Turns out today's leading thinkers are all scientists and all their dangerous ideas are only dangerous in the sense that other scientists might snub them at university cocktail parties.

A collection of short essays about the next "dangerous idea". Copernicus's idea that the earth went round the moon and Darwin's idea of evolution are given as the stock examples of ideas that were dangerous in the past. What will be proved true in the future that we would find difficult to believe today?I found the articles to be very hit and miss. They variously seemed too obvious, too esoteric or barely worth mentioning. And too many were of the navel gazing "the idea of a dangerous idea is da...

A treasure of ideas from 108 of our most creative minds(Plus Richard Dawkins, who writes an Afterword.)I’ll give you some dangerous ideas. Take steps to reduce the human population worldwide to around a billion people and keep it there. Take the biological desire of people to play house and be mothers and fathers, and redirect it into responsible stewardship of the planet.Don’t like that one? Seems too draconian? How about this? End all tax exempt status for churches, mosques, etc. (Resounding v...

A really good collection to enjoy the "dangerous ideas" from 108 leading thinkers. It is a wide range, roughly and well grouped. It is definitely a good "meta-thinking" exercise - exploring the ideas themselves, then thinking about "What makes an idea dangerous" and even "If an idea is dangerous, is there some responsibility to do something about/with that idea?" (and is that a dangerous idea?) I found some of them very compelling, a few boring/tautological, and some off-the-mark or boring. But

Too short to have useful thoughts. Lots of unimportant cliches. Interesting people to read separately would be Daniel Goleman, David Gelernter, and Helen Fisher.

This volume reprints material from Edge.org, one of the most consistently stimulating sites on the Web. Tasty, bite-sized, and challenging essays that are pretty much guaranteed to get any reader annoyed...and thinking.

This book is a collection of 108 short essays from working scientists with the simple question "What is your dangerous idea?"This leads to a range of topics covering religion, free will, our place in the universe, and lots of other topics. It is ended by a good afterword by Richard Dawkins.As with all collections some I really liked and some I didn't. I found it interesting to read and I learnt a lot. The Edge magazine seem to do these kind of books every year and I will keep an eye out for them...

As other reviewers have said, it's a mixed bag. Some pieces are better than others. It's difficult to have a book like this be both cutting-edge but able to stand the test of time. I expect it's somewhat outdated by now. It's certainly thought-provoking, though.

SIX WORD REVIEW: God, war, disease, technology, the universe.

A mixed bag, but well worth reading. This is a collection of over 100 short-to-very-short essays by leading thinkers in a variety of fields, about both their interpretations of what would constitute a dangerous idea and what specific ideas they think qualify.Quite a few were intriguing and seemed dead on as far as their potential impact on society in general or on subsets such as scientific disciplines, politics, or industries. There were a number that I thought didn't deserve inclusion because

I am a bit disappointed with this book. I was expecting the ideas to be more radical. The ideas that we don’t have a soul or that the difference between animals and us is more in degree than in kind for example are not new or thought provoking anymore to me. Also, some of the authors delivered barely a snippet. It felt like getting a bunch of appetizers but no main course. One positive though is that I will be following up on some of the authors’ other books. They were the ones who seemed to hav...

Some of the essays are interesting, some are thought-provoking, but very few are "dangerous" or daring to venture into the "unthinkable." A handful of the writers use their space to rant against religion or other ideas that might have been dangerous to say in a different era but aren't dangerous now.

Meh. Mostly edgelord stuff with a handful of interesting ideas.

Trust me, this volume will blow your mind and possibly scare you. John Brockman has gathered the world's foremost thinkers, from physicists to political scientists to biologists to ponder the most dangerous scenarios for our planet they personally believe if not advocate. Some chilling samples: the Australian physicist Paul Davies: "I believe climate change is real and that it is also too late to do anything about it." Or, Richard Gott on the Mediocrity Principle: "We are halfway through the lif...

Every year the thinkers of Edge write a short essay in response to an annual question, which has resulted in a series of thought provoking collections. But this one question may be the most important to push the edge of human knowledge; ideas that were once deemed provocative, immoral, even dangerous, have since been accepted by society at large. In our time, they have been supplanted by other ideas we might deem dangerous, some of which could possibly be harmful to mankind. Should such ideas be...

Little New Under the SunCue ominous organ music - there are some things Man Is Not Meant To Know!(But we'd be better off if we did!)As a long time SF buff I have to say that very few of the ideas expressed were that unusual or dangerous, and some were somewhat predictable. The book consists of 110 visions (including the forward by Stephen Pinker and afterword by Richard Dawkins) that the various authors consider to be disruptive or game changing. The "guest list" is fairly impressive, however mo...

I have mixed feelings about this book, and similar Edge.org compilations. The Good: This was an easy read. I do appreciate how the multiple authors made their ideas accessible, easy to digest, and uncomplicated enough to be thought-provoking. The Bad: There's a lot of navel-gazing and mental masturbation in here. This is my biggest gripe with this series. Yes, it's a set of ideas, but few provoke action and an urgency to problem-solve. If you're going to bring "the best thinkers in the world" to...

Such a great concept to read about and particularly good a decade and change after the fact where I could see some of these ideas had reached a larger society. Three stars primarily because some of the science essays were so academic and specific as to be nearly unreadable. But, this is a series of essays that I really enjoy and I'm looking forward to reading the next one.

Interesting essays. Some of them are more true today than when the book was published.

I like these collections of interesting science ideas. This one from 2007 is not my favorite but still interesting.