Brockman - This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress

As Author:

By the Late John Brockman

37

Afterwords

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution

Digerati

As Editor:

About Bateson

Speculations

Doing Science

Ways of Knowing

Creativity

The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2,000 Years

The Next Fifty Years

The New Humanists

Curious Minds

What We Believe but Cannot Prove

My Einstein

Intelligent Thought

What Is Your Dangerous Idea?

What Are You Optimistic About?

What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

This Will Change Everything

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?

Culture

The Mind

This Will Make You Smarter

This Explains Everything

Thinking

What Should We Be Worried About?

The Universe

As Coeditor:

How Things Are (with Katinka Matson)

To Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennnet, Jared Diamond, and Steven Pinker

Pioneers of the Third Culture

GEOFFREY WEST

MARCELO GLEISER

A. C. GRAYLING

SETH LLOYD

SCOTT ATRAN

LEO M. CHALUPA

HOWARD GARDNER

VICTORIA WYATT

NIGEL GOLDENFELD

NICHOLAS HUMPHREY

LEE SMOLIN

ALAN GUTH

BRUCE PARKER

ANDREI LINDE

MAX TEGMARK

LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS

PAUL STEINHARDT

ERIC R. WEINSTEIN

FRANK TIPLER

GORDON KANE

PETER WOIT

FREEMAN DYSON

DAVID DEUTSCH

W. DANIEL HILLIS

NINA JABLONSKI

RICHARD DAWKINS

PETER RICHERSON

JULIA CLARKE

KURT GRAY

MICHAEL SHERMER

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF

ROGER HIGHFIELD

ANTON ZEILINGER

STEVE GIDDINGS

AMANDA GEFTER

HAIM HARARI

SARAH DEMERS

MARIA SPIROPULU

ED REGIS

SEAN CARROLL

NICHOLAS G. CARR

REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN

IAN BOGOST

SAM HARRIS

DANIEL C. DENNETT

SUSAN BLACKMORE

TODD C. SACKTOR

BRUCE HOOD

THOMAS METZINGER

JERRY COYNE

ROBERT PROVINE

JONATHAN GOTTSCHALL

GEORGE DYSON

ALAN ALDA

GAVIN SCHMIDT

MARTIN REES

SEIRIAN SUMNER

KEVIN KELLY

ERIC J. TOPOL

TIMO HANNAY

ROBERT SAPOLSKY

ATHENA VOULOUMANOS

STEVEN PINKER

ALISON GOPNIK

KILEY HAMLIN

OLIVER SCOTT CURRY

SIMON BARON-COHEN

DANIEL L. EVERETT

TOR NRRETRANDERS

JAMIL ZAKI

ADAM WAYTZ

GARY KLEIN

DEAN ORNISH

RICHARD NISBETT

AZRA RAZA

PAUL DAVIES

STEWART BRAND

BENJAMIN K. BERGEN

N. J. ENFIELD

JOHN MCWHORTER

DAN SPERBER

KAI KRAUSE

IAN MCEWAN

GARY MARCUS

CHRISTINE FINN

DIMITAR D. SASSELOV

SHERRY TURKLE

ROGER SCHANK

TANIA LOMBROZO

FRANK WILCZEK

ALEXANDER WISSNER-GROSS

DAVID GELERNTER

TERRENCE J. SEJNOWSKI

PATRICIA S. CHURCHLAND

TOM GRIFFITHS

ROBERT KURZBAN

RODNEY A. BROOKS

SARAH-JAYNE BLAKEMORE

STEPHEN M. KOSSLYN

ANDRIAN KREYE

ERNST PPPEL

ANDY CLARK

LAURIE R. SANTOS & TAMAR GENDLER

JAY ROSEN

ALEX (SANDY) PENTLAND

MARGARET LEVI

RICHARD H. THALER

SUSAN FISKE

MATT RIDLEY

CESAR HIDALGO

HANS ULRICH OBRIST

LUCA DE BIASE

MICHAEL I. NORTON

GIULIO BOCCALETTI

LAURENCE C. SMITH

DANIEL GOLEMAN

STUART PIMM

BUDDHINI SAMARASINGHE

SCOTT SAMPSON

EDWARD SLINGERLAND

ALEX HOLCOMBE

ADAM ALTER

BRIAN CHRISTIAN

KATHRYN CLANCY

AUBREY DE GREY

ROSS ANDERSON

KATE MILLS

MELANIE SWAN

FIERY CUSHMAN

SAMUEL ARBESMAN

JUNE GRUBER

ELDAR SHAFIR

DAVID BERREBY

DAVID M. BUSS

HELEN FISHER

BRIAN KNUTSON

PAUL BLOOM

PASCAL BOYER

LAURA BETZIG

JOHN TOOBY

STEPHEN STICH

ALUN ANDERSON

MARTIN NOWAK

MICHAEL McCULLOUGH

KATE JEFFERY

IRENE PEPPERBERG

STEVE FULLER

SATYAJIT DAS

DONALD D. HOFFMAN

GREGORY BENFORD

CARLO ROVELLI

ANDREW LIH

NEIL GERSHENFELD

SAMUEL BARONDES

HUGO MERCIER

JARED DIAMOND

MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

MARY CATHERINE BATESON

JONATHAN HAIDT

GERALD SMALLBERG

LISA BARRETT

ABIGAIL MARSH

DAVID G. MYERS

JOEL GOLD & IAN GOLD

BEATRICE GOLOMB

EDUARDO SALCEDO-ALBARN

CHARLES SEIFE

GERD GIGERENZER

EMANUEL DERMAN

VICTORIA STODDEN

NICHOLAS A. CHRISTAKIS

NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB

BART KOSKO

RICHARD SAUL WURMAN

PAUL SAFFO

My thanks to Laurie Santos for suggesting this years Edge Question and to Paul Bloom and Jonathan Haidt for their refinements. As always, thanks to Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly, George Dyson, and Steven Pinker, for their continued support. I also wish to thank Peter Hubbard of HarperCollins for his encouragement. I am also indebted to my agent, Max Brockman, who saw the potential for this book, and, as always, to Sara Lippincott for her thoughtful and meticulous editing.

JOHN BROCKMAN

Publisher & Editor, Edge

THIS IDEA MUST DIE. Copyright 2015 by Edge Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-06-237434-9

EPub Edition February 2015 ISBN 9780062374356

15 16 17 18 19 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Science advances by discovering new things and developing new ideas. Few truly new ideas are developed without abandoning old ones first. As theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858-1947) noted, A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. In other words, science advances by a series of funerals. Why wait that long?