Ideas Whose Time Has Gone

As my friends and readers of this blog will know, I am a fan of the folks at Freakonomics, both the books and the podcast, and that I freakquently write brief posts and provide links to recent podcasts. This is one of those posts. It concerns a recent Freakonomics podcast that explores ideas that should be put to rest ("This Idea Must Die"). It is inspired by the book,  This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress, which the latest edition in an annual series of books put out by the intellectual salon Edge.org and the brainchild of Laurie Santos, who is a professor of psychology at Yale. During the podcast you hear from Santos, who explains her motivation for the question, as well as from some of the authors whose submissions are included in the book:

• Alan Alda, the actor, writer, lifelong science buff, and visiting professor at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University
• Alun Anderson, an author and longtime veteran of New Scientist
• Sam Arbesman, a complexity scientist
• Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a professor of cognitive science at University College London
• Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale
• Emanuel Derman, a professor of financial engineering at Columbia, a former physicist and Wall Street analyst
• Seth Lloyd, a professor of quantum mechanical engineering at M.I.T.
• Michael I. Norton, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School
• Azra Raza, an oncologist and professor of medicine at Columbia
• Douglas Rushkoff, professor of media studies at Queens College – CUNY

This is an absolutely fascinating podcast although at 55 minutes, you will want to allow time to listen to it. As always, you can download Freakonomics podcasts from iTunes, or you can listen to them at the Freakonomics website where you can also find the audio transcript of the podcast.