The work and ideas of the intellectuals featured at this site give meaning to the term "third culture": physicists, evolutionary biologists, philosophers, biologists, computer scientists, psychologists, social, behavioral, and anthropological scientists, and science journalists.

In 1991, John Brockman published an essay, "The Emerging Third Culture" which inspired an ongoing series of one-on-one discussions (1991-1994) in which Brockman talked with many "third culture" scientists about their work and the work of other scientists included in this site. The result was the publication of The Third Culture: Beyond The Scientific Revolution (Simon & Schuster, 1994), a book that is not an anthology, nor an overview, but an oral history of a living document of a dynamical emergent system, a celebration of the ideas of third culture thinkers who are defining the interesting and important questions of our times. In The Third Culture they communicate their thoughts to the public and to one another. It is an exhibition of this new community of intellectuals in action.

"The most important book on how science is done since The Double Helix." — New Scientist

The 23 original thinkers included in the book are: