18 October 2005

Some strange choices on this list...

Here's a quirky line-up of "the world's top 20 public intellectuals" published by a couple of magazines after a widely-promoted internet vote.

1 Noam Chomsky
2 Umberto Eco
3 Richard Dawkins
4 Václav Havel
5 Christopher Hitchens
6 Paul Krugman
7 Jürgen Habermas
8 Amartya Sen
9 Jared Diamond
10 Salman Rushdie
11 Naomi Klein
12 Shirin Ebadi
13 Hernando de Soto
14 Bjørn Lomborg
15 Abdolkarim Soroush
16 Thomas Friedman
17 Pope Benedict XVI
18 Eric Hobsbawm
19 Paul Wolfowitz
20 Camille Paglia

Looks like there are three criteria to make the list. 1) Be really smart. 2) Write a best-selling book. 3) Have your supporters organize an Internet voting campaign. Here's the inside scoop.

Our congrats to TED speakers Dawkins, Diamond and Lomborg.

Technorati tags: Bjorn Lomborg, Richard Dawkins

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ben – October 20 2005

I never thought I'd see Richard Dawkins and Naomi Klein on the same list of anything. Apparently all it takes to be an intellectual these days is to publish a left leaning book that a lot of people like. Never mind that its central contention stands in utter defiance of economics or even basic logic.

I can hardly imagine a starker contrast between two writers in terms of reasoning and clarity of thinking.

Interesting stuff!