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Book Description
A tour through the history of human curiosity - from its original condemnation as sin, blossoming through the lives of Galileo and Newton, to its current role central to modern society.
Product Description
There was a time when curiosity was condemned. To be curious was to delve into matters that didn't concern you - after all, the original sin stemmed from a desire for forbidden knowledge. Through curiosity our innocence was lost.
Yet this hasn't deterred us. Today we spend vast sums trying to recreate the first instants of creation in particle accelerators, out of pure desire to know. There seems now to be no question too vast or too trivial to be ruled out of bounds: Why can fleas jump so high? What is gravity? What shape are clouds? Today curiosity is no longer reviled, but celebrated.
Examining how our inquisitive impulse first became sanctioned, changing from a vice to a virtue, Curiosity begins with the age when modern science began, a time that spans the lives of Galileo and Isaac Newton. It reveals a complex story, in which the liberation - and the taming - of curiosity was linked to magic, religion, literature, travel, trade and empire.
By examining the rise of curiosity, we can ask what has become of it today: how it functions in science, how it is spun and packaged and sold, how well it is being sustained and honoured, and how the changing shape of science influences the kinds of questions it may ask.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
I read this book in one day, it is exceptionally well written and an important popular book.
In my impression, and despite the title, it is first and foremost a history of the scientific revolution, from the first books of secrets to the Royal Society and Newton Hooke and Huygens. The book can be seen as an extension / continuation of his work and interests in Chartres and Paracelcus.
He makes the point, completely correctly, that no-one was working (or could possible have worked) towards creating a scientific revolution. It happened as an unexpected and unforeknowable outcome of men (don't remember any women) working within established modes of thought, contemporary life, society, and economics. Human curiosity and wonderment is then the central driving force of this story, which is told largely thematically and far outside the structure of most traditional histories.
He refers negatively a few times to historians such as Toby Huff who tell a positivist story, but doesn't refer (in my opinion thankfully...) to Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions.
My main sadness was his apparently complete unawareness of the work of Floris Cohen "How Modern Science Came into the World" a long book conveniently summarised in "Die zweite Erschaffung der Welt" (coincidentally, Cohen has apparently also written a book on music, like Ball). Cohen pays much more attention to the important interaction of science and craft (and the persistent gap in capability between the two) than Ball, and his "packaging" of the Scientific Revolution into several stages is an extremely helpful thought-model.
In my impression, and despite the title, it is first and foremost a history of the scientific revolution, from the first books of secrets to the Royal Society and Newton Hooke and Huygens. The book can be seen as an extension / continuation of his work and interests in Chartres and Paracelcus.
He makes the point, completely correctly, that no-one was working (or could possible have worked) towards creating a scientific revolution. It happened as an unexpected and unforeknowable outcome of men (don't remember any women) working within established modes of thought, contemporary life, society, and economics. Human curiosity and wonderment is then the central driving force of this story, which is told largely thematically and far outside the structure of most traditional histories.
He refers negatively a few times to historians such as Toby Huff who tell a positivist story, but doesn't refer (in my opinion thankfully...) to Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions.
My main sadness was his apparently complete unawareness of the work of Floris Cohen "How Modern Science Came into the World" a long book conveniently summarised in "Die zweite Erschaffung der Welt" (coincidentally, Cohen has apparently also written a book on music, like Ball). Cohen pays much more attention to the important interaction of science and craft (and the persistent gap in capability between the two) than Ball, and his "packaging" of the Scientific Revolution into several stages is an extremely helpful thought-model.
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