This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress

The bestselling editor of This Explains Everything brings together 175 of the world’s most brilliant minds to tackle Edge.org’s 2014 question: What scientific idea has become a relic blocking human progress?
Each year, John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org—”The world’s smartest website” (The Guardian)—challenges some of the world’s greatest scientists, artists, and philosophers to answer a provocative question crucial to our time. In 2014 he asked 175 brilliant minds to ponder: What scientific idea needs to be put aside in order to make room for new ideas to advance? The answers are as surprising as they are illuminating. In :
- Steven Pinker dismantles the working theory of human behavior
- Richard Dawkins renounces essentialism
- Sherry Turkle reevaluates our expectations of artificial intelligence
- Geoffrey West challenges the concept of a “Theory of Everything”
- Andrei Linde suggests that our universe and its laws may not be as unique as we think
- Martin Rees explains why scientific understanding is a limitless goal
- Nina Jablonski argues to rid ourselves of the concept of race
- Alan Guth rethinks the origins of the universe
- Hans Ulrich Obrist warns against glorifying unlimited economic growth
- and much more.
Profound, engaging, thoughtful, and groundbreaking, This Idea Must Die will change your perceptions and understanding of our world today . . . and tomorrow.