The New Humanists: Science at the Edge [Hardcover]

What we have here is an excellent collection of scientists and philosophers writing articles about the latest research programmes in physics, artificial intellegence, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology. All of these contributers are members of www.edge.org, which is a forum for 'leading minds' to converge and converse on what the latest programmes, excitements, and theories in their field are.

What I thought I'd find is cocksure scientists writing in a clamour about their ultimate victory in the science wars and how this would inevitably lead to a reductionistic view of everyhing and anything. (Call me cynical, but the popular science market has been doing a lot of this lately). I did find a little of that only a little); by in large, though, the focus was simply on what certain fields were really doing, how it MAY affect other fields and the general populace, and overall abstainment when it comes to grand proclomations. No 'theories of everything', 'consciliences' that repeat Wilson's mistakes of wanting to 'scientize' all other disciplines, and no cockiness.

All that having been said, this book is absolutely thrilling. These scientists (the likes of Dennett, Pinker, Minsky, and Smolin) are writing fasinating essays of very promising theories in their fields and their roles in hashing them out. Can universes organize themselves? What are animals really thinking? Is the brain reducible to algorithms and if so, could machines achieve a first person experiencial perspective? How malleable is human nature?

If you are like me and REALLY excited about these questions and hearing scientists - if not answering them - discussing what answers might look like, then this book is a fantastic exploration. The big winners, you ask? In my humble opinion Jaron Lanier's essay on scientism and AI takes the cake; also Dennett's article delineating the intentional stance is good. David Deutch does an excellent job writing on quantum computation as doe Marvin Minsky on why AI might want to rethink how it looks at the mind.

The last 30-or-so pages is a miscelleneous collection of thoughts by leading scientists and philosophers in response to John Brockman's lead off essay discussing the relation of science and humanities. Again, Laneir comes off the most thoughtful and thought-provoking (ironically he is the only contributor WITHOUT a formal degree) but the rest of the responses are insightful and well written.

If you want to explore a variety of fields, points of view, and ideas, this is a tremendous book. Brockman and the contributors certainly did science and society a service in putting this one together.

Engaging, enlightening, and humbling. Essay after essay from some of the greatest minds of our time. The first section contains grand views of homo-sapiens, history, and evolution. Jared Diamond addresses the cultural imbalance between Europe and the rest of the world. Stephen Pinker examines the myth of innate biological and cultural equality. Helena Cronin uses evolutionary theory and sociobiology to address our modern problems of gender relations.

The second section is about computer/robotic technology and what it all means for our future. Will we be superseded by a race of intelligent machines? Or will we merge with them as cyborgs? Or is all this apprehension unwarranted because we underestimate ourselves and overestimate AI technology?

The final section contains essays that relate the large picture of our environment, from particle physics to cosmology.

This is the cutting edge of popular intellectual discourse as far as I can tell. It kept me up at night pondering the possibilities and possible traps of our technology.

But while I was reading through it, I was disturbed by the title of this book. I suppose the word `humanism' is a loose enough term to use however one wishes. But humanism for me means; ethical discourse inspired by classic literature, comparative religion and mythology, history, cultural anthropology, and aesthetic theory in music, art, architecture, and poetry. (Interestingly, one of the essayists, Jaron Lanier, a `dissenter' among these scientists by his own claim , is also a prolific musician and composer.) The title, 'The New Humanists' made sense when I read the letters to editor John Brockman at the end of the book. Everyone seems to agree that the social sciences and humanities have failed miserably since about 1970 due to postmodern philosophy, political correctness, and a research ideal that has largely ignored the task cultural education.

However, there's something seriously amiss with this collection of hard scientists, sympathetic softies, and philosophers, declaring victory in the science wars and saying in essence `We are it!' We're all you've got. No,no,no. The social sciences and humanities have got to clean up their own act. I found an authoritative response in one of the letters at the end of the book:

"The prospect of a great nation intellectually split between religious fundamentalism and an equally assertive, dogmatic, and unreflectively narrow scientism is not pretty. A real victory for science would consist not in sweeping away other aspects of existence, such as religion (not that it has any hope of doing so) but in respectfully deepening understanding of what it is to live and die as a human being and observing the universe from that perspective. Many dimensions of nonrational, symbolic, or ritual behaviors can, of course, be partially or wholly analyzed within a scientific framework, but other aspects will never be amenable to such a thing. There are places where experiment and verification cannot go, and we have to observe, interpret, reflect, and explain perceived phenomena in a qualitatively different way." (p374)
- Timothy Taylor, archaeologist at the University of Bradford, U.K.,

But if you can ignore the arrogant 'science war' tone of this book, you'll find a rich source of ideas that will have your cybernetic brain working overtime.

It is sad but true that modern scientific culture is incapable of producing a genuine humanism. Between scientific reductionism and the confusions of Darwinism the era of science prospers in physics, but produces idiotic accounts of man, his nature and psychology. What's worse, these issues are very old and systematically studied in the generations after Newton where the limits of his achievement were quickly foreseen. All this has been forgotten in the current paradigm milieu where resurgent positivistic fundamentlism has decided to make all the old mistakes all over again. The educational system reinforces this mindset, and the worst of it is that intelligent technically inclined students are conditioned to a one dimensional view that is blind to the basic fact that science cannot in its current form stand as a foundationalism for the totality of human knowledge.
This otherwise interesting selection of essays rounds up the wannabe candidates for another round of Frankenstein humanism that won't amount to anything.