World’s top 100 brains - April 28, 2008
Prospect magazine has launched the second of its 100 greatest intellectual polls. Once again there are a number of high profile scientists in the list, on which you can vote for your favourites.
Last time round Richard Dawkins came in third (just behind Noam Chomsky and Umberto Eco).
Dawkins is in the list again this year, along with Jared Diamond, Drew Gilpin Faust, Neil Gershenfeld, Bjørn Lomborg, James Lovelock, Sunita Narain, and Lee Smolin. And in the ‘too cool to use their full names’ sub-category, we have V.S. Ramachandran, J. Craig Venter, and E.O. Wilson.
Al Gore didn’t make it last time but he’s on the list now. We’re expecting a strong showing from him this year.
Conspicuous by their absence: Stephen Hawking, Rajendra Pachauri, Jonathan Haidt.
Image: Alamy
Comments
And where is my all time favorite Desmond Morris ? Is he an out dated ,out fashioned
celebrity now ? And what is relevance and rationale of such exercises,just some media hype ,deliberate personality projection with some ulterior motives or some other hidden agenda?
Posted by: Dr.Arvind Mishra | April 28, 2008 03:57 PM
Obviously Prospect is not a science mag. Chomsky is a raving lunatic and Eco has no science credentials. Lovelock and Gore are founders of the Gaian religion - see green-agenda.com
Posted by: Eric Gisin | April 28, 2008 05:44 PM
Presumably, big Al will be under the Machiavellian category?
He's not doing this for your benefit
Posted by: jorb | April 28, 2008 08:21 PM
There are a few notable names but the selection seems stacked towards journalists and conservative political voices (granted it is a site on foreign policy). I mean seriously - a tele-evangelist???
I'd give the religious ones credit for "rat cunning" but putting the pope in the same list as the likes of Dawkins, Gershenfeld and Venter insults those great minds and visionaries. None of these men, to the best of my knowledge, has ever advocated book burning or a Flat Earth philosophy.
Ditto Eric on the Chomsky and Eco comments.
I won't be endorsing the list by participating.
Posted by: Peter McKellar | April 29, 2008 04:09 AM
This year, when politicians are using pseudo-science to scare the public into foolish actions to "control" Earth's climate, we should recognize Bjørn Lomborg's contribution to sanity. - Oliver Manuel, www.omatumr.com
Posted by: Oliver K. Manuel | April 29, 2008 04:10 PM