The Edge Foundation, Inc. is an organization of science and technology intellectuals created in 1988 as an outgrowth of The Reality Club. Its motto is 'To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.' Currently, its main activity is maintaining the Edge.org website, edited by publisher and businessman John Brockman.
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The Third Culture is a term used to describe the growing movement towards (re)integration of literary and scientific thinking and is a nod toward British scientist C. P. Snow's concept of The Two Cultures of science and the humanities. John Brockman published a book of the same name whose themes are continued at the Edge website. Here, scientists and others are invited to contribute their thoughts in a manner readily accessible to non-specialist readers. In doing so, leading thinkers are able to communicate directly with each other and the public without the intervention of middlemen such as journalists and journal editors.[1]
Many areas of academic work are incorporated, including genetics, physics, mathematics, psychology, evolutionary biology, philosophy and computing technology.
The current set of 166 contributors[2] consists of Anthony Aguirre, Stephon Alexander, John Allen Paulos, Adam Alter, Alun Anderson, Ross Anderson, Samuel Arbesman, Mahzarin Banaji, Samuel Barondes, Thomas Bass, Sue Blackmore, Paul Bloom, Giulio Boccaletti, Stefano Boeri, Nick Bostrom, Stewart Brand, David Buss, William Calvin, Nicholas Carr, Sean Carroll, Joan Chiao, Nicholas Christakis, George Church, Andy Clark, Gregory Cochran, Alana Conner, James Croak, Fiery Cushman, Scott D. Sampson, David Dalrymple, W. Daniel Hillis, Satyajit Das, Richard Dawkins, Aubrey De Grey, Daniel Dennett, Emanuel Derman, Keith Devlin, George Dyson, David Eagleman, Brian Eno, Juan Enriquez, Dylan Evans, Christine Finn, Stuart Firestein, Helen Fisher, Susan Fiske, Tecumseh Fitch, Richard Foreman, Howard Gardner, Amanda Gefter, David Gelernter, Neil Gershenfeld, Gerd Gigerenzer, Marcelo Gleiser, Joel Gold, Nigel Goldenfeld, Rebecca Goldstein, Daniel Goleman, Beatrice Golomb, Alison Gopnik, Joshua Greene, Jonathan Haidt, Diane Halpern, Kevin Hand, Haim Harari, Sam Harris, Marti Hearst, Mark Henderson, Roger Highfield, Donald Hoffman, Gerald Holton, Bruce Hood, Nicholas Humphrey, Marco Iacoboni, Jennifer Jacquet, Xeni Jardin, Daniel Kahneman, Paul Kedrosky, Kevin Kelly, Douglas Kenrick, Christian Keysers, Vinod Khosla, Marcel Kinsbourne, Jon Kleinberg, Brian Knutson, Bart Kosko, Kai Krause, Lawrence Krauss, Andrian Kreye, Rob Kurzban, George Lakoff, Jaron Lanier, Jonah Lehrer, Garrett Lisi, Seth Lloyd, Tania Lombrozo, Stephen M. Kosslyn, Gary Marcus, Hazel Rose Markus, John McWhorter, Thomas Metzinger, Geoffrey Miller, Evgeny Morozov, P.Z. Myers, David Myers, Richard Nisbett, Tor Norretranders, James O'Donnell, Gloria Origgi, Neri Oxman, Carl Page, Mark Pagel, Greg Paul, Irene Pepperberg, Clifford Pickover, Steven Pinker, David Pizarro, Ernst Pöppel, Robert Provine, V.S. Ramachandran, Lisa Randall, Martin Rees, Andrew Revkin, Matt Ridley, Matthew Ritchie, Jay Rosen, Carlo Rovelli, David Rowan, Rudy Rucker, Douglas Rushkoff, Paul Saffo, Eduardo Salcedo-Albaran, Robert Sapolsky, Dimitar Sasselov, Richard Saul Wurman, Roger Schank, Kathryn Schulz, Gino Segre, Charles Seife, Terrence Sejnowski, Martin Seligman, Michael Shermer, Clay Shirky, Gerald Smallberg, Barry Smith, Laurence C. Smith, Lee Smolin, Dan Sperber, Tom Standage, Victoria Stodden, Linda Stone, Nassim Taleb, Don Tapscott, Timothy Taylor, Max Tegmark, Richard Thaler, John Tooby, Eric Topol, Hans Obrist, J. Craig Venter, Eric Weinstein, Frank Wilczek, Dave Winer, Milford Wolpoff, Carl Zimmer, Jason Zweig
In recent years Edge has posed its members an annual question. In 2005 this was "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"[3] The responses generated were published as a book under the title What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty with an introduction by the novelist Ian McEwan.[4]
In 2006 Edge posed the question, "What is your dangerous idea"?[5] The responses formed the book What Is Your Dangerous Idea?, which was published with an introduction by Steven Pinker and an afterword by Richard Dawkins.[6]
In 2007 Edge asked, "What are you optimistic about? Why?",[7] which resulted in a companion publication.[8]
In 2008, the Edge question was, "What have you changed your mind about?".[9] The corresponding book came out shortly thereafter.[10]
In 2009, the question was "What Will Change Everything? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?"[11] and a book version has also appeared.[12]
In 2010: "How has the Internet changed the way you think?".[13]
In 2011: "What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?".[2]