What is your dangerous idea?

A great article was recently published at Edge.org. A website that asks questions. For example, "“What is your dangerous idea?"” to which they received 119 replies from scientists. At 75,000 words (about 115 pages) I haven't read even 10% of it. I've read a few of the names I immediately recognize and I'll continue picking people out over the next several days.

Richard Dawkins, for example, has an idea about crime & punishment. His idea is that people that break the law should be treated as if they were broken and in need of fixing, instead of locked away as a lost cause. Interesting but with a frightening pile of ethical questions behind it. This suggests that murderers just need fixing, and not be held responsible for their actions. Which in turn suggests that free-will is rather subjective.

Jared Diamond thinks it's possible that tribal peoples aren't any wiser than the rest of us. This one I find interesting in a skeptical point of view. It's a popular idea that a tribal people are at harmony with their environment, but that may not be the case. Perhaps Diamond will write a book about this.

There are many more interesting ideas in there, like David Pizarro on morality and Andy Clark's zombies.

I'll keep reading them and post about particularly good ones, but if you find one that's ripe for The Lazy Skeptic, post about it in the comments and I'll take a look. Or if you have a particularly dangerous idea, post that in the comments as well!