The problem with books of this nature is that either the "death of an idea" is such a no-brainer that it doesn't deserve an essay or it's the bete noire of the author. For example, in this volume one can find essays that call for the final interment of String Theory alongside others that as vigorously defend it. Or materialists who deny that consciousness persists after death alongside others who argue for the opposite.The best essay in the collection - and what makes it worth reading - is Ian M...

This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress (Edge Question Series) by John Brockman “This Idea Must Die" is the thought-provocative book of scientific essays brought to you by The Edge. The Edge is an organization that presents original ideas by today's leading thinkers from a wide spectrum of scientific fields. The 2014 Edge question is, “What scientific idea is ready for retirement?” This interesting 592-page book provides over 175 short essays that address the question....

Bullet Review:This was a Goodreads Giveaway win. That didn't influence my review one bit.So. This took nearly 2 years to finish - why? Perhaps because it suffered from being too long with too many voices saying the same thing (two essays have the exact same title and subject matter as well as opinion).That said, when the essays were good, they were VERY good. I can't seem to find any off the top of my head, but they were there. Unfortunately, due to the format, the good essays could only be a ma...

This book was a chore to plow through. The title and the concept intrigued me, yet I was disappointed in the overall outcome. Some of the contributors used the question as an opportunity to rant on their own personal pet peeve, such as the lady who went off on the phrase "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to ...."One of my greatest disappointments with the book was that so many of the contributors took it upon themselves to ridicule a belief in a Supreme Creator.While they are all brilliant ind...

This was a grind. 175 contributors given one to three pages to air their favorite complaint in what I would call chapterlets. Like an anthology of short stories, you're probably going to find some that are worthwhile. But I found there was too high a spoil to nuggets ratio for me. The better contributions stressed the concept not semantics. Try "Large Randomized Controlled Trials" or "Mouse Models" as examples. "Altruism" made the interesting argument that real egoists share. Others had value in...

Review title: Death Wish VIThe Death Wish movie franchise was a series of movies (up to V) where Charles Bronson's wife/daugter/mother/girlfriend would be attacked/kidnapped/tortured/raped/murdered by a lone psycho/gang/cult where upon Bronson would exact revenge. Kind of like Taken without Liam Neeson's voice. I have entitled my review as the next in the franchise because this collection of essays by scientists talks a lot about death and involves a strong wish to see many ideas be done away in...

Things I learnt:So much of our society still operates on a paradigm of simplification, compartmentalisation and boundaries, when we need a paradigm of diversity, complexity, relationships and process.A triumphalist scientism needs philosophy to support itself. Philosophy is joined to science in reason's project. Its mandate is to render our views and attitudes maximally coherent.A modest proposal (by Alan Alda): Scientific truth should be identified in a way acknowledging that it's something we

I read all the women first

I think I got the recommendation to read this book from a magazine review, but I can't remember which one. Maybe Smithsonian. The idea is a question put forth to scientists: Which scientific idea is ready for retirement? The book is 555 pages of 2-4 page essays answering this question, each essay from a different scientist. Unfortunately, the editor put the answers from the physicists first, so quantum mechanics, string theory, and the like made heavy, mostly (to me) incomprehensible reading, an...

Another Brockman-curated sampling of thought from his roster of scientists, this collection explores scientific ideas that are blocking progress. Interestingly, many of the contributors to this book are opposed to research that is championed by other contributors, and the counterpoints were often striking. This one kind of grated on me at times, because some of the essays were arguing against things that interest me, but it was nevertheless interesting to hear the arguments, either way. A grippi...

Essays identify old ideas that may be stalling scientific progress. Brain plasticity, godlessness, Malthusian notions - all should go according to the responses to John Brockman's latest question.“Science advances by a series of funerals,” writes Brockman, founder of the online discussion forum Edge.org. Sometimes, he says, old ideas have to be put to bed before new ones can flourish. With that in mind, he asked researchers, journalists and other science enthusiasts to weigh in on which establis...

This book was a lot like the TED conferences. While you're watching them you think they're the most brilliant thing you've ever seen and just wonder why you didn't come up with thinking about the problem that way on your own. But, when it's over you start to think maybe that wasn't worth my time after all. This book was fun while doing it, but I strongly suspect it wasn't worth my time.Some essays were very good. I really liked Alan Alda's on why true and false should not be how we look at thing...

This book is a collection of essays; answers to the question What scientific idea is ready for retirement? This format is like placing a soap box in the middle of a town full of cranks, quacks, sophists, pseudo-intellectuals, and contrarians. The result is not really a book so much as a colossus of nonsense hewn from contradictory essays.I can't fault John Brockman his choice in ordering these essays, however. They flow together smoothly as a river of lingual effluent filled with the mangled cor...

Utterly exhausting. There are lots of interesting authors here with lots of interesting things to say. But the format -- hundreds of tiny essays -- is beyond tiring. If you went onto your social media feed and found that 150 of your friends had each posted a link to one article about something interesting, you wouldn't click on all those links, would you? You would? Well then, you can go to this page and click on all these links, which contain the text of all the articles in this book:https://ww...

It took a while to get through this book - the sum of 175 essays to answer the question "What scientific idea needs to be put aside in order to make room for new ideas to advance?"I've always had an acute professional and intellectual envy of those working in the hard sciences - their fields seem to be so put together. So it's guilty pleasure to find out that things aren't as neat as they seem from the outside:* String theory (or 'M' theory) is a dead end* The falsifiability requirement is under...

Meh. This book is one that I should not have bought, but you know what they say about fools and money I guess. I really should have looked through it beforehand, but I was charmed by the title. What is even more aggravating is the fact that I was in the bookstore when I bought this and could have looked through the physical copy I was holding.This book is a collection of essays with a common theme; "What Ideas should be shelved to aid progress?" With some of them it's almost like the author just...

2 Stars for This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress (audiobook) by John Brockman read by David Colacci and Susan Ericksen. I thought the premise of this book seemed interesting. And some of the parts were interesting but some were terrifying. I almost gave up on the book.

For a book seeking to dispel common scientific misconceptions, this book is startlingly inaccessible to the average every-day reader. Like, if you want to reach the masses, maybe consider *not* starting your book with sections on quantum physics? So it was really difficult to slog through all the scientific jargon that's not meant for the average reader, which is sad, because I really loved the concept and enjoyed reading the few sections that were reader-friendly. I understand wanting to publis...

2.5 starsI’m mostly pretty disappointed by this book. It’s pretty much a collection of responses from scientists, authors, medical professionals, mathematicians, etc etc etc. giving their response to the 2014 EDGE question: What scientific idea is ready to retire? Some of these were great and taught me something new or provided me perspective on something I already knew about through school or my own reading.... but a lot of these were written by snobby assholes. Especially those written by peop...

In this collection of essays, scientists around the globe answer the question "What scientific idea is ready for retirement?", and their responses give us an interesting glimpse at where our scientific understanding is today and where it is headed. This book contains over 170 short, concise essays covering a wide range of topics and disciplines. In general, the essays are well written, interesting, and easy to understand; although, I think it is best suited to those who already have a strong int...