The Edge's 2008 question

Each year The Edge asks a number of prominent scientists and other thinkers an open ended question. Their answers always make for interesting reading. Previous years' questions included:

2007 - What are you optimistic about?
2006 - What is your dangerous idea?
2005 - What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

The Edge's question for 2008 is especially thought provoking and the answers will provide you with many hours of bedtime reading:

When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?

This blurb from Tim O'Reilly from O'Reilly's Radar sums it up well: "A remarkable feast of the intellect... an amazing group of reflections on science, culture, and the evolution of ideas. Reading the Edge question is like being invited to dinner with some of the most interesting people on the planet."

The names of the respondents to The Edge's question reads like a Who's Who of science and include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Howard Gardner, Daniel Kahneman, David Meyers, John Allen Paulos, Stephen Pinker and more than a hundred others.

Scanning through the responses, I picked up a number of common themes. The limitations of an overly reductionistic approach to science and the necessity to consider complexity was one. I must admit that I am myself still more comfortable within a reductionistic scientific model. I have fairly recently been introduced to the concepts of complexity, complex adaptive systems and emergence by Dave Snowden at Cognitive Edge and Sonja Blignaut at Narrativelab.

Another theme was the dangers of bias and even of manipulation in the reporting of scientific experimentation. Many of the responses also touched upon the escalating conflict between science and religion. I am sure there are many other themes that can be identified, but in the absence of a comprehensive analysis, these depend on the confirmation bias of the reader.

Other blogs that have picked up on The Edge's question are Evidence Soup and Mind Hacks.