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In 1959, C. P. Snow published a book with the title The Two Cultures. In it he observed that intellectuals fall into two groups: On the one side the humanities, on the other side the (natural) sciences. In the 1930s academics from the humanities camp had begun to label themselves “intellectuals”, implying that academics from the other camp were not really intellectuals. This usage of the term excluded scientists like the astronomer Edwin Hubble, the mathematician John von Neumann, the cyberneticist Norbert Wiener, or the physicists Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. In the second edition of The Two Cultures, Snow added a new essay, The Two Cultures: A Second Look, in which he optimistically predicted that a new intellectual culture – a “Third Culture” – would emerge and that a productive dialogue would bridge the gulf between the humanities and the sciences. Unfortunately, this ideal never came fully to fruition. Scientists, instead of collaborating with the humanities academics, began to communicate directly with the wider public.

Whereas academics from the humanities camp traditionally communicated to the broad public via journalists, today’s Third Culture tends to forego the journalistic detour and tries to express its thoughts in such a way that an educated audience can understand them directly. Simplifying, publishing and communicating ideas are nowadays essential tasks of an intellectual. Knowledge shouldn’t merely be accumulated, new ideas should also shape and enrich the thinking of society as a whole. The success of popular science books in the last years has surprised intellectuals of the old school. They believe that such books constitute an anomaly – the books may sell well, but they lack cultural impact and are not widely read. But they are mistaken. The rise of an active Third Culture shows that there is a great deal of interest in discussing philosophical, scientific and pioneering ideas. In the following books and videos some of the most renowned scientists and philosophers present crucial considerations and arguments of this kind.

Books

Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene	Peter Singer Practical Ethics	Michael Schmidt-Salomon Manifesto of Evolutionary Humanism	Nick Bostrom Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Daniel Kahneman Thinking, Fast and Slow	Joshua Greene Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them	Peter Singer The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty	Keith Stanovich The Robot’s Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin
Julian Savulescu & Nick Bostrom Human Enhancement	Daniel Dennett Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life	Richard Dawkins The God Delusion	Steven Pinker The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Thomas Metzinger The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self	Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness	Steven Pinker The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined	Stephen Law The Philosophy Gym: 25 Short Adventures in Thinking