David Brooks - David Brooks became an op-ed columnist for The New York Times in September 2003. He had been an editor at The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, and a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic.
Currently a commentator on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, he is also the author of Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense.
He has contributed essays and articles to many publications, including The New Yorker, Forbes, The Public Interest, The New Republic, and Commentary.
He is a frequent commentator on National Public Radio, CNN’s Late Edition, and The Diane Rehm Show.
Antonio Damasio - Antonio Damasio is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California; he is also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. Damasio has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how the brain processes memory, language, emotions, and decisions. He has written several best-selling books, including Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Harcourt Trade Publishers, 2003) and Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1994). Damasio has received many awards, including the 2005 Asturias Prize in Science and Technology and the 2004 Signoret Prize. Damasio is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Antonio Damasio, noted researcher and professor of neuroscience at USC, talks with The New York Times' David Brooks about emotions and the science of being human. He describes the difference between emotions and feelings, and explains why emotions are one of humanity's most important survival mechanisms.
My frustration with David Brooks as an interview can be summed up by this comment during the portion on STUDYING EMOTION: "We have modern philosophers: a guy named Gene Roddenberry who created a guy named Dr. Spock..." I can't really blame him though. If I had the chance to interview Antonio Damasio (whom I count as one of the most important thinkers of our time) I'm pretty sure I would stutter and stare too. For a more coherent Brooks, who actually has some great ideas integrating neuroscience and sociology I would recommend his lecture (on FORA).
You may refer to him as Mr. Spock or Ambassador Spock. Dr. (Benjamin) Spock was a real life pediatrician who wrote a bunch of books on how to raise children.