Watch the video of Peter Watson at the Ifest’08:

“We are much less innovative today than we had been in some parts of the past”

“The emergence of research universities in Germany during the 19th Century is one of the main seminal events that shaped today’s world”

“Imagine the wonderful, fascinating and revolutionary things we could talk about in a event like this one if it happened one century ago, in 1908: the electrification of cities, the recent advances in the brand new discipline of pharmacy, the newly discovered atom, new sciences in their first steps such as genetics, psychology, sociology, new concepts in arts as expressionism, abstraction, new forms of literature, architects designing the first skyscrapers…”

“We can not compare the difference between the step from horse to train with the advance from the conventional train and the high-speed TGV”

“Copernicus showed that, contrary to that we believe today, revolution could come from a timid and conservative mind”

“I do not think philosophy has keep pace with science during twentieth century”

“Networked society is a more liquid society, but I’m not sure what that does mean. Facebook certainly changes the concept of friendship but I cannot say if in a positive way”

Fernando L. Mompó