World Famous Comics: Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution
Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution
By: John Brockman Publisher: Touchstone Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Touchstone Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 416 Publication Date: May 07, 1996 Release Date: September 09, 1991
Thirty-five years ago, C. P. Snow, in a now famous essay, wrote about the polarization of the "two cultures" -- literary intellectuals on the one hand, and scientists on the other. Although he hoped for the emergence of a "third culture" that would bridge the gap, it is only recently that science has changed the intellectual landscape.
Brockman's thesis that science is emerging as the intellectual center of our society is brought to life vividly in The Third Culture, which weaves together the voices of some of today's most influential scientific figures, including:
Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins on the implications of evolution Steven Pinker, Marvin Minsky, Daniel C. Dennett, and Roger Penrose on how the mind works Murray Gell-Mann and Stuart Kauffman on the new sciences of complexity
The Third Culture is an honest picture of science in action. It is at once stimulating, challenging, and riveting.
Amazon.com Review: In this treatise on the central role of science, John Brockman contends that science is becoming the predominant culture and scientists are taking the place of traditional intellectuals in answering the important questions facing humankind. Structured in interview format, The Third Culture consists of 23 noted scientists discussing their theories, the nature of scientific inquiry, and their common desire to be recognized as today's intellectual leaders.
Some of it is ok Love the premise. It falls apart at some points though. I Love having the opposing viewpoints at the end of the chapter. Finally you can hear both sides of a debate without having to buy many seperate books. Also I love the short encapsulated synopsis of great thinkers like Dawkins. You get a great overview of all his work, from himself, in just a few pages. I Love the concept of the intellectual elite being hijacked by the science illiterate. However, not many of the chapters make sense and some of the comments at the ends of the chapters are inane.
The third culture Pretty good book, cuz it has comentaries from many important scientists. I like it very much.
Fine. But don't exaggerate What John Brockman does here makes a lot of sense. He brings together a whole group of first- rank scientists and enables them to explain major aspects of their thought. These 'popularizations' of scientific work taken together, and dialogued about are however proposed by Brockman to be the basis of a 'Third Culture' a scientifically based higher or true culture. Here we meet the recurrence of the well- known reality in which the person goes and asks various people in the town why X or Y happens to be the way they are. The barber says it is because they do not have a proper haircut, and the tailor says it is because their trousers have not been properly sewn, the mailman says its because their letters were not delivered. Etc Etc. Brockman should understand that there are realms , respectable realms of cultural and human activity which Science has no significant place in. The drama of Shakespeare does not need an Isaac Asimov analysis of the number of its characters or pages to be what it is. The world of Music does not need a scientific explanation of what Music is in order to give pleasure and meaning to many. A truly comprehensive Culture would have Science as a central part of it. But it would not be exclusively scientific. I am personally a great fan of Brockman and the colloqiums he puts together in 'Edge'. But he should too understand that there are worlds outside the world of science, and that those worlds are real and meaningful in ways scientific work does not comprehend.
Good Idea, Lousy Execution This book is a sad collage of weak efforts from a self-promoting literary agent. Brockman co-opts a pithy title with a specific meaning and then misapplies it intentionally, seeking to acquire the virtues of the label without providing the substance to back it up. If you want to read a group of highly respected scientists (and an occasional philosopher) speculating about their work's broader context -- socially, historically, aesthetically, morally, spiritually -- without the rigorous requirements of a peer reviewed journal or the space required to make a nuanced argument, this may be worth your time. However, be prepared to wade through piles of mutual admiration smugness and now-you're-an-insider prose.
Brockman positions the work as an "oral history of a dynamical emergent system," which is just a jargon-laden smokescreen for a half-assed effort. If only Brockman had the spine to take the transcripts of his interviews and synthesize them for the reader into a coherent, readable whole! Instead, we have edited transcripts, a power point version of a thoughtful book, the crucial synthetic element replaced with copyediting and cleverly labeled section titles. Good idea, lousy execution. This is a book edited by Brockman, not written by him; he apparently lacked the self-confidence or talent to write in his own voice, and he does a disservice to the thinkers whose verbal speculations he edits into pabulum, digestible by the massest of the mass public (e.g., "Chris Langton is the central guru of this artificial life stuff." Ack.).
Do yourself a favor and buy the original works of the thinkers included in this volume, or read their original academic publications. Yes, it may be putting money in Brockman's pocket as their agents, but at least he will be rewarded for the work that reflects his talent - leeching off others. The cover swims with the names of Nobel Prize winners and scientific luminaries - in a halo around his own.
Third Rate The underlying premise of this book is that a new kind of scientist-popularizer now serves as the intellectual elite of our culture. Each chapter focuses on one such scientist-popularizer; first he or she explains his/her work and then peers comment on it. Broadly, the science focuses on about four themes: evolution, cognitive science/AI, cosmology, and complexity. The people interviewed include Steven Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Marvin Minsky, Roger Penrose, Murray Gellman, Steve Pinker, and others. My criticisms of the book are
1. It's exceedingly arrogant in its dismissal of literary and politcal intellectuals in the book's preface.
2. At least half of the peer discussion at the end of chapters is inane remarks like "So-and-so's work is very important. She's the smartest person I know." This, along with the tone of the preface, makes it seem as if the participants are insecure somehow. It also makes me suspect the book is merely a promotional vehicle for the participants books. (The editior of this book is a literary agent.)
3. In very few instances are the participants ideas adequately developed or critiqued. The spatial limitations are exacerbated by the inane praise and filler.
4. Much of the thinking covered is glitzy with little substance and this gives a false notion of how science is done. There's very little mention of experiment.
3 and 4 combine to create a book that includes both crackpot and mainstream scientific ideas and then doesn't not present the reader with enough information to distinguish between them.
The book does attempt to do some worthwhile things:
1. Lead one to some great authors. For instance, readers pick up the book because they like Pinker's "The Language Instinct" might then be led to Dawkins' "Selfish Gene"
2. Present both sides of a scientific debate. Dawkins vs. Gould is the prime example. I wish this had been developed more.
3. Show what prominent scientists think of each other's work.
4. Show some modern scientific paradigms--only this is done somewhat disingenously because real scientific breakthroughs and the paradigms they beget are eschewed for pop-sci that has done very little. For instance, fields like genomics and quantum computation are passed over but complexity is included.
My advice is to peruse the contents and use that to find interesting authors to read directly.
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