Did you ever wonder what scientists and other intellectuals really believe, outside their research projects, media interviews, and books for sale? “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?” is the question of the year posed by John Brockman on The World Question Center, a part of the internet site for Brockman’s Edge foundation. In his introduction, he says, “We are in the age of “searchculture,” in which Google and other search engines are leading us into a future rich with an abundance of correct answers along with an accompanying naïve sense of certainty. In the future, we will be able to answer the question, but will we be bright enough to ask it?” I’m delighted to be able to freely read the results from 120 top thinkers without having to buy a book or track them down individually.

You can read the responses of these contributors: Howard Gardner • Nicholas Humphrey • Marc D. Hauser • Daniel Gilbert • George Dyson • Daniel C. Dennett • William Calvin • Lawrence Krauss • Neil Gershenfeld • Joseph LeDoux • Stephen Kosslyn • Philip W. Anderson • Kevin Kelly • Paul Davies • Haim Harari • Janna Levin • Steven Pinker • Alison Gopnik • Martin E. P. Seligman • John McWhorter • Freeman Dyson • Robert Sapolsky • Leonard Susskind • Keith Devlin • Susan Blackmore • Clifford Pickover • Piet Hut • Gino Segre • Roger Schank • Alan Kay • Bruce Sterling • Judith Rich Harris • Arnold Trehub • Gregory Benford • Lynn Margulis • Sam Harris • Elizabeth Spelke • Kai Krause • Todd Feinberg • Nassim Nicholas Taleb • Irene Pepperberg • Jesse Bering • Scott Atran • Karl Sabbagh • Gary Marcus • Stuart A. Kauffman • Ray Kurzweil • John Barrow • Jaron Lanier • Alex Pentland • Richard Dawkins • Jean Paul Schmetz • Thomas Metzinger • John R. Skoyles • John Horgan • David Gelernter • Jordan Pollack • Lee Smolin • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi • Jeffrey Epstein • Michael Shermer • Leon Lederman • Tom Standage • Simon Baron-Cohen • Stephen Petranek • J. Craig Venter • Maria Spiropulu • David Buss • Esther Dyson • David Myers • Denis Dutton • Donald Hoffman • Kenneth Ford • Margaret Wertheim • Alun Anderson • Philip Zimbardo • Paul Bloom • Robert Provine • W. Daniel Hillis • Martin Nowak • Seth Lloyd • Donald I. Williamson • Jonathan Haidt • Rebecca Goldstein • Ned Block • Christine Finn • Rupert Sheldrake • Rudy Rucker • Douglas Rushkoff • Verena Huber-Dyson • Chris W. Anderson • Charles Simonyi • Carolyn Porco • Martin Rees • Pamela McCorduck • James O’Donnell • John McCarthy • Carlo Rovelli • Leo Chalupa • Howard Rheingold • Steve Giddings • Tor Nørretranders • Stanislas Deheane • Benoit Mandelbrot • Ellen Winner • Paul Steinhardt • Oliver Morton • Alexander Vilenkin • Terrence Sejnowski • Brian Goodwin • Stephen H. Schneider • Randolph Nesse • Timothy Taylor • Marti Hearst • Daniel Goleman • Jared Diamond • Anton Zeilinger • Ian Wilmut • Robert Trivers • Ian McEwan.

Tell Georganna what you believe at Writer’s Edge.