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What's Next?: Dispatches On The Future Of Science (2009)

by Max Brockman(Favorite Author)

3.74 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0307389316 (ISBN13: 9780307389312)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Vintage

review 1: I love reading articles on the edge.org especially the answers to the annual question. Max Brockman is the son of edge.org founder, John Brockman, and is following in his fathers footsteps by publishing cutting edge science by up-coming scientists. Most of the essays are about neuroscience and evolutionary biology. It would have been nice to have the topics spread out across other disciplines - thus, 4 stars instead of 5. If you like Steven Pinker, you'll love this.
review 2: What will the big scientific revelations of the coming decade? Although no one can say for certain, "What's Next" provide a small glimpse of what's to come. Filled with essays by some of the world's top young scientists, the book explores topics as diverse as neuroscience, dark matter,... more climate change, human evolution, and biological enhancement. The writers presented a variety of neat ideas. Among the most interesting ideas I read were: 1. The brain is well-equipped for human beings to understand and follow other people. Special neurons called mirror neurons actually are actually designed to allow us to feel what other people feel, and do what they do (this is why you wince in pain when you see someone else get hurt). 2. The parts of our brain that allow us to understand other people's minds are actually processing all the time, which may explain why humans anthropomorphize everything. 3. Ideas may be popular because the structure of our brains allow us to better accept these ideas. 4. Ethical dilemmas may actually be the result of differences in activation of two different neural circuits in our brain. 5. The aboriginal Kuuk Thaayorre have a language based on the cardinal directions of a map. The Aboriginese also have 16 genders in their language, including a gender especially for "woman, fire, and dangerous things." 6. The brain actually delays information processing in order to make events appear simultaneous. The reason we also feel time speeds up as we age is because our brain condenses more information as precepts- precepts we didn't have as children, when our brains stored memories in "uncompressed" formats. 7. Friendliness may have been the reason our complex brains evolved. 8. There might be such thing as good viruses. 9. We may have driven our closest ancestors, the Neanderthals, into extinction.The essays contained an assortment of writing styles, but all were fairly accessible and interesting. Some of the essays could be of particular use to technical scientists, particularly Nick Bostrom's essay on criteria for determining whether various biological enhancement's could be useful to people, as well as Gavin Schmidt's essay on the factors that prevent science from being destroyed by continuous specialization.The book did have some minor problems. The book could have been improved with a little more topic diversity as the book had a relatively large proportion of neuroscience essays. Essays on molecular biology, chemistry, disease, or even mathematics would have been most welcome. Stephon Alexander's essay on dark energy was a also a bit murky to grasp without a second reading. However, the book ultimately did a great job of presenting cutting-edge science and inspiring universal wonder. less

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