With the path to public office often running through the liberal arts and law school, many America leaders are in the biologist camp. What's it going to mean for national conversation if there are a lot more engineers talking and a lot les biologists? What about areas that are irreducibly complex? Where are his worldview's blindspot's? (Gates's stance on de-carbonizing energy, for example, has drawn scorn. He publicly made a call to find "energy miracles", which drew scorn from other energy experts. One place we could look for some answers is China: nearly all the leaders of the country were trained as engineers including Hu Jintao.

Despite the heavy topics, Gates was loose and often raised a chuckle from the audience, especially with his analysis of the U.S. place in the world. He made it clear that he expects China and India to play a greater role in innovation and he believes that international flavor will benefit all hmankind.

"If your goal is the U.S. relative to everyone else and you don't care about people dying of Alzheimer's or anything, then 1946 is your year. Everything has been downhill since then," Gates said. In 1946 war-torn Europe was struggling to recover and China was suffering through an incredible famine. The United States dominated everything. But a country with just 5 percent of the world's population cannot continue to dominate in innovation like it has, Gates said. If the Chinese discover a pill to cure Alzheimer's, he said, "I'll take it. We should use that technology even if it was done on an international basis." Gates clearly wants the U.S. to change its course in areas like education to maintain its position as world leader, but he is also certain China's role will continue to grow."They represent 20 percent of the global population and they are on their way to using 20 percent of the world's energy and having 20 percent of the ideas and having 20 percent of the military budget. I mean, it's outrageous they should do this," he said tongue in check."Their innovation is full speed ahead," Gates concluded, "and so much the better as long as we're also renewing things that kept us so far ahead."

Asking Holder whether he and President Obama expect to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, as they promised to by the start of 2010, Holder called on the U.S. Congress to fund the purchase of a new facility and said: "This is still a priority for this administration." He lamented the politicization of closing the controversial jail and said, like the Mohammed trial, "it's another situation where politics have unfortunately played a role."

On Kagan, Justice Ginsburg said, "I am so glad that Elena is joining us." When Kagan was running the law school at Harvard, Ginsburg said, she asked her to pick one of her students every year to clerk on the Supreme Court. And Ginsburg recalled that during her own senate confirmation hearings in 1993, then-Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the judiciary committee, hired Kagan to vet Ginsburg's past."He wanted to appear very well-prepared for the hearings," Ginsburg remembered. "So he hired Elena, who was then working at the White House. He had her read every opinion I ever wrote, every speech I ever gave ... She got to know me quite well."

In a lunchtime conversation, former Federal Reserve Chairman identified major contributing factors. I've always been in favor of the principle of sub-prime loans because I've always thought that minority homeownership in a capitalist society was highly desirable.Greenspan did outline his belief that higher or additional taxes are an effective way to cut the national deficit but only in the short run. "The general conclusion that more people are coming to is that you cannot significantly contract fiscal problems through taxes. It will cure the deficit temporarily, but the problem is that the forces that generate it are still in play, and you'll continue to get the increase again. But if you cut spending permanently, it's a different base.