Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The World's Smartest Think Tank?

Is The Edge Foundation the "world's smartest think tank" as the UK's Guardian and Observer have said?

What type of people does Edge attract?  Well, according to Edge:
Edge, at its core, consists of the scientists, artists, philosophers, technologists, and entrepreneurs who are at the center of today's intellectual, technological, and scientific landscape.
Through the years, Edge.org has had a simple criterion for choosing contributors. We look for people whose creative work has expanded our notion of who and what we are. A few are bestselling authors or are famous in the mass culture. Most are not. Rather, we encourage work on the cutting edge of the culture, and the investigation of ideas that have not been generally exposed. We are interested in "thinking smart;" we are not interested in the anesthesiology of received "wisdom." The 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." In communications theory information is not defined as data or input but rather as "a difference that makes a difference.'' It is this level we hope our contributors will achieve.
Here are all the people that participate in Edge.

Here is how Wikipedia describes The Edge Foundation:
The Edge Foundation, Inc. is an organization of science and technology intellectuals created in 1988 as an outgrowth of The Reality Club. Currently, its main activity is maintaining the edge.org website, edited by publisher and businessman John Brockman. The site is an online magazine exploring scientific and intellectual ideas.