Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution 1st Touchstone Ed Edition

by John Brockman (Author)

14 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0684823447

ISBN-10: 0684823446

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Thirty-five years ago, C. P. Snow, in a now famous essay, wrote about the polarization of the "two cultures" -- literary intellectuals on the one hand, and scientists on the other. Although he hoped for the emergence of a "third culture" that would bridge the gap, it is only recently that science has changed the intellectual landscape.
Brockman's thesis that science is emerging as the intellectual center of our society is brought to life vividly in The Third Culture, which weaves together the voices of some of today's most influential scientific figures, including:
Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins on the implications of evolution Steven Pinker, Marvin Minsky, Daniel C. Dennett, and Roger Penrose on how the mind works
Murray Gell-Mann and Stuart Kauffman on the new sciences of complexity
The Third Culture is an honest picture of science in action. It is at once stimulating, challenging, and riveting.

Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution

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Editorial Reviews

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In this treatise on the central role of science, John Brockman contends that science is becoming the predominant culture and scientists are taking the place of traditional intellectuals in answering the important questions facing humankind. Structured in interview format, The Third Culture consists of 23 noted scientists discussing their theories, the nature of scientific inquiry, and their common desire to be recognized as today's intellectual leaders.

From Publishers Weekly

This set of conversational essays, distilled from interviews with 23 leading scientists, presents an engaging, unparalleled road map to the frontiers of research and speculation in evolutionary biology, genetics, artificial intelligence, psychology and physics. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould argues provocatively that evolution harbors no inevitable drive toward increasing complexity or progress. Astrophysicist Martin Rees ponders the possibility of multiple universes as well as ways to locate "dark matter," the 90% of the universe that exerts gravitational force yet is invisible and unaccounted for. Psychologist Steven Pinker defines language as an instinctual, specialized skill that develops in the child spontaneously. Philosopher Daniel Dennett views consciousness as a "virtual machine," an abstract thinking center, while, at the opposite pole, biologist Francisco Varela melds Buddhist philosophy and neuroscience in his theory of the mind as an "emergent self" shaped by interactions with its environment. Contributors include biologists Richard Dawkins and Lynn Margulis, physicists Roger Penrose and Murray Gell-Mann, cosmologists Paul Davies and Alan Guth. New York literary agent Brockman is editor of About Bateson and Doing Science. Newbridge's Library of Science, Astronomy Book Club and Natural Science Book Club and Reader's Subscription special selections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product details

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Touchstone; 1st Touchstone Ed edition (May 7, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0684823446
ISBN-13: 978-0684823447
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 14 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #22132 in Books > Science & Math > Mathematics
- #35331 in Books > Textbooks > Science & Mathematics

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3.8 out of 5 stars

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Five Stars

ByMichael S. Ridenouron August 7, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Good delivery, good book.

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Helps you know yourself

ByGeorge Broadon March 13, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Very stimulating. Lots to think about.

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Fine. But don't exaggerate

ByShalom FreedmanHALL OF FAMEon February 28, 2006

Format: Paperback

What John Brockman does here makes a lot of sense. He brings together a whole group of first- rank scientists and enables them to explain major aspects of their thought. These 'popularizations' of scientific work taken together, and dialogued about are however proposed by Brockman to be the basis of a 'Third Culture' a scientifically based higher or true culture.

Here we meet the recurrence of the well- known reality in which the person goes and asks various people in the town why X or Y happens to be the way they are. The barber says it is because they do not have a proper haircut, and the tailor says it is because their trousers have not been properly sewn, the mailman says its because their letters were not delivered. Etc Etc.

Brockman should understand that there are realms , respectable realms of cultural and human activity which Science has no significant place in. The drama of Shakespeare does not need an Isaac Asimov analysis of the number of its characters or pages to be what it is. The world of Music does not need a scientific explanation of what Music is in order to give pleasure and meaning to many.

A truly comprehensive Culture would have Science as a central part of it. But it would not be exclusively scientific.

I am personally a great fan of Brockman and the colloqiums he puts together in 'Edge'. But he should too understand that there are worlds outside the world of science, and that those worlds are real and meaningful in ways scientific work does not comprehend.

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Decidedly not third-rate

ByHHon October 25, 2016

Format: Paperback

Read this book. If you aren't both informed and exasperated by "The Third Culture", clearly you aren't a serious scientist. I would want several of the book's contributors as faculty if I were setting up a new university. And I would want John Brockman to be my agent, were I to write an appropriate book.

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Read this book, plus others with views of non-scientists.

ByA customeron November 28, 1996

Format: Paperback

This is a great book, yet because it so clearly shows the views of the best in science, it inadvertently demonstrates the limitations of scientific thought.
The best in science is not good enough! As I trained scientist myself and after reading this book, I conclude that the best in science are trying too hard to work within the limitations of their adopted methodology--the scientific mode of inquiry. Implicit within that mode is an imprisonment of thought patterns that will allow only for very slow incremental knowledge about the real important things of life. Science is bent on being absolutely sure about unimportant things (especially inorganic things) because scientists cannot bear to be just probable about anything, including important things such as human affairs.

This book clearly shows that we need to read the views of the best scientific minds, but we also need to read books by others, such as Michael Talbot's "Holographic Universe." There are other thinkers, (unfortunately not considered brilliant because we are so enamored with things scientific), who are not entrapped into being so clever within a methodology such as scientific inquiry, that was once dominant, but is now losing its relevance in providing answers to our deeper questions.

In reading "Complexity" by M. Mitchell Waldrop and this book, I was struck how hard even the more enlightened scientists from the Sante Fe Institute were trying to derive insights into self-organizing systems and other "obvious" issues. (Imagine using a Newtonian derived device--the computer, like its linear "if ..and..then" approach-- to model quantum phenomena such as awareness and consciousness which need approaches such as self-annealing knowledge!) With a simple switch in their approach, the scientists do not have to try so hard and be so clever. The problem is the METHOD of inquiry. We need paradigm shifts in our APPROACH to knowledge discovery, not just in knowledge. Complexity is actually an apology by scientists for having lead the world astray in their previous promulgations about a simple-minded, linear universe. The world had to be seen as simple because the method of inquiry was simple-minded.

Within the above perspective, I highly recommend purchase of the book. It may cause the lay people to understand that they may have to contribute to the development of the new knowledge. The best scientific minds are running out of steam, as this book shows, by making their views so accessible to the wider audience.

C. Sherman Severin, Ph.D.,

President & Editor, Consultants Report International Magazine

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The Third Culture - rediscovering the magic of science.

Bychowds00.cs06@usafa.af.milon January 4, 1998

Format: Paperback

Knowledge is power. But as Brockman successfully argues, the significance of the new knowledge born by scientific revolution will never be fully realized without communication. Enter the Third Culture. These individuals have successfully bridged the gap between ignorance and enlightenment by revealing the magic and power of science to the world.
In his book, Brockman has brought together the ideas of those who, in his opinion, are best representative of the Third Culture. Lynn Margulis' ideas on symbiosis and evolutionary change give a new twist to Darwinism; the idea of exaptation as explained by Stephen Jay Gould reveals the inherent randomness of natural selection; Alan Guth's comments on the Big Bang and the fate of the universe will force anyone to become a kid again and wonder. The reader will be exposed to a vast range of scientific thought in a way which is easily understood and enjoyable. In addition to getting exposed to ideas which are dominating science today, the reader also gets a flavor for the lives of those who are truly passionate and dedicated to their work.
Scholar or layman, the reader will enjoy this anthology of thought and walk away knowing that science is really as amazing as it's cracked up to be.

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Most recent customer reviews

Some of it is ok

Love the premise. It falls apart at some points though.

I Love having the opposing viewpoints at the end of the chapter.Read more

Published on January 9, 2007 by Battersea B.

The third culture

Pretty good book, cuz it has comentaries from many important scientists. I like it very much.

Published on November 10, 2006 by E. S. Romero

Good Idea, Lousy Execution

This book is a sad collage of weak efforts from a self-promoting literary agent. Brockman co-opts a pithy title with a specific meaning and then misapplies it intentionally,...Read more

Published on February 14, 2003 by K. Ackermann

Third Rate

The underlying premise of this book is that a new kind of scientist-popularizer now serves as the intellectual elite of our culture.Read more

Published on May 28, 2001

Is there a comprehensible and informative science book?

Yes, and it's called 'The Third Culture'. I am a final year high school student studying evolution and I read 'The Third Culture' expecting a dry and uninteresting outline of...Read more

Published on April 14, 1999

Fine Survey of Latest Scientific Conceptual Worldviews

In this fine volume, editor and literary agent John Brockman has managed to assemble a majority of the key scientists who are developing the 'Third Culture' - a new scientific...Read more

Published on April 13, 1999 by Alex Burns (alex.burns@disinfo.net)

Yet another attempt to justify scientific snobbery.

This book starts out with the oft-expressed complaint of C.P. Snow and others regarding the two cultures in academics and thought, positing the humanities against the sciences.Read more

Published on January 2, 1999

A Reader's Digest for Science

Why pour over stacks of technical journals when Brockman
has collected summary essays from leaders in their fields?

Published on January 7, 1997

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