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The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-first Century | 
| Creator: John Brockman
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 67326
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0375713425
Dewey Decimal Number: 501.12
EAN: 9780375713422
ASIN: 0375713425
Publication Date: May 14, 2002
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Amazon.com Review
Scientists love to speculate about the direction research and technology will take us, and editor John Brockman has given a stellar panel free rein to imagine the future in The Next Fifty Years. From brain-swapping and the hunt for extraterrestrials to the genetic elimination of unhappiness and a new scientific morality, the ideas in this book are wild and thought-provoking. The list of scientists and thinkers who participate is impressive: Lee Smolin and Martin Rees on cosmology; Ian Stewart on mathematics; and Richard Dawkins and Paul Davies on the life sciences, just to name a few. Many of the authors remind readers that science has changed a lot since the blind optimism of the early 20th century, and they are unanimously aware of the potential consequences of the developments they describe. Fifty years is a long time in the information age, and these essays do a credible and entertaining job of guessing where we're going. --Therese Littleton
Product Description
A brilliant ensemble of the world’s most visionary scientists provides twenty-five original never-before-published essays about the advances in science and technology that we may see within our lifetimes.
Theoretical physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies examines the likelihood that by the year 2050 we will be able to establish a continuing human presence on Mars. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi investigates the ramifications of engineering high-IQ, geneticially happy babies. Psychiatrist Nancy Etcoff explains current research into the creation of emotion-sensing jewelry that could gauge our moods and tell us when to take an anti-depressant pill. And evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explores the probability that we will soon be able to obtain a genome printout that predicts our natural end for the same cost as a chest x-ray. (Will we want to read it? And will insurance companies and governments have access to it?) This fascinating and unprecedented book explores not only the practical possibilities of the near future, but also the social and political ramifications of the developments of the strange new world to come.
Also includes original essays by:
Lee Smolin
Martin Rees
Ian Stewart
Brian Goodwin
Marc D. Hauser
Alison Gopnik
Paul Bloom
Geoffrey Miller
Robert M. Sapolsky
Steven Strogatz
Stuart Kauffman
John H. Holland
Rodney Brooks
Peter Atkins
Roger C. Schank
Jaron Lanier
David Gelernter
Joseph LeDoux
Judith Rich Harris
Samuel Barondes
Paul W. Ewald
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 pretty straightforward November 18, 2007
This book is definitely interesting and well written, and puts forth generally plausible ideas from many bright, well respected people. A few of the ideas seem a bit hard to swallow, such as Paul Ewald claiming that many of the major human diseases, such as bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's, will be shown to be caused by viruses. But for the most part the book is plausible, interesting, and even somewhat entertaining. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.
 Predictions, Past Present Future July 27, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Prophecy has been having a bad press lately. Despite the seeming millions of folks who either chat with a divinity, channel the dead, "solve" crimes, see ghosts or converse with aliens, not one predicted 911, the London bombings or the Indonesian tsunami. It's not just the fringe that strikes out. "Experts" routinely choose wrong whether in politics, sports, finance, entertainment or cultural trends. It's disillusioning, but the record of science is not much better in terms of "things to come". This is not to say that energy is not expended on that task. It is safe to say that the intervention of the computer, TV, car, discovery of DNA, cloning, medical advances, etc renders past predictions useless. That is one reason I liked this book so well. It is divided into 2 parts - the first philosophical, the second practical.
The first part asks basic questions to which we still have no answer - How did life start? What is life? Do aliens exist? What is the nature of gravity and the universe? How will manipulation of genes, nanotechnology and quantum mechanics affect us? These and other questions such as morality, death, artificial intelligence and life extension are also discussed in a series of brilliant essays by a wide range of (for want of a better word) "experts". The last half of the book looks at the practical side - education, politics, entertainment, happiness, love, medicine. the biggest change that a book written fifty years ago and this book is the emphasis upon biology - the manipulation of our bodies, our genes, the emerging synthesis of humans and machine.
Perhaps one of the most startling essays was THE MERGER OF FLESH AND MACHINES by Rodney Brooks who heads the MIT artificial intelligence library. It has migrated from machine to flesh over the last few years and this is the way of the future. So what will it be like in 50 years?
Most everyone agrees that we will live longer and be healthier, that computers will become smaller, faster and smarter, that we will find the cure to many diseases and that things will change even faster. If any one trend dominates, it is the increasing importance of biology for a host of social concerns - designer babies, specialized children, disease-resistant beings, mental and physical augmentation...the choices are almost endless. A few of the writers caution against taking any prediction too seriously since scientists have always overstated their case. From Drake (who said he would receive an alien message before the 21st century) to the doomsayers who promised we'd all die of famine by 1980 to those who declared a cheapt renewable energy source was here. A great summer read for the beach.
 Informative September 9, 2005
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
I thought this was a good book for the most part. It did get a little long winded in places and the view of the future was a bit dark for me. The author made a few very profound statements that really impacted me, but I had to sort through a lot of repetative philosophy. It started to drag at the end. I enjoyed the first few chapters the most. I think it is worth reading if you are interested in the future of science and genetics. Just be prepared to sort through a lot of words to get to the good information.
Captivating August 7, 2005
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Twenty-five scientists expound on what the world will be like in 2050. The quality in my opinion is a little spotty and too many of them preface their story with a disclaimer about the fallacy of making predictions - but well over half of them are absolutely invigorating. Each new chapter is like taste-testing a new flavor of ice cream blindfolded. They all tend to focus on big developments in their own field, as they should. My favorite approach for this assignment was by Judith Rich Harris who gave a lecture in 2050 at the age of 125. She first thanked previous scientists for the contributions they had made to human longevity. Overall, this is a superb read.
Lee Smolin - We will have a more detailed history of the universe which will constrain current theories about INFLATION...we may or may not have observed dark matter and dark energy. String Theory (its only mention in this book) will be ruled in or out by observations within a few years.
Ian Stewart - The concept of "proof" in mathematics will come under scrutiny and will survive. The use of computers in mathematical proofs will be ingrained. We will have a rigorous mathematical theory of emergent phenomenon and the high level dynamics of complex relationships.
Martin Rees - We will know how life began on earth.
Allison Gopnik - The emergence of the disciplines of philosophy of science, AI, statistics and developmental psychology will lead to a full-fledged theory of how we learn.
Paul Bloom - The fact that evolutionary considerations exist as a source of evidence in the study of psychology will no longer be questioned.
Geoffrey Miller - The charge that evolutionary psychology is a set of "just-so stories" will vanish, as we see the genetic footprints of evolution all over our brains.
Milahy Csikszentmihalyi - We will have the ability to control the genetic make-up of the human species.
Robert Sapolsky - Our traditional sources of solace will progressively atrophy...we will become sadder.
Steven Strogatz - Our brains are hardwired by evolution to visualize only three dimensions. We will be rescued from the demon of dimensionality by computers. We may end up as bystanders, unable to follow along with the machines we've built, flabbergasted by their startling conclusions.
Richard Dawkins - A patient will purchase the read-out of his entire genome for $160 (today's money). The doctor will hand out a prescription suited precisely to his/her genome. Detectives finding a blood-stain may be able to issue a computer image of the suspect's face. The "Lucy Genome Project" will create Lucy (Jurassic Park style). The existence of a living, breathing Lucy in our midst will change forever our complacent human-centered view of morals and politics.
Paul Davies - We will go to Mars.
John Holland - We will still know surprisingly little about the relationship between consciousness and neural activity. We will wear a wrist-watch sized multi-function device which assists us with all aspects of living, including social and political decisions. This will create a logarithmic increase in the number of people who routinely explore options in a principled way. We will have robotic trained assistants, but they will be brittle in unexpected situations. We will have engineered solutions to diseases and artificial immune systems. We will have flexible individual or group transport, without confinement to roads, making highway systems obsolete. Surveillance will be so advanced, privacy and freedom will be an issue. We will have bases on the Moon, Mars and circling Jupiter. This writer gets a gold star for creativity and bold predictions.
Rodney Brooks - We will perhaps be able to add a few sheets of neurons to our brains. We can expect radical alterations to the human body through genetic manipulation. What responsibilities does the individual scientist have for whatever forms of life he manipulates - or creates? Questions like these will thrashed out, accompanied by vandalism, terrorism and full-fledged war. Another gold star.
Peter Atkins - We will produce working proteins and a good synthetic approximation of cell membranes, but we will not yet synthesize life. Carbon nanotubes will be used to build suspension bridges. Bacteria, already being milked for pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, will be engineered to excrete whole machines.
Roger Schank - Knowledge will be so easy to obtain that virtual reality systems will replace schools. The creation of virtual experience will be a major industry.
Jaron Lanier - Computers files will be replaced and an alternative to protocol adherence will be found. In a wide variety of explorations, we will be limited by complexity ceilings, which cannot be breached by faster computers.
David Gelernter - The standard shape of information will be a form he calls the "information beam." The affiliated Cybersphere will replace the Internet. We will still be reading books, but most universities will be gone. Technology will be vastly more powerful but we will be less fixated upon it. A school will be a random collection of kids, each tapped into his information beam. We won't need cities any more, except as gigantic museums/theme parks/shopping malls.
Joseph Ledoux - Brain fMRI techniques will be refined enough to identify potential criminals. As we discover more about the balance between the conscious and unconscious mind, lawyers will thrash out the nature and limits of human responsibility. Drugs will treat troubled networks in the brain without affecting others, and recreational re-wiring will be available.
Judith Rich Harris - In 2016, the US government will refuse to fund any more developmental psychology studies that don't include genetic controls. The older generation of developmental psychologists will promptly retire. In 2021, it will be discovered that Neanderthals were furry, that humans and Neanderthals viewed each other as food, and that humans viewed Neanderthals as a source of warm clothing.
Samuel Barondes - Anyone visiting a psychiatrist will bring his personal DNA file. There will be hundreds of medications to choose from, matched to one's genome.
Paul Ewald - Atherosclerosis, diabetes, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, most cancers and most fertility problems will be known to be caused by infections.
There is much to mull over in the fascinating speculations and predictions in this book. Despite the shortcomings of a multi-authored book, it definitely earns FIVE ENTHUSIASTIC STARS!!!
A nice collection of prophecies July 12, 2005
2 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is a nice collection of mind-stretching essays covering math, the future of happiness, swappable minds etc. The next 50 years are certainly going to be a lot fun! What a great, captivating read this book is!
-Simon
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