Edge in the News: 2008
The future of Selection: Scientists Craig Venter and Richard Dawkins in Munich (Die Zukunft der Selektion)
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG
[1.21.08]
Digital oder biologisch? Auf der Münchner Zukunftskonferenz DLD (Digital Life Design) gab es am vergangenen Montag einen Moment, der an die Hölzchen-Übergabe beim Staffellauf erinnern konnte: Nach einer eher zähflüssigen Diskussion über Sinn und Zweck sozialer Plattformen im Internet trat ein gedrungener Mann auf die Bühne, stellte sich als John Brockman vor und kündigte an, dass von jetzt an eine Stunde nur über Biologie gesprochen werden würde.
John Brockman ist nicht irgendein Moderator. Im Spätsommer 2007 hat er in seinem Landhaus in Connecticut das inzwischen legendäre "Life: What a Concept!"-Symposium veranstaltet, bei dem sechs Pioniere der Naturwissenschaften gemeinsam eine ganze neue Wissenschaftsära ausriefen: Nach der Entschlüsselung des menschlichen Genoms würden schon bald eigene Genom-Sequenzen geschrieben werden können. Und damit bräche das biologische Zeitalter an.
Maßgeschneiderte Gene
Auf die Münchner Konferenz hatte Brockman nun mit Craig Venter den wichtigsten Kopf seines damaligen Treffens mitgebracht. Der amerikanische Unternehmer, Molekularbiologe und Erst-Entschlüssler des Genoms ist die personifizierte Zukunft der Biotechnologie. Nicht nur, dass Venter in den letzten Jahren die Zahl der bekannten Gene mehr als verdoppelt hat, bereits vor dem Treffen in Connecticut hatte er ein Patent auf die erste künstliche Lebensform überhaupt angemeldet - sein Mycoplasma laboratorium soll einmal das erste sich durch eigene Zellteilung fortpflanzende Kunst-Chromosom überhaupt werden. Und einmal, das bedeutet in Venters Welt noch im Kalenderjahr 2008.
Brockmans zweiten Gast begeisterten diese Aussichten. Der britische Evolutionsbiologe Richard Dawkins, zuletzt vor allem mit seinen Büchern "Das egoistische Gen" und "Der Gotteswahn" bekannt geworden, beschwor, wie nahtlos sich die Möglichkeiten einer "synthetischen Biologie" in Darwins Evolutionslehre einpassen ließen. Für Dawkins ist von menschlicher Fortpflanzung bis zur Laborschaffung neuer Mikroben alles ein großer Testlauf der Natur - zwar unkorrigierbar, vor allem aber unaufhaltbar. Im rasanten Vorwärts der Evolution hat der Mensch ohnehin keine Wahl und braucht deshalb auch kein genbiologisches Experiment zu scheuen.
Craig Venter, dem das Vergnügen an den rasanten Fortschritten seines Instituts deutlich anzusehen war, argumentierte da vorsichtiger. Im Wissen um die Vorbehalte der Europäer gegen Genmanipulationen betonte er vor allem die dringende Notwendigkeit forcierter Eingriffe in den Bauplan der Natur: Die menschlichen Umweltzerstörungen hätten derart irreversible Schäden angerichtet, dass nur noch die Flucht nach vorn helfe. Seinen Kunst-Chromosomen will er eines Tages maßgeschneiderte Gene aufsetzen, die beispielsweise den Kohlendioxid-Überschuss einfach aus der Luft saugen oder Licht in Wasserstoff umwandeln können.
Venter focht seine Sache gut, prangerte die restriktiven Gen-Gesetzgebungen vieler Nationen an und beschrieb die Zukunft detailliert als Selektionsvorgang, der wenigstens nicht ganz so chaotisch wie bisher ablaufen müsse. Zur Einführung hatte Conferencier Brockman noch im Scherz postuliert, dass sich mit Venters Forschungen jede Hauskatze schon bald in einen Haushund verwandelt werden könne - Venter distanzierte sich scharf von Manipulationen an Säugetieren und sprach ausschließlich von Eingriffen im Molekularbereich.
Verständlicherweise aber wollte er sich nicht einmal auf dieser Ebene zum Herrn über eigene Kreaturen abstempeln lassen. Angesichts unzähliger sich ununterbrochen transformierender Lebewesen sei jeder Schöpfergedanke bloße Mystifikation. Lachend verbeugte er sich vor Dawkins religionskritischer Polemik "Der Gotteswahn": Wo es keinen Gott gebe, könne man auch nicht Gott spielen.
FLORIAN KESSLER
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Das Netz ist dicht. Bei der jährlichen Versammlung der digitalen Eliten, die Burda Media in München organisiert, ist kaum noch Platz in den Funkzellen. W-Lan und UMTS ächzen unter Vollast, überall wird telefoniert, gesurft und getippt, auf jedem Stuhl sitzt jemand mit einem Smartphone oder Laptop, und so mancher habituelle Blackberry-User hat jetzt zusätzlich auch noch ein iPhone dabei.
DLD heißt die Veranstaltung. Früher stand das für "Digital Lifestyle Day", inzwischen für "Digital, Life, Design". Sie ist hochkarätig besetzt - nicht nur, aber auch deshalb, weil sie günstig liegt: Viele der internationalen Business-Stars, die dem Verleger hier die Ehre erweisen, reisen anschließend gleich weiter nach Davos zum Weltwirtschaftsforum. So kann man dieses Jahr Menschen wie Richard Dawkins und Marissa Mayer von Google auf dem Gang treffen. Und Jason Calacanis, der das Profi-Bloggen erfand, diskutiert mit Wikipedia-Gründer Jimmy Wales - ach ja, auch Naomi Campbell soll heute noch vorbeischauen.
Bio-Revolutionär inmitten von Technikfans
Die Erregung ist groß, Themen sind die neuen Märkte in Indien und China, immer noch Social Networks und vor allem das mobile Netz. Vielleicht erscheint letzteres Thema manchem auch deshalb so dringlich, weil fast alle Anwesenden ständig versuchen, ins Internet zu kommen und immer wieder daran scheitern.
Inmitten all der Technologiebegeisterung findet dann ein Gespräch statt, das mehr Sprengkraft birgt als all die Pläne der alten und neuen digitalen Unternehmer zusammen - aber das merkt kaum jemand. Es ist immer zu voll beim DLD, bei interessanten Veranstaltungen muss man stehen. Aber als der Gen-Unternehmer Craig Venter und der Gen-Revolutionär Richard Dawkins, der mit seinem religionskritischen Wälzer "Der Gotteswahn" gerade die gesamte religiöse Rechte gegen sich aufgebracht hat, gestern gemeinsam auf die Bühne gingen, um über ein "gen-zentrisches Weltbild" zu sprechen, stehen weniger als sonst. Und das, obwohl in dieser Veranstaltung revolutionärere Sätze gesagt und wildere Prognosen formuliert werden als sonst auf dieser an Zukunftsvisionen nicht armen Veranstaltung.
Venter, der zuletzt Schlagzeilen machte, als er sein persönliches Genomvollständig ins Netz stellte, sagt ständig Ungeheuerliches - aber keiner reagiert. Der Klimawandel, so Venter, sei eine viel größere Bedrohung für die Menschheit als die Gentechnik. Die aber könne dagegen helfen: Mit genmanipulierten Mikroben, die CO2 fressen zum Beispiel: "Wir können die Umwelt durch gezielte Gestaltung verändern." John Brockman, der als Literaturagent sowohl Dawkins als auch Venter unter Vertrag hat, soll eigentlich moderieren, überlässt das aber dann doch weitgehend Dawkins. Als Venter dann vom gezielten gentechnischen Gestalten der Umwelt spricht, wacht er kurz auf. Man habe ihm einmal erklärt, wenn man in Deutschland solche Themen anschneide, "dann gibt es einen Aufstand - aber Sie scheinen alle so ruhig!". Und er hat recht.
"Leben wird zu Technologie"
Aufregung will sich einfach nicht einstellen, also setzt Venter - wie immer ganz Provokateur - noch einen drauf. Dawkins - notgedrungen nun in der Rolle des Advocatus Diaboli - fragt, ob Venter denn alles Leben als Technologie betrachte. "Das Leben ist Maschinerie", antwortet der, "und während wir lernen, es zu beeinflussen, wird es zu Technologie". Dawkins, der in Hemdsärmeln und mit einer sehr eigenwillig gemusterten weiß-grauen Krawatte ein bisschen wirkt wie ein freundlicher Mathematiklehrer, sieht sich nun doch zu einer zaghaften Warnung genötigt: Das wilde Vermischen von Genpools könne unabsehbare Folgen haben. Er zieht eine Parallele zu eingeschleppten Mikroben, Pflanzen oder Säugetierarten, die in unvorbereiteten Ökosystemen Verheerendes anrichten können.
Dawkins weiß, wovon er redet - er ist in den Siebzigern mit einem Buch namens "Das egoistische Gen" berühmt geworden. Zu Anfang des Gesprächs hat er gesagt: "Gene sind Information." Darauf aufbauend skizziert Venter nun eine Zukunft, in der genetische Information per E-Mail verschickt und beim Empfänger wieder zu einem Lebewesen zusammengebaut werden kann: "Wir können ein Chromosom jetzt schon im Labor rekonstruieren." Dem "Guardian" hatte Venter schon im vergangenen Oktober berichtet, er werde demnächst das erste vollständig künstliche Lebewesen erschaffen - nun führt er aus, wie er sich diese Zukunft vorstellt, in der Gene Software sind und Menschen nach Gutdünken Lebewesen nach ihren Wünschen schaffen. Was passiert, wenn diese Zuchtgene sich, frei nach Dawkins, allzu egoistisch verhalten sollten, bleibt ungefragt.
Während auf dem Podium diese unerhörte Konversation stattfindet, während ein gentechnologisch Radikaler und ein Vordenker der sich gerade vollziehenden wissenschaftlichen Revolution eine Zukunft inmitten von Designer-Wesen und DNA-Druckern ausmalen, unterhalten sich direkt daneben einige Web-Unternehmer und Venture-Kapitalisten lautstark über soziale Netzwerke und Verdienstmöglichkeiten. Neben den in Ehren ergrauten Herren auf der Bühne, sind sie es, die in diesem Moment ein bisschen farblos wirken - fast schon ein wenig gestrig.
IN a couple of days, Obama mania will reach new heights.
The US President-elect will gaze across to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and deliver his inaugural speech, grandly titled the New Birth of Freedom.
The speech will certainly contain multiple references to change and hope for a better world.
It will undoubtedly be an event of monumental historical significance - nothing can match a US presidential inauguration for star-studded razzmatazz and fulsome displays of faith. But will anything really change?
Possibly. The cynics may disagree, but Barak Obama seems capable of inspiring the world right now. He reaches out to something deep seated in human nature - the need to believe, hope and love.
Obama's job won't be easy. In the words of writer Ron Rolheiser, we are a culture rich in everything except clarity.
We are drowning in information, discoveries, competing ideologies and values and personal options. Our psyches and souls are shaped by the explosion of technology and information that renders almost everything we learn almost immediately obsolete. Nothing seems permanent.
Anyone who watches Oprah or Jerry Springer knows the culture - long on openness, but short on trust.
We are a world suffering allergies. About a third of us are allergic to cat fur, peanuts, dust mites, seafood, selected chemicals or something else. There's a lot to fear.
The Edge, a website that regularly poses big questions, recently asked a select group of thinkers: What will change everything?
The scientists, philosophers and writers came up with some interesting answers.
Some argued that everything would change with the invention of cheap and powerful artificial intelligence that would improve itself.
Others opted for advances in molecular technology, discovery of intelligent life elsewhere, an end to war and human misery, mastering death, accidental nuclear war, a web-powered revolution, the breakdown of all computers and the invention of a laptop quantum computer.
A playwright suggested nothing needed to happen to bring about change; real changes, he said, had always happened, and always would.
Actor Alan Alda said: "I find it hard to believe that anything will change everything. The only exception might be if we suddenly learned how to live with one another. But, does anyone think that will come about in a foreseeable lifetime?
"Even if we were visited by weird little people from another planet and were forced to band together, I doubt if it would be long before we'd find ways to break into factions again, identifying those among us who are not quite people."
American author and philosopher Sam Keen believes real change comes when we thoughtfully question our existence.
Keen calls himself a recovering Presbyterian and a trustful agnostic. He wears a question mark rather than a cross around his neck.
He believes the path of spirituality is not the path of religion. Religion begins with the answers, but spirituality begins with the questions.
In his view, you never arrive at the end of this journey. Human life is a journey whose end is not in sight.
Keen says to maintain our sanity in today's world, we all need a spiritual bulldust detector.
"In a world of cults, gurus, and self-help programs, we need to be mindful of how accepted beliefs often get in the way of true understanding," he says. As he sees it, real wisdom is born of "epistemological humility" of bewilderment in the face of life's enduring mysteries.
Keen recognises a worldwide longing for answers that cannot be satisfied by traditional religion. And the statistics seem to confirm his view.
Church attendances are down, but spiritual searchers - those who want something more than paying lip service to God or attending a church on the weekend - are increasing.
"The spiritual craving of our time is triggered by the perennial human need to connect with something that transcends the fragile self, to surrender to something bigger and more lasting than our brief moment in history," he writes in his book Hymns to an Unknown God.
"Spirituality is in," he writes. "Millions who have become disillusioned with a secular view of life, but are unmoved by established religion in any of its institutional forms, are setting out on a quest for something - some missing value, some absent purpose, some new meaning, some presence of the sacred."
Edge: brilliant, essential and addictive
Publico
[1.13.08]
Science
History Shows That Famous Thinkers Also Get It Wrong. And they admit it
Cover Story, Sunday Magazine
When the world's great scientific thinkers change their minds
One hundred and sixty-five eminent thinkers, researchers, and communicators, at the annual request of the edge.org website, answered the following question: "What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?"
Ana Gerschenfeld
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From particle physics to evolutionary theory, to the atomic bomb, to global warming, to the battle of the sexes, to the equality of human beings, to God and the paranormal, and to the dogmatism of scientists themselves, dozens of the big thinkers in the world explained online, at the start of 2008, what the most important things that they’ve change their minds about during their lives are.
The project takes place on the website www.edge.org, a kind of informal think tank, a forum for ideas and scientific debates (see adjoining article), which asks such questions annually online and later publishes the result in book form.
Many of the names here are well known to the interested public—the physicist Freeman Dyson, the "genome decoder" Craig Venter, the biologist Richard Dawkins (author of the controversial book The God Delusion), the Nobel laureate physicist Leon Lederman. Other participants, such as actor Alan Alda or the musician Brian Eno, may be surprising departures, but are just as interesting. And there are a number of science journalists, as well, including Steve Connor of the Independent, Roger Highfield of theTelegraph, and Philip Campbell, editor of Nature. The following are some examples of the ideas that they are re-evaluating.
1
The atomic bomb won the war
Freeman Dyson, renowned physicist and mathematician, Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study
I changed my mind about an important historical question: did the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring World War Two to an end? Until this year I used to say, perhaps. Now, because of new facts, I say no.
2
We have stopped evolving
Steven Pinker, experimental psychologist, Harvard University
Ten years ago I wrote, "Are we still evolving? Biologically, probably not much." The completion of the Human Genome Project was several years away. But new results have suggested that thousands of genes, perhaps as much as ten percent of the human genome, have been under strong recent selection, and the selection may even have accelerated during the past several thousand years. Currently, evolutionary psychology assumes that any adaptation to post-agricultural ways of life are 100% cultural. If these results hold up, and apply to psychologically relevant brain function, then that simplifying assumption might have to be reconsidered.
3
The paranormal exists
Susan Blackmore, psychologist, consultant to the journalSkeptical Inquirer
When I was a student at Oxford in 1970, I became became fascinated with occultism, mediumship and the paranormal. I did the experiments. I tested telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance; I got only chance results. I trained fellow students in imagery techniques and tested them again; chance results. I tested twins in pairs; chance results. I worked in play groups and nursery schools with very young children (their naturally telepathic minds are not yet warped by education, you see); chance results. I trained as a Tarot reader and tested the readings; chance results. I was lying in the bath trying to fit my latest null results into paranormal theory, when it occurred to me for the very first time that I might have been completely wrong, and my tutors right. Perhaps there were no paranormal phenomena at all. I had hunted ghosts and poltergeists, trained as a witch, attended spiritualist churches, and stared into crystal balls. But all of that had to go. Once the decision was made it was actually quite easy.
4
We are all equal
Simon Baron-Cohen, psychologist, Autism Research Center, Cambridge University
When I was young I believed in equality as a guiding principle in life. My mind has been changed. I still believe in some aspects of the idea of equality, but I can no longer accept the whole package. Striving to give people equality of social opportunity is still a value system worth defending, but we have to accept that equality has no place in the realm of biology.
5
The obligation of a scientist to do science
Leon Lederman, Nobel Laureate in Physics (author of The God Particle)
I have always believed that the scientist’s most sacred obligation is to continue to do science. Now I know that I was dead wrong. I am driven to the ultimately wise advice of my Columbia mentor, I.I. Rabi, who, in our many corridor bull sessions, urged his students to run for public office and get elected. He insisted that to be an advisor (he was an advisor to Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, later to Eisenhower and to the AEC) was ultimately an exercise in futility and that the power belonged to those who are elected. Then, we thought the old man was bonkers. But today... A Congress which is overwhelmingly dominated by lawyers and MBAs makes no sense in this 21st century in which almost all issues have a science and technology aspect.
6
Men are at the top because they are smarter
Helena Cronin, philosopher, London School of Economics
I used to think that these patterns of sex differences resulted mainly from average differences between men and women in innate talents, tastes and temperaments. After all, in talents men are on average more mathematical, more technically minded, women more verbal; in tastes, men are more interested in things, women in people; in temperaments, men are more competitive, risk-taking, single-minded, status-conscious, women far less so. But I have now changed my mind. It is not a matter of averages, but of extremes. Females are much of a muchness, clustering round the mean. But, among males, the variance—the difference between the most and the least, the best and the worst—can be vast. So males are almost bound to be over-represented both at the bottom and at the top. I think of this as 'more dumbbells but more Nobels'.
7
It is possible to unify the forces of physics
Marcelo Gleiser, Brazilian physicist and astronomer, Dartmouth College
I was always fascinated by the idea of unification of the forces of nature. I wrote dozens of papers related to the subject of unification, even my Ph.D. dissertation was on the topic. I was fascinated by the modern approaches to the idea, supersymmetry, superstrings, a space with extra, hidden dimensions. A part of me still is. But then, a few years ago, I started to doubt unification, finding it to be the scientific equivalent of a monotheistic formulation of reality, a search for God revealed in equations. Of course, had we the slightest experimental evidence in favor of unification, of supersymmetry and superstrings, I'd be the first popping the champagne open. But it's been over twenty years, and all attempts so far have failed.
8
Global warming is not an urgent problem
Craig Venter, human genome decoder, J. Craig Venter Institute
Like many or perhaps most I wanted to believe that our oceans and atmosphere were basically unlimited sinks with an endless capacity to absorb the waste products of human existence. I wanted to believe that solving the carbon fuel problem was for future generations and that the big concern was the limited supply of oil not the rate of adding carbon to the atmosphere. The data is irrefutable. We are conducting a dangerous experiment with our planet. One we need to stop. Now.
9
Humans emerged because they began to eat meat
Richard Wrangham, British anthropologist, student of Jane Goodall, Harvard University
I used to think that human origins were explained by meat-eating. But I now think that cooking was the major advance that made us human. Cooked food allows our guts, teeth and mouths to be small, while giving us abundant food energy and freeing our time. Cooked food, of course, requires the control of fire; and a fire at night explains how Homo erectus dared sleep on the ground. So, in a roast potato and a hunk of beef we have a new theory of what made us human.
10
Races do not exist
Mark Pagel, evolutionary biologist, Reading University
There is an overbearing censorship to the way we are allowed to think and talk about the diversity of people on Earth. Officially we are all the same: there are no races. Flawed as the old ideas about race are, modern genomic studies reveal a surprising, compelling and different picture of human genetic diversity. What this all means is that, like it or not, there may be many genetic differences among human populations—including differences that may even correspond to old categories of 'race'—that are real differences in the sense of making one group better than another at responding to some particular environmental problem. This in no way says one group is in general 'superior' to another, or that one group should be preferred over another. But it warns us that we must be prepared to discuss genetic differences among human populations.
John Brockman intersects the cultures
Edge: brilliant, essential and addictive
Edge is a bimonthly newsletter and a website. It is a single publication, run by North American John Brockman, a literary agent with a constellation of world-famous scientists (most, but not all, are from the Anglo-Saxon world). Brockman, born in Boston in 1941, now resides in New York. He is the author and editor of 19 books, including The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution.
Brockman writes in his presentation of the site that the "traditional intellectual", i.e. one with a 1950s education "in Freud, Marx, and modernism" no longer has sufficient qualifications to be a thinking person in the world today. One cannot be just a "literary intellectual"—that self-defined term used in the 1930s by "men of letters" to the exclusion of scientists such as Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg. "The traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time", he says.
"The third culture" is defined by Brockman as consisting of "those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are." The mandate of the Edge Foundation is "to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society."
The online world of Edge clearly benefits from a suspension of the fear of not being politically correct or addressing issues that are not the specialty of the participant. All the invited participants play the game, presenting controversial ideas, confessing doubts, casting proposals for the future. "There is no canon of acceptable ideas" notes Brockman. "The strength of the Third Culture is precisely that it can tolerate those disagreements." The result of this ambitious venture, for those who have already experienced navigating the web pages of edge.org, is not only brilliant, but addictive. It interprets, it interrogates, it provokes. Each text can be a world in itself.
Although little known to the greater European public—just looking at the list of periodical articles referenced on the website’s press page is enough to see that Edge has become an indispensable point of passage essential for all—specialists and fans—who like to perceive and reflect on the great scientific, social, cultural, and policy questions that are shaped by the arguments of these "new intellectuals", who work and think "at the edge of the world's knowledge" (Brockman's words, of course). Ana Gerschenfeld
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The film adaptation of English writer Ian McEwan’s prize-winning novel Atonementopened last month to widespread critical acclaim. Winners of the Golden Globes will be announced this weekend, and Atonement sits on top of the field, with the mostnominations of any film. Isaac Chotiner spoke with McEwan about letting go, growing up, and why atheists need to speak out.
Was it hard to watch Atonement be adapted to film by other people? Did you feel possessive?
I’m fairly used to the process. I think this is the fifth or sixth of my stories or novels that have been made into films. I’m sure I’d be possessive if I allowed myself to get involved in the writing of the script. There’s a lot to be said for not doing that. I did it once withThe Innocent and John Schlesinger, and it was a fairly difficult process because everyone--the director, the designers, actors, everyone--had their own ideas and came piling in. And you are suddenly knocked off your perch as the God in this machine. It is better to have someone take a free run at it. But I can’t quite walk away, so I like to stay involved. I like film sets, and I enjoy the collaborative process. I’m not sure if I had the worst of both worlds or the best.
One of the great things about the book is the way you get inside the head of Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old girl. Were you worried that film is a medium in which it is harder to get inside a character’s head?
Well, it is impossible for a movie to give you what a novel can give you, which is the flavor of rolling thoughts and consciousness. But you have to do the best with what you’ve got, which with movies is a high dependence on actors to somehow let us feel the illusion that we can follow a thought process. And I think the casting of Briony with Saoirse Ronan was really astute. She is a very watchful girl, a completely intuitive young actress.
Earlier in your career, you were known as "Ian Macabre.” Though there is less of what you call the darkness and violence that was marked your stories 25 years ago, your newer work still has a level of intensity and discomfort. I’m thinking particularly of the sex scene in your latest novel, On Chesil Beach.
Some of the dark-hearted stuff from those short stories still lives on, whether it is the beginning of Enduring Love or the scene toward the end of Saturday or even elements of Atonement. But it is bound to change. One passes the usual milestones in life: You have children, you find that whether you like it or not, you have a huge investment in the human project somehow succeeding. You become maybe a little more tolerant as you get older. Pessimism begins to feel something like a badge that you perhaps do not wear so easily. There is something delicious and reckless about the pessimism of being 21. And when you get older you feel maybe a little more delicate and hope that things will flourish. You don’t want to take a stick to it.
I want to read you a quote from James Wood in The New Yorker about Philip Roth’s latest book: “How much of any self is pure invention? Isn't such invention as real to us as reality? But then how much reality can we bear? Roth knows that this kind of inquiry, far from robbing his fiction of reality, provokes an intense desire in his readers to invest his invented characters with solid reality.” A lot of Atonement is about the question of what is real in fiction, and I was curious for your thoughts about literary realism these days.
The kind of fiction I like and the kind of fiction I most often want to write does have its feet on the ground of realism, certainly psychological realism. I have no interest in magical realism and the supernatural--that is really an extension, I guess, of my atheism. I think that the world, as it is, is so difficult to capture that some kind of enactment of the plausibly shared reality that we inhabit is a very difficult task. But it is one that fascinates me. I have just re-read a couple of Saul Bellow novels, Mr. Sammler’s Planet and The Dean’s December. I really get a thrill from his engagement with the momentous task of what it is like to be in the 20th century in Chicago or even Bucharest, what the condition is, what it’s like, how it is now. This is something that modernism shied away from--the pace of things, the solid achievement of weight in your hand. So I remain rather committed to that. But also to what is psychologically real--the small print of consciousness, the corners and vagaries of thinking that when you read them in another writer, and they are done well, you just know they are right. Not only because you had this thought to yourself, but because that way of thinking seems so ineradicably human.
You mentioned Bellow. Who are the writers you are particularly drawn to now, people you have stuck with?
Really, your amazing triptych, one now dead, of Bellow, Roth, and Updike. They have been voices all the way through my writing life, from the time I started writing. I readPortnoy’s Complaint, Rabbit Run, and Mr. Sammler, and there was nothing like that happening in Britain or for that matter in Europe, so far as I could tell. It has something to do with a largeness of ambition, a generosity of imagination, and a wicked sense of humor, particularly in Portnoy. It comes back to that kind of realism, with that wish to engage with conditions as they are now, to capture the city or the moment in time. We had nothing so sparkling. So, yes, I have kept faith with those guys.
What are your online habits? Do you surf the web?
Well, I like Edge very much, Arts and Letters is a great resource for me, and then the whole slew of American magazines. I like that tradition—The New Republic, etc. I get them now quite regularly.
Do you read any online reviews?
I don’t read the blogs much. I don’t like the tone-the rather in-your-face road-rage quality of a lot of exchange on the Internet. I don’t like the threads that come out of any given piece of journalism. It seems that when people know they can’t be held accountable, when they don’t have eye contact, it seems to bring out a rather nasty, truculent, aggressive edge that I think slightly doesn’t belong in the world of book reviewing.
I just read a quote of yours, “Atheists have as much conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious convictions,” and I have noticed that recently you have been talking a little more about atheism. You also contributed an essay to a new book calledThe Portable Atheist. What are your thoughts on the “New Atheist” movement, which has gotten so much publicity and sold so many books in the last year or so. Do you think it differs from strains of atheism in the past?
I am a little baffled as to why it is called the “New Atheism.” There is a very long tradition of free thinking, and the arguments made against religion tend to be the same but made over and over again. But I think what has happened is that there have been a number of good, articulate books--Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Sam Harris, and so on. What they have discovered to their own great surprise is that in the United States, and right across the South too, there are an enormous number of people who also think this way. I don’t think they have suddenly been persuaded by this rash of books--the feelings were there anyway--but they didn’t have a voice, they didn’t have a focus. When Hitchens took his book across the Bible Belt and debated with Baptist ministers in churches, there were huge audiences, most of whom, it seems, from when they spoke to him afterwards, were somewhat irritated that the place in the United States that they lived in was called the Bible Belt. I think there was something there that people had not taken into account. Quite heartening really, given that America is meant to be a secular republic with a strong tradition of upholding all freedom of thought.
Do you see religion as ineradicable, or do you think there is a chance to change people’s minds on religion?
I think it is ineradicable, and I think it is a terrible idea to suppress it, too. We have tried that and it joins the list of political oppression. It seems to be fairly deeply stitched into human nature. It seems to be part of all cultures, so I don’t expect it to vanish. And yet at the same time, if it is built into human nature, why are there so many people who don’t believe in it? I think it is important that people with no religious beliefs speak up and speak for what they value. It is a bit of a problem, the title “Atheist”--no one really wants to be defined by what they do not believe in. We haven’t yet settled on a name, but you wouldn’t expect a Baptist minister to go around calling himself a Darwinist. But it is crucial that people who do not have a sky god and don’t have a set of supernatural beliefs assert their belief in moral values and in love and in the transcendence that they might experience in landscape or art or music or sculpture or whatever. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, it makes them give more valence to life itself. The little spark that we do have becomes all the more valuable when you can’t be trading off any moments for eternity.
I've been traveling in Central America for the past few weeks, so I'm late on blogging a number of things -- including this. Each year, EDGE.org's John Brockman asks a new question, and a bunch of tech/sci/internet folks reply. This year's question: What have you changed your mind about?
Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?
I was one of the 165 participants, and wrote about what I learned from Boing Boing's community experiments, under the guidance of our community manager Teresa Nielsen Hayden: Link to "Online Communities Rot Without Daily Tending By Human Hands."
"What Are You Optimistic About? Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better," edited by John Brockman, Harper Perennial, $14.95, 374 pages.
If that "bah, humbug" mood lingers, ponder the observations of an odd assortment of academics and other intellectuals, who choose to see that mug of hot cider as half full. "What Are You Optimistic About?" knows that Americans have an increasingly deep morale problem, so these 150 essays of hope are an antidote for societal despair.
Contributors -- quantum physicist David Deutsch of Oxford, former Time magazine editor James Geary, musician/record producer Brian Eno -- tend to use logic, not sap or divine intervention, to make their arguments. "I am a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist," writes Paul Saffo, technology forecaster at Stanford. "History is on my side, because the cause of today's fashionable pessimism lies much deeper than the unpleasant surprises of the last half-decade."
What Are You Optimistic About?
QUESTIONS
THE AGE (Melbourne, Australia)
[1.9.08]
What Are You Optimistic About?
Ed., John Brockman
Simon & Schuster, $29.95
EVERY YEAR, JOHN Brockman, co-founder of the Edge website (a space for scientists and other "empirical thinkers" to exchange ideas), asks his online community to respond to a question. For the past three years, the results have been compiled for wider dissemination. It's a great idea, but with a self-selecting contributor list, the result is somewhat skewed. The subtitle boasts of "today's leading thinkers" but, strictly speaking, this should be "today's leading scientific thinkers". A more balanced anthology would have more than a smattering of contributors from other fields. Further, the almost 150 contributors are predominantly US-based, limiting the perspective.
It is, nevertheless, full of fascinating discussion. Common themes emerge, such as the coming downfall of religion; increased longevity; and a belief that environmental damage will be redressed if not undone, provided we act immediately. Subjects are not confined to what are traditionally seen as scientific issues - there are also multiple pieces about happiness, morality and democracy.
The definition of optimism given by a contributor, that it is "a way of viewing possible futures with the belief that you can affect things for the better", is a reminder of the need for action to be combined with the sort of deep thinking reflected in this collection.
Read the full article →
I've been traveling in Central America for the past few weeks, so I'm late on blogging a number of things -- including this. Each year, EDGE.org's John Brockman asks a new question, and a bunch of tech/sci/internet folks reply. This year's question: What have you changed your mind about?
Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?
Link.
I was one of the 165 participants, and wrote about what I learned from Boing Boing's community experiments, under the guidance of our community manager Teresa Nielsen Hayden: Link to "Online Communities Rot Without Daily Tending By Human Hands."
Here's a partial link-list of my favorite contributions from others:
Tor Nørretranders, W. Daniel Hillis, Ray Kurzweil, David Gelernter, Kai Krause, Clay Shirky, J. Craig Venter, Simon Baron-Cohen, Jaron Lanier, Martin Rees, Esther Dyson, Brian Eno, Yossi Vardi, Tim O'Reilly, Chris Anderson, Rupert Sheldrake,Daniel C. Dennett, Aubrey de Grey, Nicholas Carr, Linda Stone, George Dyson,Steven Pinker, Alan Alda, Stewart Brand, Sherry Turkle, Rudy Rucker,Freeman Dyson, Douglas Rushkoff .
Honorable mention (links.sfgate.com/ZBZY): It's not a top 10 list. It's not even a top 100. It has nothing to do with fashion or trends or politics or the year's coolest iPod accessories. It is intellectual hotbedEdge.org's annual question, this time a profound doozy: "What have you changed your mind about. Why?"
As of now, 165 of the world's finest minds have responded with some of the most insightful, humbling, fascinating confessions and anecdotes, an intellectual treasure trove of proof that flip-flopping is a very good thing indeed, especially when informed/inspired by facts and shot through with personal experience and laced with mystery and even a little divine insight. Best three or four hours of intense, enlightening reading you can do for the new year. Read it now.
Then flip it over and answer the same question for yourself.
"Flip-Flops" werden im Englischen verächtlich Menschen genannt, die plötzlich ihre Meinung ändern. Was bei Politikern oft als ein Zeichen von Opportunismus interpretiert wird, gehört in der Wissenschaft zum Wesen. Dennoch ist es auch unter Forschern und Forscherinnen nicht üblich, sich öffentlich zu einem Sinneswandel zu bekennen. Genau das haben sie aber nun gemacht. Bereits zum elften Mal hat der New Yorker Literaturagent John Brockman namhaften Wissenschaftlern zum Jahreswechsel knifflige Fragen gestellt. Diesmal lauten sie "Wobei haben Sie Ihre Meinung geändert? Und warum?"
Die Antworten von insgesamt 165 Forschern und Expertinnen sind unterschiedlich und oft amüsant: Der Biologe Richard Dawkins erklärt, warum Meinungswandel kein evolutionärer Nachteil sind; die Philosophin Helena Cronin zeigt, dass es unter Männer zwar mehr Nobelpreisträger gibt, aber auch mehr Trottel; und Anton Zeilinger erzählt von seinem Irrtum, die Quantenphysik einst für "nutzlos" gehalten zu haben. ...
Today, let's turn things upside down.
10) Top 20 dictators of the world (Parade, links.sfgate.com/ZBZL).
It's like a reality show in hell, a rogue's gallery of the most heartless, insane, power-mad thugs and cretins (all male, natch) this side of Dick Cheney's darkest orgiastic fantasy. Even Vladimir Putin made the list, mostly for the weird beauty of his flat, heartless stare.
9) Top 10 vegetarian-friendly prisons (PETA, links.sfgate.com/ZBZM).
Attention, radical unshowered vegans who've lost all perspective and want to blow up Whole Foods and set fire to shops that sell leather! When they haul your cute, dreadlocked butt to prison, be sure to request one of these fine facilities, where you can serve out your time enjoying low-grade vegetarian gruel, like soy taco crunch in Tennessee and meatless sloppy joes in North Dakota. So helpful!
8) Top 10 food and drink hacks (Lifehacker, links.sfgate.com/ ZBZN).
In which it is revealed that vinegar is quite likely the greatest and most versatile liquid known to humankind, slicing a mango does not have to be a sloppy, sticky mess (unless you are naked and partially drunk and really want it to be), and you can learn how to chill a bottle of white wine in about two minutes, make sexier cocktails with clear ice cubes and use your old plastic CD spindle as a perfect little bagel tote. Didn't know any of that? You're not reading the right blog.
7) Top 10 science revelations (LiveScience, links.sfgate.com/ZBZQ).
Yes, the "peak oil" era is now under way, the American Southeast may very well be facing a brutal 90-year drought as the dry areas get drier and the wet get wetter, a region of ice in Greenland twice the size of the United States has melted, and the World Conservation Union's list of endangered animals now tops 40,000, with more than 200 moving closer to extinction in 2007. And the No. 1 spot, naturally, is climate change itself, now so overwhelmingly omnipresent and ominous, it would take a band of truly troglodytic jackals to deny, reject or otherwise sneer at what the world's scientific and environmental community is desperately trying to tell us.
6) Top 10 climate myth busters (Fox News, links.sfgate.com/ZBZR).
Shut-ins, inbred cultists and global warming deniers rejoice as Fox News' junk science "expert" and Big Tobacco boy toy Steven Milloy cherry-picks a handful of minor studies in an effort to mount the world's shakiest anti-warming argument, all while ignoring mountains of evidence, not the least of which is the recent, dire 3,000-page report from the 113-nation-strong Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
5) Top 10 Christianity-related stories of 2007 (Christianity Today, links.sfgate.com/ZBZS).
In which successful atheist authors get jabbed, Jerry Falwell is not acknowledged as Satan's newest fluffer, and hard-core religious orgs of every stripe celebrate and/or lash out at other religious orgs for either a) not being religious enough, b) not being bigoted enough, c) not hacking away at women's rights, d) not slamming gays or e) all of the above.
4) Top 10 new organisms (Wired, links.sfgate.com/ZBZT).
Hypoallergenic cats. Fluorescent tadpoles. Schizophrenic mice that exhibit Bush-grade hallucinations, paranoia and delusions of grandeur. Alas, no mention of whatever the hell mutant virus is attacking the American brain and causing millions to actually give a damn about how much blow Lindsay Lohan does or whether Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. Maybe that's another list.
3) Top 10 astronomy photos of 2007 (Bad Astronomy, links.sfgate.com/ZBZU).
You know what we, as a nation, lack more than anything else in this bitter, Bush-gutted age? No, not more porn-happy YouTube-rip-off sites. It's awe - raw, delicious, mind-bending, awe.
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Even IT gurus have the right to think twice.
This year the online salon Edge.org has drawn a lot of attention for the annual question it put out to a mixture of scientists and artists: What have you changed your mind about?
Contributors range from actor Alan Alda to folk singer Joan Baez, but some of the real gems came from technology visionaries who decided to take a second look at their original visions.
Teach technology if you want to learn: Seth Loyd is a quantum mechanical engineer at MIT, which sounds intimidating, but the author ofProgramming the Universe admits he didn’t really gain self-confidenceabout IT until he became an instructor for students who are probably as smart as he is. “In my feverish attempt to understand analog computers, I constructed a model for a quantum-mechanical analog computer that would operate at the level of individual atoms. This model resulted in one of my best scientific papers,” he says. Even if it’s daunting, assist others with their IT challenges in order to master your own.
Calm down at the keyboard: Linda Stone, a former Microsoft VP, has been doing a lot of research on how users interact with technology and she realized that their attention span had a lot to do with what was going on in their lungs. “In observing others — in their offices, their homes, at cafes — the vast majority of people hold their breath, especially when they first begin responding to e-mail. On cell phones, especially when talking and walking, people tend to hyper-ventilate or overbreathe. Either of these breathing patterns disturbs oxygen and CO2 balance,” she writes. “I’ve changed my mind about how much attention to pay to my breathing patterns and how important it is to remember to breathe when I’m using a computer, PDA or cell phone.”
No application is eternal: As much as we might like our IT problems to end, software designer Karl Krause says applications are temporary solutions. “I used to think ‘software design’ is an art form. I now believe that I was half-right: it is indeed an art, but it has a rather short half-life. Software is merely a performance art – a momentary flash of brilliance, doomed to be overtaken by the next wave, or maybe even by its own sequel. Eaten alive by its successors. And time.”
Don’t treat the world like a computer: Rodney Brooks, the CTO of iRobot Corp. and author of Flesh and Machines, says we have atendency to think of business problems as though they were broken PCs. That’s not always the best approach. “We can think about human memory as data storage and retrieval. And we can think about walking over rough terrain as computing the optimal place to put down each of our feet. But I suspect that somewhere down the line we are going to come up with better, less computational metaphors,” he says. “The entities we use for metaphors may be more complex but the useful ones will lead to simpler explanations.”
Even IT gurus have the right to think twice.
This year the online salon Edge.org has drawn a lot of attention for the annual question it put out to a mixture of scientists and artists: What have you changed your mind about?
Contributors range from actor Alan Alda to folk singer Joan Baez, but some of the real gems came from technology visionaries who decided to take a second look at their original visions.
[Note to Globe and Mail: It's "the mathematician physicist John C. Baez", not his cousin the "folk singer Joan Baez", daughter of the physicist Albert Baez.]
"Flip-Flops" werden im Englischen verächtlich Menschen genannt, die plötzlich ihre Meinung ändern. Was bei Politikern oft als ein Zeichen von Opportunismus interpretiert wird, gehört in der Wissenschaft zum Wesen. Dennoch ist es auch unter Forschern und Forscherinnen nicht üblich, sich öffentlich zu einem Sinneswandel zu bekennen. Genau das haben sie aber nun gemacht. Bereits zum elften Mal hat der New Yorker Literaturagent John Brockman namhaften Wissenschaftlern zum Jahreswechsel knifflige Fragen gestellt. Diesmal lauten sie "Wobei haben Sie Ihre Meinung geändert? Und warum?"
Die Antworten von insgesamt 165 Forschern und Expertinnen sind unterschiedlich und oft amüsant: Der Biologe Richard Dawkins erklärt, warum Meinungswandel kein evolutionärer Nachteil sind; die Philosophin Helena Cronin zeigt, dass es unter Männer zwar mehr Nobelpreisträger gibt, aber auch mehr Trottel; und Anton Zeilinger erzählt von seinem Irrtum, die Quantenphysik einst für "nutzlos" gehalten zu haben. ...
BUENOS AIRES, jan. 8 (UPI) — On the occasion of the new year, the most sublime thinkers of the world have recognized that, from time to time, they are obliged to rectify their views.
When addressing topics as diverse as evolution man, the laws of physics and differences sex, a group of scientists and philosophers, among Which includes Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Paul Davies and Richard Wrangham, have confessed, all of them Without exception, they have changed their minds, reports Madrimasd.org.
This exhibition of scientific modesty has occurred As a result of the questions, coinciding with New year, annually raised the website edge.org, which has obtained responses from more than 120 of the most Important thinkers in the world.
A recurring theme in the answers is that what distinguishes science from other forms of knowledge and faith is that new ideas based on quickly replace old ones when they are based on evidence produced by tests. Accordingly, in the intellectual scope there is nothing of shameful in recognizing that one has changed positions.
Die Partei der Zweifler;
Bei der Frage des Jahres im Onlinemagazin Edge machen
sich Wissenschaftler Gedanken Ÿber ihre eigene Fehlbarkeit
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG — Munich
[1.7.08]
Eines der anregendsten intellektuellen Spiele findet sich jedes Jahr im Januar auf der Website Edge.org, wenn Wissenschaftler und Künstler im "World Question Center" auf die Frage des Jahres antworten. 2007 prügelte man mit Vehemenz auf die Religionen ein, und so klingt schon die Frage für 2008 wie ein erneuter Generalangriff auf die Seligen: "Welche Ihrer Meinungen haben Sie einmal geändert?" Ist die Religion doch der Ort der göttlichen Wahrheit, die sich nicht begründen muss und nicht bezweifelt werden kann. Wenn er einer Partei angehöre, hatte der Agnostiker Camus auch gesagt, dann der des Zweifels. Keine Konfrontation sollte mehr gescheut werden. Die letzte Heimat der Unverzweifelten bleibt dagegen der Glaube. Was Edge angeht, wird diese Erwartung jedoch enttäuscht. ...
Read the full article →
BUENOS AIRES, jan. 8 (UPI) — On the occasion of the new year, the most sublime thinkers of the world have recognized that, from time to time, they are obliged to rectify their views.
When addressing topics as diverse as evolution man, the laws of physics and differences sex, a group of scientists and philosophers, among Which includes Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Paul Davies and Richard Wrangham, have confessed, all of them Without exception, they have changed their minds, reports Madrimasd.org.
This exhibition of scientific modesty has occurred As a result of the questions, coinciding with New year, annually raised the website edge.org, which has obtained responses from more than 120 of the most Important thinkers in the world.
A recurring theme in the answers is that what distinguishes science from other forms of knowledge and faith is that new ideas based on quickly replace old ones when they are based on evidence produced by tests. Accordingly, in the intellectual scope there is nothing of shameful in recognizing that one has changed positions.
Eines der anregendsten intellektuellen Spiele findet sich jedes Jahr im Januar auf der Website Edge.org, wenn Wissenschaftler und Künstler im "World Question Center" auf die Frage des Jahres antworten. 2007 prügelte man mit Vehemenz auf die Religionen ein, und so klingt schon die Frage für 2008 wie ein erneuter Generalangriff auf die Seligen: "Welche Ihrer Meinungen haben Sie einmal geändert?" Ist die Religion doch der Ort der göttlichen Wahrheit, die sich nicht begründen muss und nicht bezweifelt werden kann. Wenn er einer Partei angehöre, hatte der Agnostiker Camus auch gesagt, dann der des Zweifels. Keine Konfrontation sollte mehr gescheut werden. Die letzte Heimat der Unverzweifelten bleibt dagegen der Glaube. Was Edge angeht, wird diese Erwartung jedoch enttäuscht. ...
... As in the past, these world-class thinkers have responded to Web site editor John Brockman's impossibly open-ended questions with erudition, imagination and clarity.
In explaining why they have cast aside old assumptions, the respondents' short essays tackle an array of subjects, including the nature of consciousness, the existence of the soul, the course of evolution and whether reason will ultimately triumph over superstition.
Two of the most interesting answers may signal a cease-fire in the gender wars.
In 2005, Harvard President Lawrence *. Summers was assailed for suggesting that innate differences might explain why there are few top women scientists. Now Diane F. Halpern, a psychology professor at Claremont Mc-Kenna College and a self-described "feminist," says Summers was onto something.
"There are real, and in some cases sizable, sex differences with respect to cognitive abilities," she writes.
Her views are echoed by Helena Cronin, a philosopher at the London School of Economics.
"Females," she writes, "are much of a muchness, clustering around the mean." With men, "the variance — the difference between the most and the least, the best and the worst — can be vast." Translation: There may be fewer female geniuses in certain fields, but there are also fewer female morons...
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