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(More customer reviews)After a long preliminary Rose goes field- by- field asking for the most influential figure in the area in question. In Physics there is no real question. Einstein.Special and General Relativity provide the principles for our understanding of the 'large- scale physical world'. Dennett says Einstein taught us that our common sense way of seeing things is not the way Reality necessarily is. Pinker talks about the way Einstein made thought- experiments from situations of everyday life. Mention is made of the atomic bomb, and the consequences of knowing that Matter can be converted into Energy. The one panelist most qualified to answer Walter Isaacson who will eventually write a biography of Einstein lets the other panel members answer and is silent.
In Biology the consensus is clearly the 1953 Watson- Crick unraveling of the structure of DNA . Peter Gay mentions that Rosalind Franklin was wrongly left out of the story here. Maxine Singer of the Carnegie Institute says the moment this discovery was made Biology as a whole was changed, and the revolution we are undergoing today including that in Genetics was under way.
In Medicine Robert Gallo mentions the contributions of Paul Ehrlich in a number of different areas. The work done in Immunology is considered by many of the panelists the major life- saving work in Medicine.
Singer also says that Linus Pauling is a central figure in our whole understanding of the way we deal with 'Matter' His discoveries of molecular processes are key to the revolution in Biology which we are experiencing today. At this Dennett makes an extremely interesting point, perhaps referring to Pauling's vitamin C obsession in the latter years of his life. He says that great scientists have a few ideas, and those proven right are proven right and left by them. But the ideas which they can't prove remain obsessively theirs and they waste their later years working on them. He no doubt also has Einstein's unified- field work in mind.
Praise for Franz Boas in Anthropolgy by Pinker is qualified by Dennett who talks about the split between Cultural and Physical Anthropology which is problematic to this day.
In Philosophy and Mathematics the work of Godel is mentioned as putting an eternal stick in the wheel of devising a complete and coherent logical- mathematical language for depicting reality. Wittgenstein's early 'Tractatus 'answer to everything ' which he himself rejected, was replaced by his work on language in everyday life- situations, 'Philosophical Investigations.' Here Peter Gay talks about the renewal of interest in the work of John Dewey. He also previously spoke as champion of Freud's work in providing ideas which have become part of the culture, including those about the unconscious mind. Pinker objects to some Freudian notions, such as the Oedipus complex and Peter Gay suggests Pinker's reading is simplistic.
All in all this was wonderfully enjoyable and informative discussion.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Charlie Rose with Peter Gaye, Maxine Singer, Steven Pinker, Robert Gallo, Bruce Sterling & Daniel Dennett (March 22, 1999)
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