100 or so short essays by brilliant people. Some great, most good. But this collection of essays doesn't really make a great book IMO. And the title offends me. ( )

A very interesting book. I liked the short essay format because I got to get a taste of the thinking and ideas of some very notable people without having to plow through great volumes of work I may neither enjoy nor even understand.
This book is a collection of essays posted to the web site: www.edge.org, so, of course, reading the book made me become a reader of the web site. I am glad of both! ( )

This book had a few conceptual gems in it, but at a low enough density to not make it worthwhile. It's clear that a large number of essayists are writing about topics to signal looking smart, rather than to actually help you in any way. Don't waste your time. ( )

This book is a collection of essays that are 2 or 3 pages long. The first few essays contend that we are not unique in the universe. A couple of them tell us that microbes dominate the earth and also the human body.
Several of them seemed to be way behind the times for example.
(1) The Copernican Principle harks back to the 1800's when science believed that the universe was deterministic. This author seems unaware that quantum mechanics showed the deterministic viewpoint as being inadequate. (Page 11)
(2) "Experimentation" seems to advocate changing only one variable at a time. That is a terribly inefficient method of studying complex phenomena. The author of this section ignores the power of Design of Experiments, which is a powerful method of narrowing down what matters and what doesn't when there are lots of possible causes. (Page 23)
(3) The next essay glorifies experimentation: The Controlled Experiment advocates the value of controlled experimentation instead of "instinct or partially informed debate."
(4) That is followed by an article advocating Thought experiments. (Since that is pretty much the opposite of the previous essay, perhaps there is something for everyone in this book of essays.) "The (Thought Experiment) was particularly important during the development of quantum mechanics," His favorite is Galileo's (thought experiment) proof that ... Aristotle was wrong. (Page 28)
The Pessimistic Meta-Induction from the History of Science article was more fun. "Because so many scientific theories from bygone eras have turned out to be wrong, we must assume that most of today's theories will eventually prove incorrect as well." (Page 30) "knowledge collapses apparently as fast as it accretes, that our own most cherished beliefs might appear patently false to posterity. ... If, by contrast, you think that uncovering your mistakes is one of the best ways to revise and improve your understand of the world, then this is actually a highly optimistic insight." (Page 31) ( )

A very interesting book. I liked the short essay format because I got to get a taste of the thinking and ideas of some very notable people without having to plow through great volumes of work I may neither enjoy nor even understand.
This book is a collection of essays posted to the web site: www.edge.org, so, of course, reading the book made me become a reader of the web site. I am glad of both! ( )