Here, have some dangerous ideas

I am such a sucker for Richard Dawkins.

The only reason I picked up What Is Your Dangerous Idea? was because Dawkins wrote the afterword. Otherwise, I might have given this book a miss until much later.

But it turned out to be engrossing enough, although I cannot agree that the ideas presented are exceptionally thought-provoking, partly because the subject matter discussed can be exceedingly condensed and esoteric (such as the astronomy discussion that invokes the cosmological constant is puzzling at best).

Edited by John Brockman, the 108 essays contained within are diverse, with content spanning across philosophy, physics and psychology. (Besides selling ideas through books, scientists and academics who engage in erudite thinking do share their research with the public online for free, such as the Third Culture website, which is published by Brockman.)

Written by specialists with superstar credentials from disparate fields, expository writing like this is not meant to provide rigorous proofs, arguments or hypotheses to be verified or falsified. Making tough concepts and sensitive topics palatable for the lay person is a gentle nudge to the majority of non-specialist readers to take their thinking elsewhere and beyond.

Readers might even feel inclined to brush up on their knowledge after this book.

So you like a truly scary idea that
runs counter to everything you believed
about from where you came from? Try this: