forum sometimes described as the world’s smartest website with not only science people, but philosophers, psychologists, artists, musicians, economists, historians and writers of all stripes among its contributors. Every year its founder, John Brockman, issues an Annual Question and for 2017 it was “What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?” This book collects together 205 of the resulting short essays.
Broadly speaking these are grouped together into themes. For example, one series, about the value of understanding very simple mathematics, explores our ability (or lack of it) to assess risk competently, particularly financial risk, to hold credible political opinions, to understand the daily news and avoid being conned in general. The book covers a lot of ground—other essay headings include: The Illusion of Explanatory Depth, Intellectual Honesty, Relative Deprivation, Deliberate Ignorance, Emotion Contagion and Humility.
Overall it’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are some that sound as if they’re aimed more at the other contributors here, rather than us readers—as if their authors were trying to outdo one another (e.g. using highly specialised terminology with no explanation whatsoever). But equally there are others which I really did find thought-provoking—Anthony Aguirre’s essay about information theory and the nature of reality in particular.
Broadly speaking these are grouped together into themes. For example, one series, about the value of understanding very simple mathematics, explores our ability (or lack of it) to assess risk competently, particularly financial risk, to hold credible political opinions, to understand the daily news and avoid being conned in general. The book covers a lot of ground—other essay headings include: The Illusion of Explanatory Depth, Intellectual Honesty, Relative Deprivation, Deliberate Ignorance, Emotion Contagion and Humility.
Overall it’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are some that sound as if they’re aimed more at the other contributors here, rather than us readers—as if their authors were trying to outdo one another (e.g. using highly specialised terminology with no explanation whatsoever). But equally there are others which I really did find thought-provoking—Anthony Aguirre’s essay about information theory and the nature of reality in particular.
June 3, 2019
This is a collection of short definitions/vingettes for many interesting terms, collected by Edge.org. The articles are on the extremely broad array of subjects: economics, physics, linguistics, psychology, medicine, environment, etc. They are collected in this book but also can be accessed for free on the website. Here are several articles I found interesting to name just a few:
The Genetic Book of the Dead
Mating Opportunity Costs
Sex
Fundamental Attribution Error
The Menger Sponge
Ansatz
The Gaia Hypothesis
Russell Conjugation
The Genetic Book of the Dead
Mating Opportunity Costs
Sex
Fundamental Attribution Error
The Menger Sponge
Ansatz
The Gaia Hypothesis
Russell Conjugation
April 3, 2020
2018.07.31–2018.08.06
Contents
Brockman J (ed.) (2018) (16:10) This Idea Is Brilliant - Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know
Dedication
Preface: Scientia as a Meme
001. Yuri Milner :: The Longevity Factor
002. Adam Waytz :: The Illusion of Explanatory Depth
003. David Rowan :: Synaptic Transfer
004. Richard Dawkins :: The Genetic Book of the Dead
005. W. Tecumseh Fitch :: Exaptation
006. Seth Lloyd :: The Virial Theorem
007. Steven Pinker :: The Second Law of Thermodynamics
008. Antony Garrett Lisi :: Emergence
009. Jonathan B. Losos :: Natural Selection
010. George Church :: DNA
011. Stewart Brand :: Genetic Rescue
012. Bruce Parker :: Positive Feedbacks in Climate Change
013. Jennifer Jacquet :: The Anthropocene
014. David Christian :: The Noösphere
015. Hans Ulrich Obrist :: The Gaia Hypothesis
016. Laurence C. Smith :: Ocean Acidification
017. David DeSteno :: Intertemporal Choice
018. Brian Knutson :: Future Self-Continuity
019. Giulio Boccaletti :: The Climate System
020. Terrence J. Sejnowski :: The Universe of Algorithms
021. Coco Krumme :: Babylonian Lottery
022. Bruce Schneier :: Class Breaks
023. Read Montague :: Recursion
024. Nicholas Humphrey :: Referential Opacity
025. Steve Fuller :: Adaptive Preference
026. Gregory Benford :: Antagonistic Pleiotropy
027. Aubrey de Grey :: Maladaptation
028. Leo M. Chalupa :: Epigenetics
029. Andrés Roemer :: The Transcriptome
030. Robert Plomin :: Polygenic Scores
031. Susan Blackmore :: Replicator Power
032. Oliver Scott Curry :: Fallibilism
033. Sam Harris :: Intellectual Honesty
034. Victoria Stodden :: Epsilon
035. Richard Muller :: Systemic Bias
036. Brian Eno :: Confirmation Bias
037. Michael Shermer :: Negativity Bias
038. Helen Fisher :: Positive Illusions
039. Eric R. Weinstein :: Russell Conjugation
040. Daniel Goleman :: Empathic Concern
041. Matthew D. Lieberman :: Naïve Realism
042. David Pizarro :: Motivated Reasoning
043. Simone Schnall :: Spatial Agency Bias
044. Peter Norvig :: Counting
045. Kai Krause :: On Average
046. Keith Devlin :: Number Sense
047. Seth Shostak :: Fermi Problems
048. Bruno Giussani :: Exponential
049. W. Daniel Hillis :: Impedance Matching
050. Martin Lercher :: Homeostasis
051. John Naughton :: Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety
052. Lee Smolin :: Variety
053. Tor Nørretranders :: Allostasis
054. Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán :: The Brainstem
055. Janna Levin :: The Principle of Least Action
056. John C. Mather :: “The Big Bang”
057. Martin Rees :: Multiverse
058. Gino Segrè :: Gravitational Radiation
059. Andrei Linde :: The Non-Returnable Universe
060. Paul J. Steinhardt :: The Big Bounce
061. Daniel C. Dennett :: Affordances
062. Amanda Gefter :: Enactivism
063. Juan Enriquez :: Paleoneurology
064. Frank Wilczek :: Complementarity
065. Michael Gazzaniga :: The Schnitt
066. Hans Halvorson :: Matter
067. Max Tegmark :: Substrate Independence
068. Daniel Hook :: PT Symmetry
069. Priyamvada Natarajan :: Gravitational Lensing
070. Raphael Bousso :: The Cosmological Constant, or Vacuum Energy
071. Jim Holt :: Invariance
072. Jeremy Bernstein :: Unruh Radiation
073. Jerry A. Coyne :: Determinism
074. Scott Aaronson :: State
075. Frank Tipler :: Parallel Universes of Quantum Mechanics
076. Mario Livio :: The Copernican Principle
077. Matthew Putman :: Rheology
078. Richard H. Thaler :: The Premortem
079. Dustin Yellin :: It’s About Time
080. Jimena Canales :: Maxwell’s Demon
081. Melanie Swan :: Included Middle
082. Kurt Gray :: Relative Deprivation
083. Steven R. Quartz :: Antisocial Preferences
084. Margaret Levi :: Reciprocal Altruism
085. David C. Queller :: Isolation Mismatch
086. Nicholas G. Carr :: Mysterianism
087. Carlo Rovelli :: Relative Information
088. Ernst Pöppel :: Time Window
089. Lisa Randall :: Effective Theory
090. Jessica Flack :: Coarse-Graining
091. Jared Diamond :: Common Sense
092. Victoria Wyatt :: “Evolve” As Metaphor
093. George Dyson :: The Reynolds Number
094. John Markoff :: Metamaterials
095. William Poundstone :: Stigler’s Law of Eponymy
096. Robert Kurzban :: Comparative Advantage
097. Kevin Kelly :: Premature Optimization
098. Emanuel Derman :: Simulated Annealing
099. Kate Jeffery :: Attractors
100. Diana Reiss :: Anthropomorphism
101. Irene Pepperberg :: Cognitive Ethology
102. David M. Buss :: Mating Opportunity Costs
103. Helena Cronin :: Sex
104. Nancy Etcoff :: Supernormal Stimuli
105. Steve Omohundro :: Costly Signaling
106. Rory Sutherland :: Sexual Selection
107. Richard Prum :: Phylogeny
108. Brian Christian :: Neoteny
109. John Horgan :: The Neural Code
110. Gordon Kane :: Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking
111. James J. O’Donnell :: Regression to the Mean
112. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein :: Scientific Realism
113. Richard Nisbett :: Fundamental Attribution Error
114. Katherine D. Kinzler :: Habituation
115. Rolf Dobelli :: General Standardization Theory
116. Ashvin Chhabra :: Scaling
117. Clifford Pickover :: The Menger Sponge
118. Donald D. Hoffman :: The Holographic Principle
119. Ian McEwan :: The Navier-Stokes Equations
120. Stuart Firestein :: The Scientist
121. Sean Carroll :: Bayes’ Theorem
122. Lawrence M. Krauss :: Uncertainty
123. Nicholas A. Christakis :: Equipoise
124. Neil Gershenfeld :: Ansatz
125. Robert Sapolsky :: “On The Average”
126. Sarah Demers :: Blind Analysis
127. Matthew O. Jackson :: Homophily
128. Ziyad Marar :: Social Identity
129. Hugo Mercier :: Reflective Beliefs
130. Abigail Marsh :: Alloparenting
131. Cristine H. Legare :: Cumulative Culture
132. Alison Gopnik :: Life History
133. Paul Saffo :: Haldane’s Rule of the Right Size
134. Nicolas Baumard :: Phenotypic Plasticity
135. Linda Wilbrecht :: Sleeper Sensitive Periods
136. Athena Vouloumanos :: Zone of Proximal Development
137. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field :: Length-Biased Sampling
138. Eldar Shafir :: Construal
139. Scott Draves :: Double Blind
140. Adam Alter :: The Law of Small Numbers
141. Michael I. Norton :: Commitment Devices
142. Diana Deutsch :: Illusory Conjunction
143. James Geary :: Bisociation
144. Lisa Feldman Barrett :: Conceptual Combination
145. Simon Baron-Cohen :: Boolean Logic
146. Joichi Ito :: Neurodiversity
147. Roger Schank :: Case-Based Reasoning
148. Nina Jablonski :: Media Richness
149. Daniel L. Everett :: Peircean Semiotics
150. Howard Gardner :: Historiometrics
151. Dan Sperber :: Population Thinking
152. Tom Griffiths :: Bounded Optimality
153. Michael Hochberg :: Satisficing
154. Ross Anderson :: De-Anonymization
155. Jason Wilkes :: Functional Equations
156. Gary A. Klein :: Decentering
157. Peter Lee :: Transfer Learning
158. Joshua Bongard :: The Symbol-Grounding Problem
159. Ursula Martin :: Abstraction
160. Sheizaf Rafaeli :: Networks
161. Robert Provine :: Morphogenetic Fields
162. Buddhini Samarasinghe :: Herd Immunity
163. Itai Yanai :: Somatic Evolution
164. César Hidalgo :: Criticality
165. Thomas A. Bass :: Information Pathology
166. Gerald Smallberg :: Iatrotropic Stimulus
167. Daniel Lieberman :: Mismatch Conditions
168. Roger Highfield :: Actionable Predictions
169. Charles Seife :: The Texas Sharpshooter
170. Jon Kleinberg :: Digital Representation
171. Barbara Tversky :: Embodied Thinking
172. Daniel Rockmore :: The Trolley Problem
173. Stephen M. Kosslyn :: Mental Emulation
174. Andy Clark :: Prediction Error Minimization
175. Chiara Marletto :: Impossible
176. Sabine Hossenfelder :: Optimization
177. Azra Raza :: The Cancer Seed and Soil Hypothesis
178. Eric Topol :: Simplistic Disease Progression
179. Beatrice Golomb :: Effect Modification
180. Luca De Biase :: The Power Law
181. Phil Rosenzweig :: Type I and Type II Errors
182. Laura Betzig :: The Ideal Free Distribution
183. Douglas Rushkoff :: Chronobiology
184. Gerd Gigerenzer :: Deliberate Ignorance
185. Dylan Evans :: The Need for Closure
186. Timothy Taylor :: Polythetic Entitation
187. Samuel Arbesman :: Quines
188. N. J. Enfield :: Verbal Overshadowing
189. Christine Finn :: Liminality
190. Ian Bogost :: Possibility Space
191. Tania Lombrozo :: Alternative Possibilities
192. Anthony Aguirre :: Indexical Information
193. June Gruber :: Emotion Contagion
194. Bart Kosko :: Negative Evidence
195. Jaeweon Cho :: Emptiness
196. Bruce Hood :: Effect Size
197. Siobhan Roberts :: Surreal Numbers
198. S. Abbas Raza :: Standard Deviation
199. Gregory Cochran :: The Breeder’s Equation
200. David Dalrymple :: Fixpoint
201. Stuart A. Kauffman :: Non-Ergodic
202. Maximilian Schich :: Confusion
203. John Tooby :: Coalitional Instincts
204. Nigel Goldenfeld :: The Scientific Method
205. Barnaby Marsh :: Humility
Acknowledgments
Index
Contents
Brockman J (ed.) (2018) (16:10) This Idea Is Brilliant - Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know
Dedication
Preface: Scientia as a Meme
001. Yuri Milner :: The Longevity Factor
002. Adam Waytz :: The Illusion of Explanatory Depth
003. David Rowan :: Synaptic Transfer
004. Richard Dawkins :: The Genetic Book of the Dead
005. W. Tecumseh Fitch :: Exaptation
006. Seth Lloyd :: The Virial Theorem
007. Steven Pinker :: The Second Law of Thermodynamics
008. Antony Garrett Lisi :: Emergence
009. Jonathan B. Losos :: Natural Selection
010. George Church :: DNA
011. Stewart Brand :: Genetic Rescue
012. Bruce Parker :: Positive Feedbacks in Climate Change
013. Jennifer Jacquet :: The Anthropocene
014. David Christian :: The Noösphere
015. Hans Ulrich Obrist :: The Gaia Hypothesis
016. Laurence C. Smith :: Ocean Acidification
017. David DeSteno :: Intertemporal Choice
018. Brian Knutson :: Future Self-Continuity
019. Giulio Boccaletti :: The Climate System
020. Terrence J. Sejnowski :: The Universe of Algorithms
021. Coco Krumme :: Babylonian Lottery
022. Bruce Schneier :: Class Breaks
023. Read Montague :: Recursion
024. Nicholas Humphrey :: Referential Opacity
025. Steve Fuller :: Adaptive Preference
026. Gregory Benford :: Antagonistic Pleiotropy
027. Aubrey de Grey :: Maladaptation
028. Leo M. Chalupa :: Epigenetics
029. Andrés Roemer :: The Transcriptome
030. Robert Plomin :: Polygenic Scores
031. Susan Blackmore :: Replicator Power
032. Oliver Scott Curry :: Fallibilism
033. Sam Harris :: Intellectual Honesty
034. Victoria Stodden :: Epsilon
035. Richard Muller :: Systemic Bias
036. Brian Eno :: Confirmation Bias
037. Michael Shermer :: Negativity Bias
038. Helen Fisher :: Positive Illusions
039. Eric R. Weinstein :: Russell Conjugation
040. Daniel Goleman :: Empathic Concern
041. Matthew D. Lieberman :: Naïve Realism
042. David Pizarro :: Motivated Reasoning
043. Simone Schnall :: Spatial Agency Bias
044. Peter Norvig :: Counting
045. Kai Krause :: On Average
046. Keith Devlin :: Number Sense
047. Seth Shostak :: Fermi Problems
048. Bruno Giussani :: Exponential
049. W. Daniel Hillis :: Impedance Matching
050. Martin Lercher :: Homeostasis
051. John Naughton :: Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety
052. Lee Smolin :: Variety
053. Tor Nørretranders :: Allostasis
054. Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán :: The Brainstem
055. Janna Levin :: The Principle of Least Action
056. John C. Mather :: “The Big Bang”
057. Martin Rees :: Multiverse
058. Gino Segrè :: Gravitational Radiation
059. Andrei Linde :: The Non-Returnable Universe
060. Paul J. Steinhardt :: The Big Bounce
061. Daniel C. Dennett :: Affordances
062. Amanda Gefter :: Enactivism
063. Juan Enriquez :: Paleoneurology
064. Frank Wilczek :: Complementarity
065. Michael Gazzaniga :: The Schnitt
066. Hans Halvorson :: Matter
067. Max Tegmark :: Substrate Independence
068. Daniel Hook :: PT Symmetry
069. Priyamvada Natarajan :: Gravitational Lensing
070. Raphael Bousso :: The Cosmological Constant, or Vacuum Energy
071. Jim Holt :: Invariance
072. Jeremy Bernstein :: Unruh Radiation
073. Jerry A. Coyne :: Determinism
074. Scott Aaronson :: State
075. Frank Tipler :: Parallel Universes of Quantum Mechanics
076. Mario Livio :: The Copernican Principle
077. Matthew Putman :: Rheology
078. Richard H. Thaler :: The Premortem
079. Dustin Yellin :: It’s About Time
080. Jimena Canales :: Maxwell’s Demon
081. Melanie Swan :: Included Middle
082. Kurt Gray :: Relative Deprivation
083. Steven R. Quartz :: Antisocial Preferences
084. Margaret Levi :: Reciprocal Altruism
085. David C. Queller :: Isolation Mismatch
086. Nicholas G. Carr :: Mysterianism
087. Carlo Rovelli :: Relative Information
088. Ernst Pöppel :: Time Window
089. Lisa Randall :: Effective Theory
090. Jessica Flack :: Coarse-Graining
091. Jared Diamond :: Common Sense
092. Victoria Wyatt :: “Evolve” As Metaphor
093. George Dyson :: The Reynolds Number
094. John Markoff :: Metamaterials
095. William Poundstone :: Stigler’s Law of Eponymy
096. Robert Kurzban :: Comparative Advantage
097. Kevin Kelly :: Premature Optimization
098. Emanuel Derman :: Simulated Annealing
099. Kate Jeffery :: Attractors
100. Diana Reiss :: Anthropomorphism
101. Irene Pepperberg :: Cognitive Ethology
102. David M. Buss :: Mating Opportunity Costs
103. Helena Cronin :: Sex
104. Nancy Etcoff :: Supernormal Stimuli
105. Steve Omohundro :: Costly Signaling
106. Rory Sutherland :: Sexual Selection
107. Richard Prum :: Phylogeny
108. Brian Christian :: Neoteny
109. John Horgan :: The Neural Code
110. Gordon Kane :: Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking
111. James J. O’Donnell :: Regression to the Mean
112. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein :: Scientific Realism
113. Richard Nisbett :: Fundamental Attribution Error
114. Katherine D. Kinzler :: Habituation
115. Rolf Dobelli :: General Standardization Theory
116. Ashvin Chhabra :: Scaling
117. Clifford Pickover :: The Menger Sponge
118. Donald D. Hoffman :: The Holographic Principle
119. Ian McEwan :: The Navier-Stokes Equations
120. Stuart Firestein :: The Scientist
121. Sean Carroll :: Bayes’ Theorem
122. Lawrence M. Krauss :: Uncertainty
123. Nicholas A. Christakis :: Equipoise
124. Neil Gershenfeld :: Ansatz
125. Robert Sapolsky :: “On The Average”
126. Sarah Demers :: Blind Analysis
127. Matthew O. Jackson :: Homophily
128. Ziyad Marar :: Social Identity
129. Hugo Mercier :: Reflective Beliefs
130. Abigail Marsh :: Alloparenting
131. Cristine H. Legare :: Cumulative Culture
132. Alison Gopnik :: Life History
133. Paul Saffo :: Haldane’s Rule of the Right Size
134. Nicolas Baumard :: Phenotypic Plasticity
135. Linda Wilbrecht :: Sleeper Sensitive Periods
136. Athena Vouloumanos :: Zone of Proximal Development
137. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field :: Length-Biased Sampling
138. Eldar Shafir :: Construal
139. Scott Draves :: Double Blind
140. Adam Alter :: The Law of Small Numbers
141. Michael I. Norton :: Commitment Devices
142. Diana Deutsch :: Illusory Conjunction
143. James Geary :: Bisociation
144. Lisa Feldman Barrett :: Conceptual Combination
145. Simon Baron-Cohen :: Boolean Logic
146. Joichi Ito :: Neurodiversity
147. Roger Schank :: Case-Based Reasoning
148. Nina Jablonski :: Media Richness
149. Daniel L. Everett :: Peircean Semiotics
150. Howard Gardner :: Historiometrics
151. Dan Sperber :: Population Thinking
152. Tom Griffiths :: Bounded Optimality
153. Michael Hochberg :: Satisficing
154. Ross Anderson :: De-Anonymization
155. Jason Wilkes :: Functional Equations
156. Gary A. Klein :: Decentering
157. Peter Lee :: Transfer Learning
158. Joshua Bongard :: The Symbol-Grounding Problem
159. Ursula Martin :: Abstraction
160. Sheizaf Rafaeli :: Networks
161. Robert Provine :: Morphogenetic Fields
162. Buddhini Samarasinghe :: Herd Immunity
163. Itai Yanai :: Somatic Evolution
164. César Hidalgo :: Criticality
165. Thomas A. Bass :: Information Pathology
166. Gerald Smallberg :: Iatrotropic Stimulus
167. Daniel Lieberman :: Mismatch Conditions
168. Roger Highfield :: Actionable Predictions
169. Charles Seife :: The Texas Sharpshooter
170. Jon Kleinberg :: Digital Representation
171. Barbara Tversky :: Embodied Thinking
172. Daniel Rockmore :: The Trolley Problem
173. Stephen M. Kosslyn :: Mental Emulation
174. Andy Clark :: Prediction Error Minimization
175. Chiara Marletto :: Impossible
176. Sabine Hossenfelder :: Optimization
177. Azra Raza :: The Cancer Seed and Soil Hypothesis
178. Eric Topol :: Simplistic Disease Progression
179. Beatrice Golomb :: Effect Modification
180. Luca De Biase :: The Power Law
181. Phil Rosenzweig :: Type I and Type II Errors
182. Laura Betzig :: The Ideal Free Distribution
183. Douglas Rushkoff :: Chronobiology
184. Gerd Gigerenzer :: Deliberate Ignorance
185. Dylan Evans :: The Need for Closure
186. Timothy Taylor :: Polythetic Entitation
187. Samuel Arbesman :: Quines
188. N. J. Enfield :: Verbal Overshadowing
189. Christine Finn :: Liminality
190. Ian Bogost :: Possibility Space
191. Tania Lombrozo :: Alternative Possibilities
192. Anthony Aguirre :: Indexical Information
193. June Gruber :: Emotion Contagion
194. Bart Kosko :: Negative Evidence
195. Jaeweon Cho :: Emptiness
196. Bruce Hood :: Effect Size
197. Siobhan Roberts :: Surreal Numbers
198. S. Abbas Raza :: Standard Deviation
199. Gregory Cochran :: The Breeder’s Equation
200. David Dalrymple :: Fixpoint
201. Stuart A. Kauffman :: Non-Ergodic
202. Maximilian Schich :: Confusion
203. John Tooby :: Coalitional Instincts
204. Nigel Goldenfeld :: The Scientific Method
205. Barnaby Marsh :: Humility
Acknowledgments
Index
February 8, 2019
In a collection of 200 brief essays by 200 personalities you cannot expect a common style, approach or level of interest. There are great texts about important concepts, such as Pinker's beautiful reflection on the second law of thermodynamics, and there are disappointing contributions about obscure ideas. Anyway the book succeeds in portraying the depth and richness of current natural and social sciences.
March 5, 2018
Great book to dip in and out of.
July 27, 2020
Idėja - sudarytojas paklausia 200+ įvairių sričių mokslininkų klausimo (šiuo atveju - kokia mokslinė idėja nusipelnė daugiau pripažinimo?), anie pateikia trumpus atsakymus, viskas sudedama į knygą ir online.
Visada įdomu paskaityti, fainiausia, kai sužinai visiškai negirdėtų sąvokų, arba kai respondentų atsakymai prieštarauja vieni kitiems (nors čia nelabai). Skaitosi lengvai, kažką apsidžiaugi sužinojęs, kažkur pavartai akis, bet visumoj maloni patirtis.
Visada įdomu paskaityti, fainiausia, kai sužinai visiškai negirdėtų sąvokų, arba kai respondentų atsakymai prieštarauja vieni kitiems (nors čia nelabai). Skaitosi lengvai, kažką apsidžiaugi sužinojęs, kažkur pavartai akis, bet visumoj maloni patirtis.
February 24, 2025
The subtitle to this book is "Lost, overlooked, and underground scientific concepts everyone should know". Despite that, very few of the essays were written in such a way that the average person would get anything out of them. I have an engineering degree, so that put me at an advantage, but a lot of the essays really just felt like people saying "this is a scientific concept that is so big and fancy but it's also important, so you stupid common folk should learn about it, too." I also felt like a lot of the essays were communicating things like "I am very smart and educated, and you are not, so you must agree with everything I'm saying here, otherwise you are very stupid and silly." There were definitely some really good essays that I really enjoyed and I think they communicated their point well, but most of these really did feel like people were showing off. I also found it weird when, at the beginning of the essay, the author's credentials were listed, and then they proceeded to write about an essay that has little to do with their field of study. I mean fair enough, I have interests outside my field of study, too, but I don't list all my academic credentials that have nothing to do with what I'm talking about. That would be like me writing an essay about personality types and citing that I'm a mechanical engineering PhD student. Doesn't make sense.
They also talked a lot about how the common man "doesn't trust science" and how frustrating that is, and I do agree that it's deeply frustrating when people are like "yeah I just don't believe that researchers know what they're talking about." Maybe they don't actually know what they're talking about, but if that's their life's work, they sure know a whole lot more about it than you do. That's the point of research is to learn. And sure people are wrong at points throughout their research, but when people present their research, you should take it to mean "this is what we understand so far" and not "if you don't believe me, you're stupid." However, you should still maybe at least *consider* that the researcher is right. So yes that's a point I agree with. People will just outrightly say that they don't believe something that research is indicating is reality, and that is very frustrating.
Overall, the book had at times a very judge-y tone, at times an overly-scientific tone, and at other times it was really great. It was not written well to be enjoyed by the average person who doesn't have a scientific education. They complained in their book that people don't have an interest in science and they're stupid because of that, but I would also have very little interest in a field that I was outside of if they spoke above my head and were so judgmental about my lack of knowledge.
They also talked a lot about how the common man "doesn't trust science" and how frustrating that is, and I do agree that it's deeply frustrating when people are like "yeah I just don't believe that researchers know what they're talking about." Maybe they don't actually know what they're talking about, but if that's their life's work, they sure know a whole lot more about it than you do. That's the point of research is to learn. And sure people are wrong at points throughout their research, but when people present their research, you should take it to mean "this is what we understand so far" and not "if you don't believe me, you're stupid." However, you should still maybe at least *consider* that the researcher is right. So yes that's a point I agree with. People will just outrightly say that they don't believe something that research is indicating is reality, and that is very frustrating.
Overall, the book had at times a very judge-y tone, at times an overly-scientific tone, and at other times it was really great. It was not written well to be enjoyed by the average person who doesn't have a scientific education. They complained in their book that people don't have an interest in science and they're stupid because of that, but I would also have very little interest in a field that I was outside of if they spoke above my head and were so judgmental about my lack of knowledge.
February 27, 2019
In retrospect, the weaknesses of this book should have been obvious to me. With several hundred idea essays in one book, each written by a different author and given only a few pages, there is a large amount of chaff. I found the majority of the essays to be duds - ideas poorly described, poorly chosen, or both. They're difficult to skim since each essay is already in essence a summary. The end result was that this book was a slog with occasional bright spots.
Reading other people's reviews, it's clear that these ideas were new to many people. Very few were new to me since I've read popular science widely for most of my life. Not that that makes me smarter than the average reader, but I think it's an important data point - I'd recommend that others like me steer clear of this book. If you're looking for a great way to find new concepts (as I was), your time is better spent looking through the table of contents and tracking down more in-depth work on anything especially appealing.
Reading other people's reviews, it's clear that these ideas were new to many people. Very few were new to me since I've read popular science widely for most of my life. Not that that makes me smarter than the average reader, but I think it's an important data point - I'd recommend that others like me steer clear of this book. If you're looking for a great way to find new concepts (as I was), your time is better spent looking through the table of contents and tracking down more in-depth work on anything especially appealing.
April 6, 2022
Another book full of bite-sized pieces of knowledge/science/wonder that barely scratch the surface. The sheer number of articles tend to overshadow each other and at times I found it hard to focus on any one in particular. Maybe it is more suited to an era of bite-sized everything where few seem to want to delve deep into any subject and remain happy skimmers.
Still, it does present ideas from an impressive array of scientific authors whose works I've read over the years and maybe a few I should read now.
It's really a case of managing your expectations and you might feel more satisfied reading this.
3.5 stars would be a more appropriate score.
Still, it does present ideas from an impressive array of scientific authors whose works I've read over the years and maybe a few I should read now.
It's really a case of managing your expectations and you might feel more satisfied reading this.
3.5 stars would be a more appropriate score.
April 18, 2019
This was a good one. The essays were largely independent, the ideas diverse and often novel to someone not deep in the field. I love reading this series because it gives me a nice panorama of the academia that's out there.
The only problem with this format is that looking back at the chapter titles, I don't remember what a lot of them were about!
The only problem with this format is that looking back at the chapter titles, I don't remember what a lot of them were about!
August 1, 2019
A list of pet ideas to do with science, social science, technology, and math. It feels like the stand alone pieces answer a different question than the book cover and introduction led me to believe- and that question had the word “meme” in it.
I have never decided so quickly to stop reading a book. I’m a completionist so it doesn’t come easily, but I only made it to page 14 before I needed to stop.
I have never decided so quickly to stop reading a book. I’m a completionist so it doesn’t come easily, but I only made it to page 14 before I needed to stop.
February 23, 2020
Very interesting - lots of cool ideas.
It's good as a scientific read because it gives little snippets of new ideas and doesn't drag on.
I read this in starts and stops - patches. The sort of book you pick up every now and then, forget about, find again, become engrossed in etc... Don't expect to read it all in one sitting!
It's good as a scientific read because it gives little snippets of new ideas and doesn't drag on.
I read this in starts and stops - patches. The sort of book you pick up every now and then, forget about, find again, become engrossed in etc... Don't expect to read it all in one sitting!
October 6, 2019
If you want a book to read small (and independent) pieces, and (hopefully) learn something from each piece, this might be a good choice. For months I used it as a warm up exercise to start my work in the mornings.
I learned a lot from the articles and they opened my eyes on a variety of subjects. Yet, sometimes the small sizes of the articles stopped them from going deep enough.
I cannot write a summary of all the articles (there are hundreds of them), but I will bring a few sentences that I found interesting.
Learning about "alloparenting" helped me put a long lasting concept into a frame. Is it strange or abnormal to provide care for offspring that aren’t your own? Not necessarily... it might be central to the existence of humankind:
An article titled "Length-Based Sampling" made me think about a puzzling fact:
and on the same line,
With that in mind, How many men know a harasser? How many women have been harassed? Is it possible for these numbers to be significantly different?
Does describing something in words (rather than not describing it at all) help you remember something better? Not necessarily:
How has our environments favored our maturing and reproducing later in life and investing more in offspring?
The book ends with an article titled "Humility". A sentence in that article stated one good reason why such a book can be important:
I learned a lot from the articles and they opened my eyes on a variety of subjects. Yet, sometimes the small sizes of the articles stopped them from going deep enough.
I cannot write a summary of all the articles (there are hundreds of them), but I will bring a few sentences that I found interesting.
Learning about "alloparenting" helped me put a long lasting concept into a frame. Is it strange or abnormal to provide care for offspring that aren’t your own? Not necessarily... it might be central to the existence of humankind:
"To alloparent is to provide care for offspring that aren’t your own. It’s an unimaginable behavior for most species (few of which even care for their own offspring); rare even among relatively nurturant classes of animals, like birds and mammals; but central to the existence of humankind. The vigor and promiscuity with which humans in every culture around the world alloparent stands in stark contrast to widespread misconceptions about who we are and how we should raise our children."
An article titled "Length-Based Sampling" made me think about a puzzling fact:
"Imagine trying to figure out the average family size in a particular neighborhood. You could ask the parents how many kids they have. Big families and small families will count equally. Or you could ask the children how many siblings they have. A family with five kids will show up in the data five times, and childless families won’t show up at all. The question is the same: “How big is your family?” But when you ask kids instead of parents, the answers are weighted by the size of the family. This isn’t a data error so much as a trick of reality: The average kid actually has a bigger family than the average parent does."
and on the same line,
"Snapshots bias samples: When some people experience something—like a prison release—more often than others, looking at a random moment in time guarantees a non-random assortment of people."
With that in mind, How many men know a harasser? How many women have been harassed? Is it possible for these numbers to be significantly different?
"To be correct, an answer needs to be about the same population as the question it answers. But length-biased sampling also explains how our social positions can give us very different experiences of the world—as when, if a small group of men each harasses many women, few men know a harasser but many women are harassed."
Does describing something in words (rather than not describing it at all) help you remember something better? Not necessarily:
"Suppose that two people witness a crime: One describes in words what she saw, while the other doesn’t. When tested later on their memories of the event, the person who verbally described the incident will be worse at remembering or recognizing what actually happened. This is verbal overshadowing."
How has our environments favored our maturing and reproducing later in life and investing more in offspring?
"[R]ecent research in neuroscience, ecology, and psychology shows that phenotypic plasticity extends to behaviors. For instance, in a harsh and unpredictable environment where the future is dreary, organisms tend to adopt a short-term life strategy, maturing and reproducing earlier, investing less in offspring and pair-bonding, being more impulsive. In a more favorable and predictable environment, organisms switch to a long-term strategy, maturing and reproducing later, investing in offspring and pair-bonding, and being more patient."
The book ends with an article titled "Humility". A sentence in that article stated one good reason why such a book can be important:
"The future belongs to those brave enough to be humble about how little we know and how much is remaining to be discovered."
May 12, 2018
This was a series of essays by a huge number of intellectuals on the question "What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?" The variety in quality and persuasiveness of these essays was pretty substantial with most of the essays being somewhat interesting but evoking a "meh" out of me. In particular, there seems a fairly large mismatch between the target audience a lot of the writers seemed to be aiming at and what I think would be the general audience of the book. The type of person interested in this book would probably already be familiar with the concepts described at a fairly low level and the frequency with which these descriptions happened became tiring.
A smattering of thoughts on concepts:
Free will:
Authors of essays had a variety of views on what science has to say about free will when it was brought up within any particular idea. There was the view that the question itself was one flowing more from first principles than empirical know-ability or falsifiability. One author argued in the discussion of physics that rules guiding physical interaction often have changing structure and emphasis and different levels of matter and energy. Stars and planets at a macro level are explained by both classical mechanics, general relativity, and gravity while at smaller levels these things can sometimes break down and be governed by strong force, weak force, and so forth. The author went on to argue that assumption that everything can be explained by a complete understanding of state would seem to preclude free will but that just as explanatory power on the physical level can be different at different levels of organization, the explanatory power of free will versus physical manifestation can break down at different levels of emergent systems.
I would say this analogy of ideas is an interesting way of thinking of free will though I think it is an imperfect analogy that could allow for a future empiricist claim of a test of free will where I think the concept itself doesn't allow for such a test. Other authors argued that science had once and for all destroyed free will as a true concept and that we should grapple with this. Two essays back to back actually had one author argue that free will was dead while the next that free will was un-falsifiable and outside the realm of what empiricism can test of the nature of reality.
Metaphor leading to problems:
The frustration I most commonly had with these essays was when someone would discuss a topic in one field of science and try to apply it to another and seem to twist beyond recognition to get the concept to fit. This was especially frustrating with non-physicist authors describing things like Einstein's theory of relativity to try to describe how nature often doesn't have a true reality without a frame of reference. I enjoyed the essay "evolve as metaphor" as a somewhat unintentionally hilarious discussion of how scientific concepts sometimes became warped in people's minds through language by those who do not understand the original concept.
Really bad essays:
Some essays were really bad and I was wondering where they found these people. One person argued about how currently there is a discussion in society (there isn't) that men and women should participate at exactly 50% in every field of work and this is incorrect and such a policy of forcing a lot of men and women out of a field that is overwhelmingly one gender would be a bad idea. Which, like, duh no one is arguing for this?
Really good essays:
Some were really good essays. I already knew of Russell conjugation but enjoyed it just the same. Length biased sampling and other discussions of bias or difficulty in measuring phenomenon were also definitely ideas that I agreed should be better understood by the wider scientific community and public. Finally, I just found that discussions of physics and mathematics had the most beauty to them a lot of times. Some of my other favorites: fallibility, epsilon, multiverse, unruh radiation, the premortem, Stigler's law of eponymy, the menger sponge.
A smattering of thoughts on concepts:
Free will:
Authors of essays had a variety of views on what science has to say about free will when it was brought up within any particular idea. There was the view that the question itself was one flowing more from first principles than empirical know-ability or falsifiability. One author argued in the discussion of physics that rules guiding physical interaction often have changing structure and emphasis and different levels of matter and energy. Stars and planets at a macro level are explained by both classical mechanics, general relativity, and gravity while at smaller levels these things can sometimes break down and be governed by strong force, weak force, and so forth. The author went on to argue that assumption that everything can be explained by a complete understanding of state would seem to preclude free will but that just as explanatory power on the physical level can be different at different levels of organization, the explanatory power of free will versus physical manifestation can break down at different levels of emergent systems.
I would say this analogy of ideas is an interesting way of thinking of free will though I think it is an imperfect analogy that could allow for a future empiricist claim of a test of free will where I think the concept itself doesn't allow for such a test. Other authors argued that science had once and for all destroyed free will as a true concept and that we should grapple with this. Two essays back to back actually had one author argue that free will was dead while the next that free will was un-falsifiable and outside the realm of what empiricism can test of the nature of reality.
Metaphor leading to problems:
The frustration I most commonly had with these essays was when someone would discuss a topic in one field of science and try to apply it to another and seem to twist beyond recognition to get the concept to fit. This was especially frustrating with non-physicist authors describing things like Einstein's theory of relativity to try to describe how nature often doesn't have a true reality without a frame of reference. I enjoyed the essay "evolve as metaphor" as a somewhat unintentionally hilarious discussion of how scientific concepts sometimes became warped in people's minds through language by those who do not understand the original concept.
Really bad essays:
Some essays were really bad and I was wondering where they found these people. One person argued about how currently there is a discussion in society (there isn't) that men and women should participate at exactly 50% in every field of work and this is incorrect and such a policy of forcing a lot of men and women out of a field that is overwhelmingly one gender would be a bad idea. Which, like, duh no one is arguing for this?
Really good essays:
Some were really good essays. I already knew of Russell conjugation but enjoyed it just the same. Length biased sampling and other discussions of bias or difficulty in measuring phenomenon were also definitely ideas that I agreed should be better understood by the wider scientific community and public. Finally, I just found that discussions of physics and mathematics had the most beauty to them a lot of times. Some of my other favorites: fallibility, epsilon, multiverse, unruh radiation, the premortem, Stigler's law of eponymy, the menger sponge.
July 9, 2021
Renewed Exposure to Scientific Perspective Importance/Benefit - Having not heard much in headlines (other than scientific units in the US government under duress), I wanted to get a sense of recent thinking in science. Recalling reading one of John Brockman’s earlier books, i.e. Know This: Today's Most Interesting and Important Scientific Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments , I went to see further titles that might have been issued since and came upon this offering.
Appearing in 2018 in answer to Edge.org annual question for 2017, i.e. “What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?” for the 20th anniversary of such publications, I determined to wade into this massive work (544 pages). Fortunately, as in my previous reading of this editor’s work, my time was repaid with renewed exposure to the importance and benefit of scientific perspective.
After a Preface by Brockman {“Scientia as Meme”), the 200+ chapters (I counted some 214) range from “The Longevity Factor” by Yuri Milner, a physicist and entrepreneur to “Humility” by Barnaby Mash, an evolutionary dynamics scholar at Harvard. Averaging some 2 1/3 pages per chapter, the book can easily be put down at the conclusion of one and picked-up at another time at the following or another chapter. I recognized 20 some odd authors or about 10% and was introduced to many scholars from prominent institutions with whom I was not familiar.
The chapter sequence seems like it has no particular order, but as I read through it appeared to me as though chapters seemed to be clustered by similar themes or topics, e.g. the rationale and purpose of science, climate change, genetics, neuro-biology, astrophysics, big data etc., that would relate or answer one another.
Among my favorite chapters where those which spoke to some of my current interests and concerns. For instance, there is cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker’s “The Second Law of Thermodynamics” (which addresses a topic he also covers in his "Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress"), then “Emergence” by physicist Antony Garrett Lisi. Other chapters that caught my eye were physical oceanographer Bruce Parker’s “Positive Feedbacks in Climate Change,” emeritus physicist/astronomer Gregory Benford’s “Antagonistic Pleiotropy” (which seems to tie back to Mittledorf and Sagan's "Cracking the Aging Code: The New Science of Growing Old - And What It Means for Staying Young"). There were also mathematician Eric Weinstein’s “Russell Conjugation” and astrophysicist Paul Steinhardt’s “The Big Bounce” (relating to Hawking’s "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," not to mention "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future" author Kevin Kelly’s “Premature Optimization,” psychologist Alison Gopnik’s “Life History,” computer scientist Sheizaf Rafaeli’s “Networks” and journalist Luca De Biase’s “The Power Law”
Utilizing the Kindle edition, one aspect I found annoying was that the chapter authors did not appear in the Table of Contents as they do on-line in the book preview. This characteristic made it a little more difficult for me to navigate as I perused ad got into chapters.
Regardless of my minor criticism, this Brockman effort is another one worth the attention of the science minded and those with similar tendencies.
Appearing in 2018 in answer to Edge.org annual question for 2017, i.e. “What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?” for the 20th anniversary of such publications, I determined to wade into this massive work (544 pages). Fortunately, as in my previous reading of this editor’s work, my time was repaid with renewed exposure to the importance and benefit of scientific perspective.
After a Preface by Brockman {“Scientia as Meme”), the 200+ chapters (I counted some 214) range from “The Longevity Factor” by Yuri Milner, a physicist and entrepreneur to “Humility” by Barnaby Mash, an evolutionary dynamics scholar at Harvard. Averaging some 2 1/3 pages per chapter, the book can easily be put down at the conclusion of one and picked-up at another time at the following or another chapter. I recognized 20 some odd authors or about 10% and was introduced to many scholars from prominent institutions with whom I was not familiar.
The chapter sequence seems like it has no particular order, but as I read through it appeared to me as though chapters seemed to be clustered by similar themes or topics, e.g. the rationale and purpose of science, climate change, genetics, neuro-biology, astrophysics, big data etc., that would relate or answer one another.
Among my favorite chapters where those which spoke to some of my current interests and concerns. For instance, there is cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker’s “The Second Law of Thermodynamics” (which addresses a topic he also covers in his "Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress"), then “Emergence” by physicist Antony Garrett Lisi. Other chapters that caught my eye were physical oceanographer Bruce Parker’s “Positive Feedbacks in Climate Change,” emeritus physicist/astronomer Gregory Benford’s “Antagonistic Pleiotropy” (which seems to tie back to Mittledorf and Sagan's "Cracking the Aging Code: The New Science of Growing Old - And What It Means for Staying Young"). There were also mathematician Eric Weinstein’s “Russell Conjugation” and astrophysicist Paul Steinhardt’s “The Big Bounce” (relating to Hawking’s "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," not to mention "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future" author Kevin Kelly’s “Premature Optimization,” psychologist Alison Gopnik’s “Life History,” computer scientist Sheizaf Rafaeli’s “Networks” and journalist Luca De Biase’s “The Power Law”
Utilizing the Kindle edition, one aspect I found annoying was that the chapter authors did not appear in the Table of Contents as they do on-line in the book preview. This characteristic made it a little more difficult for me to navigate as I perused ad got into chapters.
Regardless of my minor criticism, this Brockman effort is another one worth the attention of the science minded and those with similar tendencies.
October 10, 2018
Nothing I can say will properly do this book justice. So often I read books and quantify their utility to me based on what they offer me that will help me. Whether that help be in the form of information, novel stories for my brain to use, direct access to systems, etc. This compilation of excellent ideas from science puts many of those other books to shame in the first regard. I was exposed to so many good ideas I was unaware of in one book that I lost track of them all. My only reservations about it are the length and the amount of energy it takes, as a reader, to shift gears so quickly through so many subjects. I can see where the editor attempted to group somewhat related ideas to make it easier but there were obviously hard limits to the ability to do so. This book has been exhausting. So, to the extent that it represents a glimpse into Steven Johnson's 'adjacent possible', I have learned that exploring the barest edge of what we know continuously will be absolutely cognitively draining, as many good adventures are.
As I lost track of all of the good ideas I picked up, I"ll simply put everything I included in my notes here. Before doing that though, off the top of my head Russell Conjugations might be one the single most important ideas worth addressing in the internet age (as it relates to politics) today.
Not all of these ideas were new to me but all of them are important. Here's what jumped out at me!
Post-mortem , relative deprivation, Russell conjugations, isolation mismatch, included middle, allostasis, exaptation, the illusion of explanatory depth, and impedance matching. Annealing and attractor states. premature optimization (as in The Goal), and course graining. blind analysis, alloparenting, cumulative culture, sleeper sensitive periods, zone of proximal development, and much, much more.
If you're interested in what the future has to hold for us, if you're interested in great ideas that can help you right now (as in the exact moment that you're reading this sentence), then read this book. Look up the terms in the index and read the chapter for whichever speaks to you. Seriously, get this book.
As I lost track of all of the good ideas I picked up, I"ll simply put everything I included in my notes here. Before doing that though, off the top of my head Russell Conjugations might be one the single most important ideas worth addressing in the internet age (as it relates to politics) today.
Not all of these ideas were new to me but all of them are important. Here's what jumped out at me!
Post-mortem , relative deprivation, Russell conjugations, isolation mismatch, included middle, allostasis, exaptation, the illusion of explanatory depth, and impedance matching. Annealing and attractor states. premature optimization (as in The Goal), and course graining. blind analysis, alloparenting, cumulative culture, sleeper sensitive periods, zone of proximal development, and much, much more.
If you're interested in what the future has to hold for us, if you're interested in great ideas that can help you right now (as in the exact moment that you're reading this sentence), then read this book. Look up the terms in the index and read the chapter for whichever speaks to you. Seriously, get this book.
December 15, 2024
I have been reading books in this Edge Question series for almost all of them now. This one is a mixed bag but I notice that there are more "ranting" ideas than before. I could not help but wonder why several academicians who have contributed to this series for a long time so far have not improved their writing style to cater for lay readers. Perhaps, you cannot teach the old dog a new trick? But these are intellectuals and I guess many of them are not old!
I find that interesting ideas in this book are mostly about mundane common sense matters of life which fosters my existing view. Other ideas are also interesting but the impenetrable writing style is a big obstacle to understanding. Some of them even write like mystics!
The most boring ideas for me are mostly about cosmology and deep quantum physics. I canny get it how these scientists get the realistic details of the matter they discuss ? I understand some are from Math but this reminds me of the book "Lost In Math" ! Moreover, I'm more interested in topics that are neared to life on earth - how to promote more physical and mental health, peace and social equality, knowledge of things nearer to us all like all things in global environment, sociology, behavioral science, and there are interesting ides here to learn from. Enough with cosmology, quantum, deep Math.
I'm now ready to proceed to the last of of this series I have yet to read: What Have You Changed Your Mind About?
I find that interesting ideas in this book are mostly about mundane common sense matters of life which fosters my existing view. Other ideas are also interesting but the impenetrable writing style is a big obstacle to understanding. Some of them even write like mystics!
The most boring ideas for me are mostly about cosmology and deep quantum physics. I canny get it how these scientists get the realistic details of the matter they discuss ? I understand some are from Math but this reminds me of the book "Lost In Math" ! Moreover, I'm more interested in topics that are neared to life on earth - how to promote more physical and mental health, peace and social equality, knowledge of things nearer to us all like all things in global environment, sociology, behavioral science, and there are interesting ides here to learn from. Enough with cosmology, quantum, deep Math.
I'm now ready to proceed to the last of of this series I have yet to read: What Have You Changed Your Mind About?
June 9, 2018
As always from the Edge.org annual books, this is a fantastic, broad collection of ideas. Thought provoking and mind expanding.
My favorites are David Rowan’s “Synaptic Transfer,” Steven Pinker’s “The Second Law of Thermodynamics” (resonating with Carlo Rovelli’s recent time book), Cliffor Pickover’s “The Menger Sponge,” Stuart Firestein’s “The Scientist,” Michael Norton’s “Commitment Devices,” Michael Hochberg’s “Satisficing,” and Beatrice Golomb’s “Effect Modification.” (In no specific order) these are the ones that both resonated and had a new idea of new perspective for me.
Recommended and worth coming back to. It was interesting to consider the editor’s choices - the ideas were grouped, so as I read through this in a linear fashion, I would hit interesting stretches and then dull stretches. It was probably best to cluster ideas, but it would be interesting to put together different maps to follow through this collection - even a “Choose your own idea/adventure” type things at the end of the piece: “If you want a similar idea, go to page..., if you want a totally different idea, go to page..., and if you want an idea that is related, but not obviously related, go to page...”
My favorites are David Rowan’s “Synaptic Transfer,” Steven Pinker’s “The Second Law of Thermodynamics” (resonating with Carlo Rovelli’s recent time book), Cliffor Pickover’s “The Menger Sponge,” Stuart Firestein’s “The Scientist,” Michael Norton’s “Commitment Devices,” Michael Hochberg’s “Satisficing,” and Beatrice Golomb’s “Effect Modification.” (In no specific order) these are the ones that both resonated and had a new idea of new perspective for me.
Recommended and worth coming back to. It was interesting to consider the editor’s choices - the ideas were grouped, so as I read through this in a linear fashion, I would hit interesting stretches and then dull stretches. It was probably best to cluster ideas, but it would be interesting to put together different maps to follow through this collection - even a “Choose your own idea/adventure” type things at the end of the piece: “If you want a similar idea, go to page..., if you want a totally different idea, go to page..., and if you want an idea that is related, but not obviously related, go to page...”
December 21, 2017
This collection of essays attempts to provide an overview of what scientists currently consider to be the most important concepts, discoveries, and ideas in science that should be more widely known and understood. As a collection, it is a bit uneven...some of these essays are quite interesting and informative, while others are so vague as to be almost meaningless. Most of these are short, just a couple of pages, but since the book is more than 500 pages long, there are a LOT of essays, and it took me a long time to plow through them all.
The essays cover a wide range of subject matter, from cosmology and quantum physics to evolutionary psychology and network theory. Personally, I found the psychology and social network essays the most interesting, because the modern advances in these fields help to shed light on the current state of deep divisions that seem to be forming in our society.
While this is not a light read, it does include a lot of important ideas, and deserves a wide audience. It would go a long way towards enabling a more meaningful dialogue about the important issues we're facing if more people had at least a basic knowledge of these ideas.
The essays cover a wide range of subject matter, from cosmology and quantum physics to evolutionary psychology and network theory. Personally, I found the psychology and social network essays the most interesting, because the modern advances in these fields help to shed light on the current state of deep divisions that seem to be forming in our society.
While this is not a light read, it does include a lot of important ideas, and deserves a wide audience. It would go a long way towards enabling a more meaningful dialogue about the important issues we're facing if more people had at least a basic knowledge of these ideas.
July 26, 2018
For Edge.org’s 2018 annual collection of about 200 very short essays by top thinkers in various fields, each contributor tackles this question: What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known? The answers fall all over the map, but as you read through them, common threads and unexpected connections emerge.
As always, the collection is a bottle of quick-acting smart pills. None of the writers tries to prove, harangue, or convince. They don’t ask you to abandon your convictions, to cheat on the ideas you’re wed to, or to disrupt your life. Each standalone essay simply presents you with a concept that may nudge your mind in a new direction. Like stretching exercises for the brain, a sort of yoga in which you mindfully contemplate a notion that a very smart stranger considers vital.
As always, the collection is a bottle of quick-acting smart pills. None of the writers tries to prove, harangue, or convince. They don’t ask you to abandon your convictions, to cheat on the ideas you’re wed to, or to disrupt your life. Each standalone essay simply presents you with a concept that may nudge your mind in a new direction. Like stretching exercises for the brain, a sort of yoga in which you mindfully contemplate a notion that a very smart stranger considers vital.
January 12, 2020
Absolutely terrific, but I hated it at first.
This a compendium of short essays on very interesting scientific topics - each individually written by leaders in their respective fields. In some ways, this is more of a reference book or encyclopedia of current knowledge. To say some of the essays blew my mind would be an understatement.
Why did I hate it at first? Remember what it was like when you were an undergraduate and you needed to read scientific articles without having any background on the topic. Remember how slow it was to read? Remember how your mind would seem to go numb after the first paragraph? Well, that is what this was like - in the beginning. Then something happened. It simply clicked. And I could not put it down.
If you are a lifelong student, this is a book that you should not pass up.
This a compendium of short essays on very interesting scientific topics - each individually written by leaders in their respective fields. In some ways, this is more of a reference book or encyclopedia of current knowledge. To say some of the essays blew my mind would be an understatement.
Why did I hate it at first? Remember what it was like when you were an undergraduate and you needed to read scientific articles without having any background on the topic. Remember how slow it was to read? Remember how your mind would seem to go numb after the first paragraph? Well, that is what this was like - in the beginning. Then something happened. It simply clicked. And I could not put it down.
If you are a lifelong student, this is a book that you should not pass up.
June 5, 2018
Loved this. I would recommend this book to anyone with a moderate interest in science, as its survey of subjects little known in the general population was fascinating, and the way in which the concepts were explained was easy to follow. They were also edited exceptionally well, with related concepts building on one another to create a better understanding of established scientific thought as well as how concurrent developments contribute to the advancement of modern fields of study. The third quarter of this book got a little slow, but overall it was an exceptionally intriguing read.
June 7, 2018
This book is definitely for an academic nerd. If you like reading Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, etc. That being said, I really enjoyed learning about concepts for the first time, expanding on knowledge of barely known concepts, and really deepening my knowledge of basic terms like "average." The progression of essays made about as much sense as it would in any order. Sometimes I had trouble remembering whose essay I was on. This was mostly over my head, but in a way that intrigued me.
January 20, 2020
This book has been a bedside companion for three months or more. The 200 or so short essays cover a huge swathe of the intellectual sphere, from philosophy to physics. The essays are mostly very short and I found enough in here to launch quite a few further investigations, as well as, obviously both learning and reconsidering lots of topics. Some of the contributors are a surprise: Brian Eno on Conformation Bias, for instance, and some are eminent in their fields, but the sheer eclecticism of both topics and contributors was a joy. Íll probably keep returning on a random basis.
September 27, 2020
This book is almost the definition of a mixed bag.
On the plus side there are dozens of articles about scientific ideas. Some of them are interesting, but some seem self-indulgent. Inevitably, the interesting ones seem to finish quickly and leave you wanting to know more, so I guess it can act as an introduction and a jumping-off point for further research.
The less interesting ones seem to go on for ages, and some are pretty much impenetrable. I can't imagine wanting to re-read it, so maybe take it out of a library, make some notes and go elsewhere for the real meat of the topics.
On the plus side there are dozens of articles about scientific ideas. Some of them are interesting, but some seem self-indulgent. Inevitably, the interesting ones seem to finish quickly and leave you wanting to know more, so I guess it can act as an introduction and a jumping-off point for further research.
The less interesting ones seem to go on for ages, and some are pretty much impenetrable. I can't imagine wanting to re-read it, so maybe take it out of a library, make some notes and go elsewhere for the real meat of the topics.
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