What's Next: Dispatches on the Future of Science (Vintage) (Paperback)

~ Max Brockman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Editor Brockman, an agent at a "literary and software agency," approached some of the world's rising science stars in a disciplines to explain how they're "tackling some of science's toughest questions and raising new ones." The 18 new essays that resulted evoke a fantastic cross-section of societal concerns, focusing largely on issues of ethics and the human mind. German neuroscientist Christian Keysers explains how mirror neurons, located in the brain's center of voluntary action and body-control, allow us to have vicarious experiences and use them to choose "good and not evil" when dealing with others. Psychologist Jason Mitchell expands this idea to "social thought," in which humans achieve sophisticated coordination with the actions of others in order to, for instance, "design, construct, and operate an airplane." Biologist Vanessa Woods and anthropologist Brian Hare team up to explain how dogs evolved an ability to read human minds superior to even our closest primate relatives. Other articles cover quantum field theory, climate change, the ecological niche of viruses, social insects and interdisciplinary science. This absorbing collection makes easy-to-read but thought-provoking material for even casual science buffs.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“A preview of the ideas you're going to be reading about in ten years.”
—Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought

“If these authors are the future of science, then the science of the future will be one exciting ride! Find out what the best minds of the new generation are thinking before the Nobel Committee does”
—Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness




From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307389316
• ISBN-13: 978-0307389312
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #51,799 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Essays of mixed quality, with a remarkably narrow focus, July 14, 2009

By	David M. Giltinan (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The title of this book seriously overreaches. "Dispatches from the Future of neuroscience" would be more accurate, as 12 of the 18 essays deal with neuroscientific research. One article is about climate change, two are in the area of cosmology, two deal with evolutionary biology, and the final essay in the collection addresses the question "Why hasn't specialization resulted in the balkanization of science?"

In commenting on the neuroscience essays, I should acknowledge an upfront prejudice. I don't find it particularly surprising that more sophisticated imaging methods allow specific functions to be mapped precisely to particular regions of the brain, so I didn't find the three essays which do little more than report this kind of result particularly notable. Among the remaining essays, that by Deena Skolnick Weisberg, arguing that imagination is central to what makes us human, was little more than a statement of the obvious. Nick Bostrom's "How to Enhance Human Beings" was muddled, with no clear point, the essay by Sam Cooke on the process of memory formation was incoherent, made no mention of recent work related to the placement of "false memory", and had a Huxleyan focus on possible pharmaceutical enhancement that I found disturbing.

Essays by Joshua Greene on the organization of the brain along moral and cognitive dimensions and by David Eagleman on the way the brain perceives time were clear, but unexceptional.

The good news: Christian Keysers' lucid account of the link between mirror neurons and our ethical sensibility, Matthew Lieberman's thought-provoking discussion of the thesis that "big ideas are influential and enduring because they fit with the structure and function of the human brain" and - what was for me the best essay in the book - Lera Boroditsky's "How does our language shape the way we think", summarizing recent work related to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

So I found about half the neuroscience essays worthwhile. Unfortunately, I found both cosmology essays completely incomprehensible (as I do most writing in this field). So that overall, I can't really justify more than three stars for this book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A diverse and fascinating collection, June 17, 2009

By	Smitty (New York City) - See all my reviews

The editor asked prominent young scientists from a variety of fields to talk about the future of their disciplines and the result is a fascinating and diverse collection about future breakthroughs in and challenges facing scientists.

Subjects covered include neurology, climatology, paleoanthropology, biology, but what unifies them all is an interest in what impact future discoveries will have on humanity. For instance, How does recent research into the brain affect our understanding of morality?, or time?, language acquisition, or how we think about things like physical or temporal orientation? Will there be a huge human migration to the northern climes as global warming makes the earth's climate hotter? What would places like Northern Canada be like in that scenario? There's also a really interesting essay on mirror neurons, and how our minds develop ethics.

I highly recommend this book to people interested in a smart book on current, cutting-edge scientific trends.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like the Science Times, only better!, June 18, 2009

By	JRR - See all my reviews

I love reading the Science Times section of the New York Times every Tuesday...when it comes to non-fiction, I enjoy sifting through intelligent sound bytes of information and then deciding how I want to follow up as a reader. In many ways, reading this collection was an enriched version of that experience.

Mr. Brockman's collection of essays introduces the reader to 18 up-and-coming young scientists in widely varied fields. I loved being able to pick and choose which essay to read (I started with #3, Nick Bostrom's "How to Enhance Human Beings").

A few other notes:
*I like the idea of being introduced to up-and-comers in the field
*I thought the table of contents was handled very well -- there's a blurb about the topic of each essay, so it it easy to pick and choose

Within two days I had read all 18 essays -- what a treat!