Edge.org presents brilliant, accessible, cutting-edge ideas to improve our decision-making skills and improve our cognitive toolkits, with contributions by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Richard Dawkins, Brian Eno, Steven Pinker, and more. Featuring a foreword by New York Times columnist David Brooks and edited by John Brockman, This Will Make You Smarter presents some of the best wisdom from today’s leading thinkers—to make better thinkers out of the leaders of tomorrow.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“This Will Make You Smarter gives us better tools to think about the world and is eminently practical for life day to day. The people in this book lead some of the hottest fields.” (DAVID BROOKS, from the Foreword )
“The world’s smartest website ... Edge is a salon for the world’s finest minds” (The Guardian )
“Edge.org has become an epicenter of bleeding-edge insight across science, technology and beyond, hosting conversations with some of our era’s greatest thinkers” (Atlantic Monthly )
“A winning combination of good writers, good science and serious broader concerns.” (KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review) )
“The world’s smartest website ... Edge is a salon for the world’s finest minds” (The Guardian )
“Edge.org has become an epicenter of bleeding-edge insight across science, technology and beyond, hosting conversations with some of our era’s greatest thinkers” (Atlantic Monthly )
“A winning combination of good writers, good science and serious broader concerns.” (KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review) )
From the Back Cover
Featuring a foreword by David Brooks, This Will Make You Smarter presents brilliant—but accessible—ideas to expand every mind.
What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world’s most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enlightening, these insights will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the world.
Daniel Kahneman on the “focusing illusion” • Jonah Lehrer on controlling attention • Richard Dawkins on experimentation • Aubrey De Grey on conquering our fear of the unknown • Martin Seligman on the ingredients of well-being • Nicholas Carr on managing “cognitive load” • Steven Pinker on win-win negotiating • Daniel C. Dennett on benefiting from cycles • Jaron Lanier on resisting delusion • Frank Wilczek on the brain’s hidden layers • Clay Shirky on the “80/20 rule” • Daniel Goleman on understanding our connection to the natural world • V. S. Ramachandran on paradigm shifts • Matt Ridley on tapping collective intelligence • John McWhorter on path dependence • Lisa Randall on effective theorizing • Brian Eno on “ecological vision” • Richard Thaler on rooting out false concepts • J. Craig Venter on the multiple possible origins of life • Helen Fisher on temperament • Sam Harris on the flow of thought • Lawrence Krauss on living with uncertainty
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
61 of 65 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The origin of this book is a simple one: The editor, John Brockman, tossed out the question "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?" to over 150 contemporary thought leaders, and recorded the results. Brockman has worked for decades to bring thinkers together, under the premise that great things happen when cross-disciplinary exchanges of brilliant thinking take place. Bacteria, because they are so profligate in exchanging genetic information across species, are astoundingly capable of arriving at new and adaptive solutions to environmental (including antibiotics) challenges. Brockman, I'm guessing, would be comfortable with the notion that in posing annual questions to leaders in the fields of many different disciplines he is increasing the adaptability, creativity, and problem solving capabilities of the human race. This Will Make You Smarter is excellent evidence that he may well be correct. Bacteria have something to teach us.
Almost everyone gets a say here: astrophysicists, sociologists, environmentalists, historians, microbiologists, newspaper columnists, particle physicists, philosophers, and a host of notables in other disciplines. The result is a truly provocative treasure heap of notions that just might do what the title of the book claims. The book is a bucket of pearls: succinct (for the most part!) notions with real punch are the order of the day. John Brockman's website, Edge.org, aims to represent cutting edge ideas, and the included authors often are forced to create neologisms or resurrect arcane vocabulary (e.g. Interbeing and apophenia) to express their thoughts fully.
This book is not a quick read. I left it at my bedside and knocked off a few every evening, often with a new concept, or an improved version of an old one, caroming around the confines of my cranium as I drifted off to sleep. Some ideas seemed both verbose and obtuse. Most seemed refreshing and useful. My favorite was also the shortest of all the selections, almost haiku like in intensity. In its entirety, here is Susan Fiske's (Princeton Professor of Psychology) essay: "The most important scientific concept is that an assertion is often an empirical question settled by collecting evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data, and the plural of opinion is not facts. Quality peer-reviewed scientific evidence accumulates into knowledge. People's stories are stories, and fiction keeps us going. But science should settle policy."
As several previous reviewers have noted, this book is available free online at Edge.org. Why spend ten bucks? There is one reason that you might want to consider: it's a book that you'll savage with your pen, assaulting the pages with highlighter ink, filling the margins with thoughts, and littering the essays with circles and exclamation marks. You'll pull it down off your bookshelf regularly, every time you want tangible evidence in your hands that human beings do, on occasion, have some REALLY good ideas.
Almost everyone gets a say here: astrophysicists, sociologists, environmentalists, historians, microbiologists, newspaper columnists, particle physicists, philosophers, and a host of notables in other disciplines. The result is a truly provocative treasure heap of notions that just might do what the title of the book claims. The book is a bucket of pearls: succinct (for the most part!) notions with real punch are the order of the day. John Brockman's website, Edge.org, aims to represent cutting edge ideas, and the included authors often are forced to create neologisms or resurrect arcane vocabulary (e.g. Interbeing and apophenia) to express their thoughts fully.
This book is not a quick read. I left it at my bedside and knocked off a few every evening, often with a new concept, or an improved version of an old one, caroming around the confines of my cranium as I drifted off to sleep. Some ideas seemed both verbose and obtuse. Most seemed refreshing and useful. My favorite was also the shortest of all the selections, almost haiku like in intensity. In its entirety, here is Susan Fiske's (Princeton Professor of Psychology) essay: "The most important scientific concept is that an assertion is often an empirical question settled by collecting evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data, and the plural of opinion is not facts. Quality peer-reviewed scientific evidence accumulates into knowledge. People's stories are stories, and fiction keeps us going. But science should settle policy."
As several previous reviewers have noted, this book is available free online at Edge.org. Why spend ten bucks? There is one reason that you might want to consider: it's a book that you'll savage with your pen, assaulting the pages with highlighter ink, filling the margins with thoughts, and littering the essays with circles and exclamation marks. You'll pull it down off your bookshelf regularly, every time you want tangible evidence in your hands that human beings do, on occasion, have some REALLY good ideas.
70 of 83 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Just got this book today, so perhaps I'm breaking a rule by posting a review before finishing the book. However, I love this book's structure and breadth of topics. If you like TED, you'll love this book since both distill topics to their essence by leading experts and both leave the audience more informed but wanting more. That and the price is a bargain.
First off the structure of this book is great. 397 pages of short essays ranging from one to several pages. The table of contents (all 24 pages of it) at the beginning gives you the essay titles, authors, and a short phrase describing the essay. There's also an index in the back if you prefer more topical browsing. This structure makes this book very accessible since you can pick it up and read as much or as little as you have time for.
Each essay is self-contained and distills topics which are easy to get out into the weeds on. As the book's title suggests, rather than just factual essays, the authors try to show how elements from their field of study can be used to alter your thinking or better understand the world around you. Each essay presents its own kind of mini world view, a single data point describing not not what to think but how to think.
The range of topics is amazing as well. From the back cover, topics include:
* cognitive illusions/delusions
* experimentation
* fear of the unknown
* biases
* negotiation
* culture
* paradigm shifts
* the natural world
* technology
* biology
* uncertainty & randomness
* time
* science
* and lots more
I highly recommend this book.
First off the structure of this book is great. 397 pages of short essays ranging from one to several pages. The table of contents (all 24 pages of it) at the beginning gives you the essay titles, authors, and a short phrase describing the essay. There's also an index in the back if you prefer more topical browsing. This structure makes this book very accessible since you can pick it up and read as much or as little as you have time for.
Each essay is self-contained and distills topics which are easy to get out into the weeds on. As the book's title suggests, rather than just factual essays, the authors try to show how elements from their field of study can be used to alter your thinking or better understand the world around you. Each essay presents its own kind of mini world view, a single data point describing not not what to think but how to think.
The range of topics is amazing as well. From the back cover, topics include:
* cognitive illusions/delusions
* experimentation
* fear of the unknown
* biases
* negotiation
* culture
* paradigm shifts
* the natural world
* technology
* biology
* uncertainty & randomness
* time
* science
* and lots more
I highly recommend this book.
80 of 97 people found the following review helpful
By John Odell
Format:Paperback
I am enjoying the concise and stimulating essays gathered together in This Will Make You Smarter. There are a number of positive reviews that paint a clear picture of this book, but the skewed one-star review by Open Sesame dated March 6, 2012 compels a rebuttal. This reviewer is apparently knowledgeable enough to judge the book to be devoid of new ideas, yet I expect most readers will find, as I have, an ample number of fresh ideas within their experience to stimulate thinking in new directions. Open Sesame is miffed to have purchased the book upon later discovering that the contents are available for free at the Edge web site, but this information is available through Amazon's "look inside" feature which displays a substantial amount of the book contents and the introduction describes how it was developed through the dialogue at the Edge web site. I find a touch of irony in such a smart individual broadcasting their own blunders. There is also a derisive implication that with the book contents being available online that it would be foolish to order the book; this doesn't recognize the perspective of many people who prefer the format and convenience of reading a physical book over that of reading online. Secret agent Maxwell Smart had a favored phrase that sums up the perspective of Closed Sesame: "He missed it by that much....."
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm smarter now!!
The goal of this book is to simply add important ideas to your "conitive toolkit." This is a machine gun loaded with one to three page explanations by different authors. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Nidan
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best
I sent this book to my children. It is full of thoughtful, short, intelligent information. This and other Edge books edited by John Stockman are a must for every personal library. Read more
Published 2 days ago by Robert Bregman
4.0 out of 5 stars
A thought provoking collection of essays
I love this series of books. This volume was especially interesting and thought provoking. There are a lot of interesting concepts here--enough for many "toolkits."
Published 4 days ago by Green
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting book
mind provoking book about different topics. Short chapters written by specialists/thinkers that invite to think. Good food for thought at very good price
Published 10 days ago by Mr. Peebles
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome
This is a book that offers ideas to help you create ideas of your own. You need to read this in short settings so you can digest what is being said. Read more
Published 12 days ago by Nick Danger
1.0 out of 5 stars
Make you smarter?
No, it won't. There is noting in this bloated book of hot air that will cause one to reexamine ones philosophy or even pause to think about what one has just read.
Published 16 days ago by In-the-know
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Intellectual, "Daily Devotional."
Short essays by proactive thinkers that challenge one's assumptions about the best way to honestly approach understanding ourselves and the 'world.'
Published 26 days ago by michaelnwct
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great, accessible introduction to various ideas
Interesting, well-edited piecemeal introduction to various concepts and thinking tools; you can think of it as a series of 5-minute TED talks (of the scientific variety) gathered... Read more
Published 1 month ago by T. Wedell-Wedellsborg
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent for those who can understand scientific concepts
It is a series of analects for the beginner in science and also for those who are more advanced than I..
Published 1 month ago by Morris Pumphrey
4.0 out of 5 stars
I feel smarter already !
Compilation of many short essays by very smart people. Most are very interesting and entertaining. Fun read. I feel smarter already! Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jimmy R. Sorrells
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