Customer Reviews
Not quite - By: LukeB, 06 Sep 2008 
I found the book less interesting & 'dangerous' than I thought I would. The ideas are split up into many smalll chapters, & are linked by similar ideas. Most suggested were not particularly dangerous, some were very obvious & shouldn't have featured. The title should reallly be along the lines of your 'interesting' idea. The reallly dangerous ideas that to me, were generallly linked to social ideas weren't developed nearly enough, & I reallly felt frustrated at the a lot of the content for this reason. Frustrating & under-developed, with too much of the content oozing irrelevant self indulgence.
Interesting ideas but more detail wanted - By: Adam Graham Malster, 08 Jul 2008 This book is at once very interesting & unrewarding. The idea is that lots of leading scientists have answered the question "What is your dangerous idea". There are 108 contributions from various kinds of scientists & thinkers plus an introduction by Steven Pinker & an afterward by Richard Dawkins (two authors I find to be highly readable). If you've read anything similar edited by John Brockman such as The Next Fifty Years or What we believe but cannot prove then you'll know what to expect.
The book is extremely interesting due to the sheer range of subjects covered. Brockman has also rather cleverly grouped the essays together in themes that flow together & take you through the book. We start off reading about genetics moving to our place in the universe, on then to ecology & the future of the planet to psychology...you get the idea. In fact the range of opinions is quite bewildering & it's tempting to brush over some of the authors' thoughts by reading too many of the essays at one time.
This temptation is in part encouraged by the aspect of the book which makes it a frustrating read. The essays are just far too short. Often you are no sooner intrigued by one of the ideas than you're off onto the next one. It reallly takes some discipline to try to give each the reflection that it deserves.
And there are some reallly corking ideas. Some stuff to make you ponder indeed, like Daniel C. Dennett's musings that there aren't enough minds on the planet to house the population of memes. Some of course are just utter tosh such as Roger C. Shank's idea that schools are a useless way to educate children.
All in alll a good platform from which to leap into the more detailed ideas of the writers here but rather unsatisfying in itself.
A treasure of ideas from 108 of our most creative minds - By: Dennis Littrell, 11 May 2008 
(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 & keep it there. Take the biological desire of people to play house & be mothers & fathers, & redirect it into responsible stewardship of the planet.
Don't like that one? Seems too draconian? How about this? End alll tax exempt status for churches, mosques, etc. (Resounding voice coming onstage: "Only when they tear my cold, dead fingers from the collection plate!")
Here's another: realize that to know alll is to forgive alll, & that we are alll just biological automations acting out our genetic drives & have no more free will than an ant on the pheromone trail. Deal with people acting in antisocial ways by (1) curing them with psychopharmacology, surgery, retraining, or (2) euthanasia.
Decriminalize street drug use. Allow Phillip Morris to get into the cannabis business & Merck to process opium into heroin. If some people become dysfunctional, see previous dangerous idea & employ it.
Well, none of John Brockman's esteemed contributors came up with anything quite THAT dangerous, probably because the danger of such ideas is most immediately to the person who would advance them! Psychiatrist Randolph M. Nesse gives us some guidance on why such ideas are not being advanced in this book in his modest essay on "Unspeakable Ideas." (pp. 193-195) Here's one: "when your business group is trying to deal with a savvy competitor, say, `It seems to me that their product is superior, because they are smarter than we are.'" Also unspeakable is, "I will only do what benefits me." Nesse writes that saying something like that is akin to committing "social suicide."
David Lykken thinks that parents ought to be required to get licenses to parent & prove they are twenty-one years old, married, & self-supporting. (pp. 175-176)
Jordan Pollack urges us (tongue in cheek, I presume) to embrace "faith-based science." He writes, "physics could sing the psalm that perpetual motion would solve the energy crisis..." with God "on our side to repeal the second law of thermodynamics!" "Astronomy could embrace astrology & do grassroots PR with daily horoscopes to gain mass support for a new space program." (pp. 156-158)
John Allen Paulos joins the Buddha & David Hume & presents the self as "an ever-changing collection of beliefs, perceptions, & attitudes, that is not an essential & persistent entity but a conceptual chimera." (p. 152)
Some of the other "dangerous ideas" concern such things as science versus religion (e.g., Sam Harris's "Science Must Destroy Religion" & Philip W. Anderson's "The Posterior Probability of Any Particular God Is Pretty Smalll"); exciting speculations (Terrence Sejnowski's "When Will the Internet Become Aware of Itself?"), cosmological conjectures (Brian Greene's "The Multiverse," & Leonard Susskind's "The `Landscape'").
Some of the ideas are not dangerous at alll of course, & some are only dangerous to certain segments of society. The idea that the Christian God does not exist is no skin off my teeth & no Buddhist feels threatened by it, but television evangelicals find it downright scary. Judith Rich Harris advances the idea that parents reallly don't shape their children's morays (their peers & the larger society does). This idea isn't threatening at alll unless you are a Pygmalion sort of parent infused with a weighty sense of responsibility, & in that case, her idea can help you to chill out.
Some other ideas may or may not be seen as dangerous. Karl Sabbagh suggests that "The Human Brain Will Never Understand the Universe," & Lawrence M. Krauss wants us to know that "The World May Be Fundamentallly Inexplicable." Personallly I think they're both right, but that shouldn't keep us from trying to expand the range of our knowledge & understanding. Seth Lloyd even goes so far as to suggest that one of our ideas "is likely to have the unintended consequence of destroying everything we know." He adds that "we cannot stop creating & exploring new ideas. The genie of ingenuity is out of the bottle. To suppress the power of ideas will hasten catastrophe, not avert it." (p. 101)
There are several essays on how drugs might, can, & will affect us (e.g., "Drugs May Change the Patterns of Human Love" by Helen Fisher, & "Using Medications to Change Personality" by Samuel Barondes). There are essays on politics & economics (e.g., Michael Shermer's ode to fiscal conservative & social liberalism, "Where Goods Cross Frontiers, Armies Won't" & Matt Ridley's "Government Is the Problem, Not the Solution"), & on the dangers & promises of futuristic technologies by Ray Kurzweil, Freeman J. Dyson & others. In fact there is so much in this book that a reader could study the ideas for decades--seriously--and hardly scratch the surface of what is implied, hoped for, dreamed of, & feared. It is a great collection of ideas, a masterful work of compilation & editing by science's most talented & creative editor, John Brockman. Don't miss this book. It's even better than Brockman's previous collection "What We Believe But Cannot Prove."
Let me throw in one more dangerous idea not in the book (lest I wax too sanguine): suppose that by bioengineering violent aggression out of the human genome (which seems like a good idea) we end up with something like H.G. Wells' Eloi? Can it be true that humans must be violently aggressive, & if not, will become stagnant & exploitable? One might argue that there would then be no exploiter, but should one appear what would--could--we do?
really good read - By: Joe, 18 Aug 2007 ever wanted to eavesdrop on some of the thoughts of the great scientists of today? great for broadening your horizons.
