Edge.org to Scientists and Random Other People: What Are You Optimistic About?

It's a new year, and that means it's time for Edge.org's annual silly question. This year, in addition to giving the question to scientists and philosophers, they also gave it to business people, and even Brian Eno. As in the past, there are a lot of people in cognitive science and related fields on the list this year, so I thought I'd give you a brief look at how they answered the question, "What are you optimistic about?" Since this has to be the worst Edge.org question ever, and that's saying a lot, most of the answers are thoroughly uninteresting and unoriginal. You can almost feel the respondents straining to come up with something at the last minute. But here you go, anyway (if you want to read Dawkins' answer, just skip to the bottom):

Daniel Dennett, philosopher, Santa Claus:

I'm so optimistic that I expect to live to see the evaporation of the powerful mystique of religion. I think that in about twenty-five years almost all religions will have evolved into very different phenomena, so much so that in most quarters religion will no longer command the awe it does today. Of course many people-perhaps a majority of people in the world-will still cling to their religion with the sort of passion that can fuel violence and other intolerant and reprehensible behavior. But the rest of the world will see this behavior for what it is, and learn to work around it until it subsides, as it surely will. That's the good news. The bad news is that we will need every morsel of this reasonable attitude to deal with such complex global problems as climate change, fresh water, and economic inequality in an effective way. It will be touch and go, and in my pessimistic moods I think Sir Martin Rees may be right: some disaffected religious (or political) group may unleash a biological or nuclear catastrophe that forecloses all our good efforts. But I do think we have the resources and the knowledge to forestall such calamities if we are vigilant.

Well, there's a surprise. Dennett thinks the future will bring an end to the mystique of religion. I think he's obviously wrong. Religion has survived so many changes in human culture over the millenia by adapting to them, and I don't see that changing. Religion may change dramatically, as it has in Western culture, for example, in the last three centuries, but that doesn't mean it will lose its mystique, only that its mystique will take on a different character.

Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist. Here is his answer in its entirety, because I think it's the most interesting of the bunch (at least for psychologists):

I am optimistic about the future of social science research because the influence of the baby boom generation on the culture and agenda of the social sciences will soon decrease. Don't get me wrong, many of my best friends are boomers, and technically I'm one too (born in 1963). I am grateful for the freedom and justice that the activists of the 1960s and 1970s helped bring to the United States. But if there is a sensitive period for acquiring a moral and political orientation, it is the late teens and early 20s, and most of those whose sensitive periods included the Vietnam war and the struggles for civil rights seem to have been permanently marked by those times. Many young people who entered Ph.D. programs in the social sciences during the 1970s did so with the hope of using their research to reduce oppression and inequality. This moral imprinting of a generation of researchers may have had a few detrimental effects on the (otherwise excellent) science they produced. Here are two:

1) Moralistic antinativism. The deep and politicized antipathy to 1970s sociobiology produced a generation of social scientists wary of nativism in general and of evolutionary thinking in particular. Nobody these days admits to believing that the mind is a blank slate at birth, but in practice I have noticed that social scientists older than me generally begin with a social learning explanation of everything (especially sex differences), and then act as though it is "conservative" (scientifically) or "liberal" (politically) to stick with social learning unless the evidence against it is overwhelming, p<.05 which="" it="" rarely="" is.="" but="" shouldn="" we="" use="" p="" here="" always="" let="" nativist="" and="" empiricist="" explanations="" both="" have="" a="" go="" at="" each="" question="" then="" pick="" the="" one="" that="" has="" better="" fit="" overall="" with="" evidence="" i="" look="" forward="" to="" day="" when="" most="" social="" scientists="" learned="" about="" astonishing="" findings="" of="" twin="" studies="" in="" their="" twenties="" very="" few="" know="" who="" stephen="" jay="" gould="" was.="">

2) Moral Conformity Pressure. Imagine an industry in which 90% of the people are men, male values and maleness are extolled publicly while feminine values are ridiculed, and men routinely make jokes, publicly and privately, about how dumb women are, even when women are present. Sounds like a definition of hostile climate" run wild? Now replace the words male" and female" with liberal" and conservative," and we have a pretty good description of my field --social psychology--and, I suspect, many other areas of the social sciences. I have no particular fondness for conservatives. But I do have a need for them. I study morality, and I have found that conservative ideas (about authority, respect, order, loyalty, purity, and sanctity) illuminate vast territories of moral psychology, territories that have hardly been noticed by psychologists who define morality as consisting exclusively of matters of harm, rights, and justice. If social psychology had been a morally diverse field, we would have done a much better job of studying the full expanse of human morality, and we'd be in a much better position right now to understand the morality of radical Islam.

Will younger social scientists be more morally diverse than the baby boom generation? Maybe not. But if they make it through their sensitive periods without seeing themselves as part of a revolution, they just might be more open to diverse ideas about the origins of mind, the scope of morals, and the workings of society.

Here Haidt's making a point that I think needs to be made. Science is a part of society, and is therefore influenced and often limited by what's going on around it in society. It's a good thing for science, then, that the general zeitgeist is always changing, because with every change, new scientific doors are opened.

Dan Sperber, psychologist, relevance theorist:

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," so did Marx define communism. Outside of narrow kinship or friendship groups, this kind of altruistic sharing of resources has hardly ever been encountered, and it is not difficult to understand why: Such a utopia, however attractive, is quite impractical. Yet, with the advent of the new information technologies and in particular of the Web, a limited form of informational 'communism' that no one had predicted has emerged and is fast developing. A vast array of technological, intellectual and artistic creations, many of them of outstanding quality, are being made freely available to all according to their needs by individuals working according to the best of their abilities and often seeking self-realization even more than recognition. I have in mind the freeware, the wikis, the open source programs, the open access documents, the million of blogs and personal pages, the online text, image, and music and libraries, the free websites catering to all kind of needs and constituencies. Who had been optimistic enough to expect not just the existence of this movement, but its expansion, its force, its capacity to rival commercial products and major businesses and to create new kinds of services, blogs for instance, of great social and cultural import even if of limited economic value?

This is easily one of the mostt interesting answers on the list. I had never really thought about the internet this way. This is a pretty good way of thinking about ScienceBlogs, for example. At the very least, it's a thought provoking answer.

Marvin Minsky, computer scientist and AI pioneer:

Eternal life may come within our reach once we understand enough about how our knowledge and mental processes are embodied in our brains. For then we should be able to duplicate that information -- and then into more robust machinery. This might be possible late in this century, in view of how much we are learning about how human brains work -- and the growth of computer capacities.

I think someone's getting old, and the existential anxiety is setting in. Or maybe he's just way more optimistic than me.

David Buss, Evolutionary Psychologist. Here's Buss' entire answer:

Each one of us has descended from a long and unbroken line of ancestors who mated successfully. They all found love or at least a liaison. Evolution has forged a motivation to mate so powerful that it propels us to surmount impressive, daunting, and demoralizing obstacles. The first problem is prioritizing conflicting mate preferences, compromising on some to attain others. Searchers must then sift through hundreds of options, limiting pursuit to potentials within shouting distance of attainability. Desirable mates bring out determined rivals, forcing fierce competition. Complex and subtle attraction tactics must succeed in unlocking minds and melting hearts. After making it through these mine fields, there is no rest for the weary. Post-mating, sexual conflicts erupt, undermining months or years of effort. Mate poachers abound, threatening to lure our lovers.

Infidelity diverts precious resources to interlopers and rips families apart.
Treachery runs rampant, spurned lovers rage, and divorce rates rise. The modern world compounds these problems, from discerning deception in internet dating to bridging cultural gaps created by cross-continental mating. Despite the obstacles, both ancient and novel, I remain optimistic that humans in every generation will continue to succeed gloriously.

Would you believe me if I told you that I knew his answer would be about sex and jealousy? Gotta sell those books. Anyway, this probably wins the award for this year's dullest and most predictable answer.

Alison Gopnik, (cognitive) developmental psychologist:

New children will be born. This may seem rather mundane compared to some of the technological breakthroughs that other scientists have focused on. After all, children have been born for as long as the species has been around. But for human beings children are linked to optimism in a way that runs deeper than just the biological continuation of the species.

It looks like Buss has some competition. This answer should be read as you listen to the song, "I believe the children are the future..."

Mahzarin R. Banaji, social psychologist of Implicit Association Test fame. Here's part of her answer:

What gives me particular optimism about the future is the ability of humans everywhere to go against the grain of their own beliefs that are familiar, that feel natural and right, and that appear to be fundamentally true. What makes me optimistic is the possibility that we can (and do) unravel the contents of traditional beliefs and even the process by which they were constructed.

If you read the rest of her answer, you'll find some interesting examples of humans being their irrational selves. The interesting thing is that she's correct in asserting that humans can, as a group, overcome particular biases, but we're stuck with the sorts of heuristics that lead to them, including some of the one's that Banaji mentions, that lead to those biases. A case of deciding whether the glass is half empty or half full, I guess.

Andy Clark, philosopher:

I am optimistic that the human race will continue to find ways of enhancing its own modes of thought, reason, and feeling. As flexible adaptive agents we are wide open to a surprising variety of transformative bodily and mental tricks and ploys, ranging from the use of software, sports regimes and meditational practice, to drug therapies, gene therapies, and direct brain-machine interfaces.

I am optimistic that, stimulated by this explosion of transformative opportunities, we will soon come to regard our selves as constantly negotiable collection of resources, easily able to straddle and criss-cross the boundaries between biology and artifact. In this hybrid vision of our own humanity I see increased potentials not just for repair but for empowerment, expansion, recreation, and growth. For some, this very same hybrid vision may raise specters of coercion, monstering and subjugation. For clearly, not all change is for the better, and hybridization (however naturally it may come to us) is neutral rather than an intrinsic good. But there is cause for (cautious) optimism.

Is it just me, or does it feel like Clark was working on a sci fi movie script when Edge contacted him with this year's question?

Rodney Brooks, roboticist:

As for the coming events of this century there may not be a Gion but there will be bars on Mars and over time they will gather their own histories and legends as stories are told and re-told. And, just perhaps, one of my peek-a-boo playmates will be one of the great actors in the derring-dos and swashbuckling courage under pressure that will surely be part of the coming adventures.

Are those crickets I hear?

Simon Baron-Cohen, Evolutionary Psychologist, father of the famous "empathizing" and "systemitizing" formalization of traditional gender stereotypes, and relative of Sasha Baron-Cohen (aka Borat):

So, why am I optimistic? For this new generation of children with autism, I anticipate that many of them will find ways to blossom, using their skills with digital technology to find employment, to find friends, and in some cases to innovate. When I think back to the destiny of children with autism some 50 years ago, I imagine there were relatively fewer opportunities for such children. When I think of today's generation of children with autism, I do not despair. True, many of them will have a rocky time during their school years, whilst their peer group shuns them because they cannot socialize easily. But by adulthood, a good proportion of these individuals will have not only found a niche in the digital world, but will be exploiting that niche in ways that may bring economic security, respect from their peer group, and make the individual feel valued for the contribution they are able to make.

This one is actually pretty interesting, too. Read the rest. I hope he's right.

Elizabeth Loftus, cognitive psychologist:

I wish I could say that I was optimistic that the problem of wrongful convictions will virtually disappear, sort of like polio. I can't. But I am optimistic that the problem of wrongful convictions will become smaller than it once was. Here's why. Just as the a plane crash leads to a microscopic analysis of what went wrong, so these cases of proven wrongful conviction have been dissected to determine what went wrong. The answer in the majority of cases is faulty memory. In a recent case, a rape victim misidentified a man as her attacker -- a mistake of faulty memory. Readers can find out more about how these kinds of errors happen by reviewing the cases on the website of the Innocence Project.

In case you don't know, Loftus has been one of the foremost critics of convictions based primarily on recovered memory testimony, so it's not surprising that she's thinking about wrongful convictions. I hope she's right, too.

Irene Pepperberg, psychologist, bird lady:

Like some other respondents, I'm not particularly optimistic at the moment. Human civilization, however, seems to proceed in cycles overall, and I believe that we are due--even if not quickly enough for my tastes--for a new positive cycle. Every Golden Age--the flowering of reason and good--has been followed by a withering, a decay, a rotting, a descent into superstition, prejudice, greed (pick your own favorite ill); somehow, though, the seeds of the next pinnacle begin their growth and ascent, seemingly finding nourishment in the detritus left by the past. A particular civilization may end, but new ones rise to take its place. I'm optimistic that the current nadir in which we find ourselves (e.g., a world mostly heedless of ongoing genocides, global warming, poverty, etc...) or toward which we see ourselves heading will lead to a renaissance, a new enlightenment...a profound, global shift in the world view for the better.

Now that's being optimistic.

Stephen M. Kosslyn, psychologist, image:

I am optimistic that human intelligence can be increased, and can be increased dramatically in the near future. I see three avenues that will lead to this end.

First, the fruits of cognitive neuroscience and related fields have identified a host of distinct neural systems in the human brain. Different combinations of these systems are used in the service of accomplishing different tasks, and each system can be made more efficient by "targeted training." Such training involves having people perform tasks that are designed to exercise very specific abilities, which grow out of distinct neural networks. Just as a body builder can do curls to build up biceps and dips on parallel bars to build up triceps, we can design computer-game-like tasks that exercise specific parts of the brain--mental muscles, if you will. By exercising the right sets of systems, specific types of reasoning not only can be improved but--the holy grail of training studies--such improvement can generalize to new tasks that draw on those systems.

Second, people often grapple with problems in groups, be they formally designated teams or casual huddles around the water cooler. I am optimistic that understanding the nature of such group interactions will increase human intelligence. Just as a mechanical calculator can extend our mental capacities, other people help us extend our intelligence--both in a cognitive sense (as required to solve problems) and in an emotional sense (as required to detect and respond appropriately to emotions, ours and those of others). In this sense, other people can serve as "social prosthetic systems," as extensions of our own brains; a wooden leg can fill in for a missing limb, and others' brains can fill in for our cognitive and emotional limitations. To the extent that researchers come to understand how such social prosthetic systems arise and operate, they will understand how to increase human intelligence.

Third, the line between animate and inanimate information processing is becoming increasingly blurry as research in multiple fields proceeds apace. I expect that engineers will continue to press forward, designing increasingly powerful machines to help us extend our intelligence. For example, some people carry computers with them everywhere they go, and treat Google as an extension of their own knowledge bases. Or, in my case, my PDA extends my organizational ability enormously. We soon will have a wide variety of mechanical helpmates. The distinction between what goes on in the head and what relies on external devices is becoming more subtle and nuanced, and in so doing human intelligence is being extended.

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This is a more detailed version of Andy Clark's answer, I think. I think that Kosslyn might be right on a societal scale, but on the individual scale, I worry that human intelligence will actually decrease, as the amount of information with which we're bombarded actually becomes too much to handle. Once again, I suppose I'm on the half empty side.

Marc Hauser, comparative psychologist:

Racism, Sexism, Species-ism, Age-ism, Elitism, Fundamentalism, Atheism. These -isms, and others, have fueled hatred, inspired war, justified torture, divided countries, prevented education, increased disparities in wealth, and destroyed civilizations. For some, they represent ideas to die for. For others, they represent ideas to destroy. Though the targets differ, there is a single underlying cause: a brain that evolved an unconscious capacity to seek differences between self and other, and once identified, seek to demote the other in the service of selfish gains. It is a capacity that is like a heat sensing missile, designed to seek and destroy. It achieves its ends by exceptionally clever tactics that involve an ever escalating arms race between demoting the other to the level of a pestilent parasite while raising the self and its accompanying brethren to the level of virtuous saints. This is the bad news.

The good news is that science is uncovering some of the details of this destructive capacity, and may hold the key to an applied solution. My optimism: if we play our cards correctly, we may see the day when our instinctive prejudice toward the other will dissolve, gaining greater respect for differences, expanding our moral circle in the words of Peter Singer.

Hauser goes on to give a "playbook" for accomplishing this. I wish I were optimistic enough to think this wasn't a pipe dream. I'm just not sure I have enough faith in the power of science to change the nature of the human mind.

Steven Pinker, psychologist, crazy hair:

In 16th century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted on a stage and was slowly lowered into a fire. According to the historian Norman Davies, "the spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized."

As horrific as present-day events are, such sadism would be unthinkable today in most of the world. This is just one example of the most important and under appreciated trend in the history of our species: the decline of violence. Cruelty as popular entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, genocide for convenience, torture and mutilation as routine forms of punishment, execution for trivial crimes and misdemeanors, assassination as a means of political succession, pogroms as an outlet for frustration, and homicide as the major means of conflict resolution--all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. Yet today they are statistically rare in the West, less common elsewhere than they used to be, and widely condemned when they do occur.

Once again, I hope, but then again, while Pinker's right in pointing out that our taste for cruelty on an individual level has declined, the last century saw killing on unprecedentedly large scales, well into the second half of the century (think of how many millions died in wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, for example). I worry that as we become more and more sickened by the prospect of torture and even the death penalty, we become better and better equipped to kill millions without flinching.

Richard Dawkins, biologist, militant atheist. What list would be complete without Dawkins? I mean, he's not a cognitive scientist, but he likes to play one on the subject of religion. So here's his answer, in its entirety:

I am optimistic that the physicists of our species will complete Einstein's dream and discover the final theory of everything before superior creatures, evolved on another world, make contact and tell us the answer. I am optimistic that, although the theory of everything will bring fundamental physics to a convincing closure, the enterprise of physics itself will continue to flourish, just as biology went on growing after Darwin solved its deep problem. I am optimistic that the two theories together will furnish a totally satisfying naturalistic explanation for the existence of the universe and everything that's in it including ourselves. And I am optimistic that this final scientific enlightenment will deal an overdue deathblow to religion and other juvenile superstitions.

Ah, scientism. It doesn't get any more blatant than that. That's not optimism, that's deep, deep philosophical and psychological naivete.