The Way We Will Be 50 Years from Today

60 Of The World's Greatest Minds Share Their Visions of the Next Half-Century

Thomas Nelson, Mike Wallace

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781595553294
• eBook ISBN: 9781418566449
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

The world is an uncertain place, which is why the future and the unknown absolutely fascinate us. Veteran television journalist Mike Wallace asked the question "What will life be like 50 years from now?" to sixty of the world's greatest minds. Their responses offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural, scientific, political, and spiritual moods of the times. Edited and with an introduction by Mike Wallace, this book provides an imaginative and thought-provoking look into our collective soul and the critical issues that underlie our hopes, prayers, fears, and dreams for life in the 21st century.

Contributors include former presidents, leading scientists, noted writers and artists, respected religious leaders, and current political figures, including:

• Vint Cerf, Vice President of Google; known as a "Father of the Internet"
• Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., a geneticist who led the Human Genome Project
• Dr. Wanda Jones, Director of the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Ray Kurzweil, an inventor whose developments include the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind and the first text-to-speech synthesizer
• General James E. Cartwright, Commander of United States Strategic Command
• Kim Dae-jung, the former President of the Republic of Korea
• Ronald Noble, Secretary General of Interpol
• Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize winner; called "the father of the Green Revolution"
• Carol Bellamy, former Executive Director UNICEF, first former volunteer to serve as director of Peace Corp, and current president and CEO of World Learning
• Gerardus 't Hooft, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands; Nobel Prize in Physics
• Craig Newmark, Internet pioneer and founder of craigslist

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1: Vint Cerf, AS WE MAY LIVE
• 2: Francis S. Collins, A REVOLUTION IN MEDICINE
• 3: George F. Smoot, A TINY DOT IN COSMIC TIME; A BIG PERIOD IN HUMAN TIME
• 4: Christian de Duve, WHAT’S AHEAD: “FIGURES DON’T LIE”
• 5: John R. Christy, WHAT A CLIMATOLOGIST CANNOT KNOW ABOUT THE NEXT 50 YEARS (BUT WHAT HE DOES BELIEVE)
• 6: Louis J. Ignarro, NO MORE HEART DISEASE
• 7: E. Fuller Torrey, THE END OF PSYCHIATRIC ILLNESSES
• 8: Arthur Caplan, SIMON CAPLAN’S DAY
• 9: Wanda Jones, FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW: TODAY’S BABY REACHES MIDDLE AGE
• 10: Craig Newmark, BLOGGING FROM THE FUTURE
• 11: Ray Kurzweil, PROGRESS ACCELERATES EXPONENTIALLY
• 12: Thomas C. Schelling, AN ECONOMIST PREDICTS
• 13: Chandrasekhar (Spike) Narayan, DIARY ENTRY: 2058
• 14: James E. Cartwright, DECIPHERING THE MEGA-TRENDS
• 15: Jody Williams, WILL WE BE 50 YEARS FROM TODAY?
• 16: Kim Dae-jung, THE ERA OF GREAT CHANGE IS COMING
• 17: Ronald Noble, THE FUTURE OF CRIME
• 18: Norman E. Borlaug, THE FUTURE OF FOOD
• 19: Richard Clarke, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN?
• 20: Richard Restak, A BRAIN SCIENTIST’S PERSPECTIVE
• 21: Sandra Postel, IN HARMONY WITH EARTH’S WATER CYCLE
• 22: Gerardus ’t Hooft, HOW WILL SCIENCE TRANSFORM HUMAN SOCIETY?
• 23: Shigeo Hirose, WHERE ARE ALL THE ROBOTS?
• 24: Peter Doherty, WIND FARMING IN POLLYANNA LAND
• 25: Stuart L. Pimm, LETTERS TO MY GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN
• 26: Malcolm Bricklin, FUTURE CARS AND THE JETSONS
• 27: Abdulla Salem El-Badri, A WORLD WITHOUT BORDERS
• 28: Lee H. Hamilton, TECHNOLOGY, SECURITY, AND LIBERTY IN 50 YEARS
• 29: Steven Beckwith, OUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE
• 30: Tim Mack, SNAPSHOT OF A WORLD WITH THE NEW NATION OF CALIFORNIA
• 31: Marian Wright Edelman, OUR CHILDREN, OUR FUTURE
• 32: Valli Moosa, LANDSCAPES AND LIVING CONDITIONS
• 33: Leon E. Panetta and James D. Watkins, GO GREEN BY THINKING BLUE
• 34: Aaron Ciechanover, THE PARADOX
• 35: Elias A. Zerhouni, THE TRANSFORMATION
• 36: Nancy G. Brinker, A WORLD WITHOUT BREAST CANCER
• 37: Stanley B. Prusiner, HOPE FOR PEOPLE WITH BRAIN DISEASES
• 38: Victor Sidel, A PHYSICIAN’S VIEW OF THE FUTURE
• 39: Claude Mandil, CLEAN ENERGY FOR PROGRESS
• 40: Nancy Ho, CO2 FOR GOOD
• 41: Michael Shermer, TO OPEN THE WORLD TO ALL PEOPLE
• 42: Joseph L. Bryant, THE VIEW AS I GLIDE BY
• 43: Barry Marshall, ONE TUESDAY IN AUSTRALIA
• 44: Carl Pope, Daniel Becker, and Allison Forbes, WAKE-UP CALL ON GLOBAL WARMING
• 45: Keith B. Richburg, DATELINE: 50 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
• 46: Gregory A. Poland, LEAPS AND EUREKAS
• 47: Earl G. Brown, SNAPSHOTS OF THE FUTURE WITH INFECTIOUS DISEASE: LIVING IN A BRAVE NEW WORLD WITH AGE-OLD SCOURGES
• 48: Carol Bellamy, THE AGE OF THE GLOBAL CITIZEN
• 49: James Canton, SOME WORDS FROM “DR. FUTURE”
• 50: Douglas Osheroff, SOME WARNINGS, SOME WORRIES, AND A CALL FOR LEADERSHIP
• 51: Lyman Page, HOW OUR KNOWLEDGE WILL INCREASE
• 52: Carol M. Browner, WE WILL HAVE LEARNED OUR LESSON
• 53: Richard Dawkins, THE FUTURE OF THE SOUL
• 54: Peter Marra, A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEXT 50 YEARS
• 55: Nsedu Obot-Witherspoon, GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND OUR CHILDREN
• 56: William H. Meadows, A WAY BACK TO WILDERNESS
• 57: Lawrence M. Krauss, FUTURE WORLD: THE BAD, THE GOOD, AND THE UGLY
• 58: John C. Mather, ALWAYS SO MUCH MORE TO DISCOVER
• 59: Ahmed Zewail, THE WORLD IN FIFTY YEARS: REVOLUTIONS AND REPERCUSSIONS
• 60: Ross Gelbspan, THE EARTH IN 50 YEARS: RESCUE . . . OR RUIN?
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography