Edge 2006 Question: WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS QUESTION

The Edge Annual Question ?- 2006
WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?

The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

[Thanks to Steven Pinker for suggesting the Edge Annual Question ?- 2006.]

"Big, deep and ambitious questions....breathtaking in scope. Keep watching The World Question Center." ?- New Scientist

"Fantastically stimulating...It's like the crack cocaine of the thinking world.... Once you start, you can't stop thinking about that question." ?- BBC Radio 4

January 1, 2006

To the Edge Community,

Last year's 2005 Edge Question ?- "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?" ?- generated many eye-opening responses from a "who's who" of third culture scientists and science-minded thinkers. The 120 contributions comprised a document of 60,000 words. The New York Times ("Science Times") and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ("Feuilliton") published excepts in their print and online editions simultaneously with Edge publication.

The event was featured across the world: BBC Radio; Il Sole 24 Ore, Prospect, El Pais, The Financial Express (Bangledesh), The Sunday Times (UK), The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, La Stampa, The Telegraph.

A book based on the 2005 Question ?- What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty, with an introduction by the novelist Ian McEwan ?- was just published by the Free Press (UK). The US edition follows from HarperCollins in February, 2006.

Since September, Edge has been featured and/or cited in The Toronto Star, Boston Globe, Seed, Rocky Mountain Mews, Observer, El Pais, La Vanguaria, El Mundo, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Science, Financial Times, Newsweek, AD, La Stampa, The Telegraph, Quark, and The Wall Street Journal.

Something radically new is in the air: new ways of understanding physical systems, new ways of thinking about thinking that call into question many of our basic assumptions. A realistic biology of the mind, advances in evolutionary biology, physics, information technology, genetics, neurobiology, psychology, engineering, the chemistry of materials: all are questions of critical importance with respect to what it means to be human. For the first time, we have the tools and the will to undertake the scientific study of human nature.

This year, the third culture thinkers in the Edge community have written 117 original essays (a document of 72,500 words) in response to the 2006 Edge Question ?- "What is your dangerous idea?". Here you will find indications of a new natural philosophy, founded on the realization of the import of complexity, of evolution. Very complex systems ?- whether organisms, brains, the biosphere, or the universe itself ?- were not constructed by design; all have evolved. There is a new set of metaphors to describe ourselves, our minds, the universe, and all of the things we know in it.

Welcome to Edge. Welcome to "dangerous ideas". Happy New Year.

John Brockman
Publisher & Editor

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