• Know This

  • Today's Most Interesting and Important Scientific Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments
  • By: John Brockman
  • Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Dan John Miller
  • Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (230 ratings)

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Know This  By  cover art

Know This

By: John Brockman
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman,Dan John Miller
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Publisher's summary

The latest volume in the best-selling series from Edge.org - dubbed "the world's smartest website" by The Guardian - brings together 175 of the world's most innovative and brilliant thinkers to discuss recent scientific breakthroughs that will shape the future.

Scientific developments radically alter our understanding of the world. Whether it's technology, climate change, health research, or the latest revelations of neuroscience, physics, or psychology, science has, as Edge editor John Brockman says, "become a big story, if not the big story". In that spirit this new addition to Edge.org's fascinating series asks a powerful and provocative question: What do you consider the most interesting and important recent scientific news?

Contributors include the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond, on the best way to understand complex problems; the author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli, on the mystery of black holes; Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker on the quantification of human progress; TED conferences curator Chris J. Anderson on the growth of the global brain; Harvard physicist Lisa Randall on the true measure of breakthrough discoveries; Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek on why the 21st century will be shaped by our mastery of the laws of matter; music legend Peter Gabriel on tearing down the barriers between imagination and reality; and Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson on the surprising ability of small (and cheap) upstarts to compete with billion-dollar projects. Plus Nobel laureate John C. Mather, Sun Microsystems cofounder Bill Joy, Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer, Genome author Matt Ridley, Harvard geneticist George Church, and many more.

©2017 Edge Foundation, Inc. (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about Know This

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Pete and Repeat and Re-repeat

Would you try another book from John Brockman and/or Gabra Zackman and Dan John Miller ?

The Narrators, sure. The essay collector, no.

What was most disappointing about John Brockman’s story?

The description leads one to believe that this book would have had more information than it does. Instead, it is filled with nearly 200 short essays with professors and "celebrities" like Alan Alda, opining on what the hot science and pseudo-science news of the day is.

If your belief system orbits around "man made global warming", mocking the religious, demonizing the human race in general, and snotty elitist TED talks, this book will fill your confirmation bias needs for months.

What does Gabra Zackman and Dan John Miller bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narrators were fine.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Boredom. When the authors were not lustfully thumping all the politically correct dogmas, they were repeating information from prior essays. Over, and over and over.

The essays are semi grouped according to topic. Each essay in a topic group, with almost no exception, simply repeats information that was given in the first essay of the group. This continues for about 20 essays in each topic group. Repeat.... Repeat... Repeat.

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31 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Good, but...

Good overall, but presented as short snippets of information, not full articles. Unexpected, but fine.

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12 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Consequences of Jeremy Englands idea

If you could sum up Know This in three words, what would they be?

Backbreaking News

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no

Any additional comments?

Chapter 4: One interesting consequence of Jeremy's theory is that the humans should stop blaming each other for destroying their own environment because we were made exactly for that job. It is like members of the own team blame the best players in a win game for defeating the opponent./ake eckervall

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5 people found this helpful

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Not for everyone but AMAZING for Science People

It's very heavy. I could only really read one or two chapters at a time because quite honestly it's such mind blowing stuff. At the end of the day it's very inspirational, by now it's a bit old because many of these discovers have matured and are in the middle of playing out right now, which is really cool stuff. Great for people who want a landscape of the craziest scientific discoveries of our times.

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4 people found this helpful

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Buffet of Disjoint Concepts

The book has many separate 3-10 minute chapters that have very little in common. The lack of depth was unexpected and frustrating.

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4 people found this helpful

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Can I get a refund?

Listen if you want a list of how humans are destroying earth. Each sub-contracted writers submits their opinions.

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Everything You Feared About the Future in One Book

We've given up standing on the shoulders of our Giants as we now stand on the platforms of our machines.

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3 people found this helpful

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Good listen

Eye opening in so many ways, recommended for all to enjoy a great experience for all.

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3 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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bias

This book was boring at went over the same topic over and over again. Should be titled "climate change"... Would have enjoyed a variety of topics. as the name suggest.

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2 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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I was hoping for so much more.

Some chapters interesting. Others were drivel. I got about 1/4 the way through and had to stop.

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1 person found this helpful