This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress

481 Pages·2015·1.95 MB·English

by  John Brockman

DEDICATION
To Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennnet, Jared Diamond, and Steven Pinker
Pioneers of the Third Culture
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE: THE 2014 EDGE QUESTION
GEOFFREY WEST
The Theory of Everything
MARCELO GLEISER
Unification
A. C. GRAYLING
Simplicity
SETH LLOYD
The Universe
SCOTT ATRAN
IQ
LEO M. CHALUPA
Brain Plasticity
HOWARD GARDNER
Changing the Brain
VICTORIA WYATT
“The Rocket Scientist”
NIGEL GOLDENFELD
Individuality
NICHOLAS HUMPHREY
The Bigger an Animal’s Brain, the Greater Its Intelligence
LEE SMOLIN
The Big Bang Was the First Moment of Time
ALAN GUTH
The Universe Began in a State of Extraordinarily Low Entropy
BRUCE PARKER
Entropy
ANDREI LINDE
The Uniformity and Uniqueness of the Universe
MAX TEGMARK
Infinity
LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS
The Laws of Physics Are Predetermined
PAUL STEINHARDT
Theories of Anything
ERIC R. WEINSTEIN
M-theory/String Theory Is the Only Game in Town
FRANK TIPLER
String Theory
GORDON KANE
Our World Has Only Three Space Dimensions
PETER WOIT
The “Naturalness” Argument
FREEMAN DYSON
The Collapse of the Wave Function
DAVID DEUTSCH
Quantum Jumps
W. DANIEL HILLIS
Cause and Effect
NINA JABLONSKI
Race
RICHARD DAWKINS
Essentialism
PETER RICHERSON
Human Nature
JULIA CLARKE
The Urvogel
KURT GRAY
Numbering Nature
MICHAEL SHERMER
Hardwired = Permanent
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF
The Atheism Prerequisite
ROGER HIGHFIELD
Evolution Is “True”
ANTON ZEILINGER
There Is No Reality in the Quantum World
STEVE GIDDINGS
Spacetime
AMANDA GEFTER
The Universe
HAIM HARARI
The Higgs Particle Closes a Chapter in Particle Physics
SARAH DEMERS
Aesthetic Motivation
MARIA SPIROPULU
Naturalness, Hierarchy, and Spacetime
ED REGIS
Scientists Ought to Know Everything Scientifically Knowable
SEAN CARROLL
Falsifiability
NICHOLAS G. CARR
Anti-anecdotalism
REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN
Science Makes Philosophy Obsolete
IAN BOGOST
“Science”
SAM HARRIS
Our Narrow Definition of “Science”
DANIEL C. DENNETT
The Hard Problem
SUSAN BLACKMORE
The Neural Correlates of Consciousness
TODD C. SACKTOR
Long-Term Memory Is Immutable
BRUCE HOOD
The Self
THOMAS METZINGER
Cognitive Agency
JERRY COYNE
Free Will
ROBERT PROVINE
Common Sense
JONATHAN GOTTSCHALL
There Can Be No Science of Art
GEORGE DYSON
Science and Technology
ALAN ALDA
Things Are Either True or False
GAVIN SCHMIDT
Simple Answers
MARTIN REES
We’ll Never Hit Barriers to Scientific Understanding
SEIRIAN SUMNER
Life Evolves Via a Shared Genetic Toolkit
KEVIN KELLY
Fully Random Mutations
ERIC J. TOPOL
One Genome per Individual
TIMO HANNAY
Nature Versus Nurture
ROBERT SAPOLSKY
The Particularist Use of “a” Gene-Environment Interaction
ATHENA VOULOUMANOS
Natural Selection Is the Only Engine of Evolution
STEVEN PINKER
Behavior = Genes + Environment
ALISON GOPNIK
Innateness
KILEY HAMLIN
Moral Blank-Slateism
OLIVER SCOTT CURRY
Associationism
SIMON BARON-COHEN
Radical Behaviorism
DANIEL L. EVERETT
“Instinct” and “Innate”
TOR NØRRETRANDERS
Altruism
JAMIL ZAKI
The Altruism Hierarch
ADAM WAYTZ
Humans Are by Nature Social Animals
GARY KLEIN
Evidence-Based Medicine
DEAN ORNISH
Large Randomized Controlled Trials
RICHARD NISBETT
Multiple Regression as a Means of Discovering Causality
AZRA RAZA
Mouse Models
PAUL DAVIES
The Somatic Mutation Theory of Cancer
STEWART BRAND
The Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Radiation Dose Hypothesis
BENJAMIN K. BERGEN
Universal Grammar
N. J. ENFIELD
A Science of Language Should Deal Only With “Competence”
JOHN MCWHORTER
Languages Condition Worldviews
DAN SPERBER
The Standard Approach to Meaning
KAI KRAUSE
The Uncertainty Principle
IAN MCEWAN
Beware of Arrogance! Retire Nothing!
GARY MARCUS
Big Data
CHRISTINE FINN
The Stratigraphic Column
DIMITAR D. SASSELOV
The Habitable-Zone Concept
SHERRY TURKLE
Robot Companions
ROGER SCHANK
“Artificial Intelligence”
TANIA LOMBROZO
The Mind Is Just the Brain
FRANK WILCZEK
Mind Versus Matter
ALEXANDER WISSNER-GROSS
Intelligence as a Property
DAVID GELERNTER
The Grand Analogy
TERRENCE J. SEJNOWSKI
Grandmother Cells
PATRICIA S. CHURCHLAND
Brain Modules
TOM GRIFFITHS
Bias Is Always Bad
ROBERT KURZBAN
Cartesian Hydraulicism
RODNEY A. BROOKS
The Computational Metaphor
SARAH-JAYNE BLAKEMORE
Left-Brain/Right-Brain
STEPHEN M. KOSSLYN
Left-Brain/Right-Brain
ANDRIAN KREYE
Moore’s Law
ERNST PÖPPEL