Brockman's challenge is noteworthy because his buddies include many of the world's greatest scientists: Freeman Dyson, David Gelertner, J. Craig Venter, Jared Diamond, Brian Greene. Yet their ideas, delineated in brief and engaging essays, are not just for tech-heads. The 119 responses Brockman received to the most recent question -- posted at
www.edge.org -- are dangerous precisely because they so often stray from the land of test tubes and chalkboards into the realms of morality, religion and philosophy.
Some dangerous ideas based on recent research:
* It is better to let parents design their children -- using genetics to influence their sex, height, hair color and intelligence -- than to halt research that makes us queasy.
* Parents have no power (other than genetic) to shape a child's personality, intelligence or the way he or she behaves outside the home.
* People have adapted so thoroughly to the world of computers that the difference between the real and the virtual is becoming meaningless.
* The universe has no purpose. The only meaning that exists comes from the myths we create to fill the existential void.
* The criminal justice system must be reformed in light of mounting evidence that people are just souped-up machines. "When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it," writes the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. "We track down the problem and fix it. ... Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or rapist?"
Brockman's survey -- which he started in 1998 and calls "The Edge Annual Question" -- is particularly pertinent in light of the ongoing struggle between advocates of Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
Several respondents approach this conflict with a flamethrower, arguing that scientists have lacked the courage to debunk ideas contradicted by their work.
"Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive," writes Sam Harris, author of "The End of the Faith." "It has also obliged us to lie to ourselves -- repeatedly and at the highest levels -- about the compatibility between religious faith and scientific rationality. ... Iron Age beliefs -- about God, the soul, sin, free will, etc. -- continue to impede medical research and distort public policy. The possibility that we could elect a U.S. President who takes biblical prophesy seriously is real and terrifying; the likelihood that we will one day confront Islamists armed with nuclear or biological weapons is also terrifying, and growing more probable by the day. We are doing very little, at the level of our intellectual discourse, to prevent such possibilities."
