Science: A Four Thousand Year History [Hardcover]

 

 

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Back in the seventies, Jacob Bronowski's TV series, and more particularly the book of the series The Ascent Of Man, had a profound impact on my worldview. The book is still on my shelves and, though it's a long time since I last read it, it has been read many times over the years. Bronowski's skill was his ability to combine a history of science with a history of civilisation, to the point where the two are shown as they really are, inextricably intertwined. Whilst slightly less broad-ranging in its scope, Patricia Fara's Science: A Four Thousand Year History looks much more deeply into the science component. Inevitably there are overlaps, to the point where they both use Joseph Wright's The Orrery as an illustration, but ultimately the two experiences are complementary, not a duplication.

Overall Fara's book is a remarkable endeavour, not quite on the scale of Cynthia Stokes Brown's Big History, which takes in the history of everything within a similar space, but certainly equalling it in bringing the helicopter down to get a slightly more refined view.

Along the way, Fara is not afraid to sully a few sacred cows: Darwin, for example, was not only in keeping with his times in his misogyny - some of his pronouncements look very much like a foundation for the nasty wing of eugenics; Pasteur seems to have had no qualms about using people as human guinea pigs for his concoctions; and Fleming sat on his discovery of penicillin for 15 months before it was finally brought into usefulness by a small army of scientists and American finance.

The book is very much a work of its time, considering not only the way in which the contribution of women has been marginalised in common mythologies, but also that often the progress of science is not quite as heroic (in the sense of one person doing all the work) as these mythologies often portray: there is a whole army of unsung contributors, with the people who are remembered often being those best at self-promotion. This is a point well brought out, with considerably more detail, in Martin Rudwick's Bursting The Limits Of Time, a study of early geology and palaeontology.

In discussing the research of William Crookes into radiation, Fara captures the essence of scientific endeavour: "If you automatically reject the unfamiliar, and refuse to investigate it, then nothing new will be revealed," and this is a point repeatedly made through example.

Crookes, incidentally, sometimes becomes Crooke, but the possessive, Crookes's, is rendered correctly; the possessive of Descartes is given both as Descartes's (correct, though annoyingly and not surprisingly Word tries to "correct" this form) and Descartes' (incorrect; how would you pronounce it, given that nothing after the "r" is used in French pronunciation?). This I put down to editing, and similarly with when the strains of cramming 4000 years of history show at the beginning of Part 6 Chapter 2, when Fara seems to suggest that the Spanish Reconquista was completed in the late 11th Century, when in fact what she's talking about is the recovery of Toledo (1085) - Toledo does not get mentioned until later. But talking of the Reconquista, she seems to swallow the notion, which many commentators have questioned, that something was being "retaken" by the "Spanish", ignoring the Crusader intent of Los Reyes Catolicos, Isobel and Ferdinand, whose provinces were properly just Castile and Aragon.

Quite rightly, Fara gives due credit to non-European contributors to scientific progress, particularly those of the Middle East (including, as it happens, pre-Reconquista Spain). She does so, though, almost as if she alone realises this contribution, whereas Bronowski, forty years ago, acknowledged it, as do at least two more recent books, Peter Bentley's The Book Of Numbers and John Gill's Andalucía.

And I can't complete a review of this kind of book without mentioning, at the risk of attracting the ire of certain reactionaries, the use of BC/AD against BCE/CE to indicate dates. Where some authors who should know better (including, ironically, the imam of atheism himself, Richard Dawkins!) stick to BC/AD, Fara sits on the fence, using BCE and AD! Now I really don't get that!

Cavils aside, though, this is an excellent book, putting in perspective four millennia of scientific endeavour, and giving an indispensable view of whose shoulders we're standing on nowadays.

Patricia Fara departs from five hypotheses: (1)"Women scientists do not get the respect they deserve", (2) "objective measurement is an illusion", (3) "scientific breakthroughs are never the work of a single scientist", (4) "scientists are vain and controlled by money and power", and (5) "the scientist with the better personal promotional skills allways wins in the end". She could have taken a detached analytical approached (scientific?) and looked at which cases substantiated and which falsified her five hypotheses. Instead, she chooses to follow each case study with a very carefully selected subset of these five "facts" - depending on which of them can be substantiated by this particular case. Add to that, that every time she says QED wrt one of her five "facts" it happens in a tone of clear moral indignation. Oh, and by the way, I'm sure prof. Fara would put this review down to "fact" no (1).

The author reminds us that the original meaning of `science' covered all knowledge, and the branch we now call science was previously called Natural Philosophy. The word `scientist' was coined only in 1833. How science in the modern sense came to separate itself from other kinds of knowledge is one of the themes of this survey which awesomely ranges over all the sciences. Other themes that frequently recur in it include:

1. Debunking the cult of the lone genius who advances knowledge purely by his own discoveries. Although Newton acknowledged that he stood on the shoulders of giants, many other famous scientists are shown as ruthless and successful self-publicists. So we often ignore the earlier ideas on which they drew, and we sometimes ascribe to them the contributions of their later followers. Particularly from the late 17th century onwards, scientists are helped by being part of communities operating in well-organized scientific institutions. Patricia Fara also repeatedly notes the time interval between scientific discoveries and their general acceptance.

2. Showing that even what now seem the most ludicrous `scientific' procedures like alchemy have made contributions to later science - in this case, for example, the notions of experimental chemistry, the creation of some apparatus, the isolation of certain chemicals and, perhaps above all, the willingness to manipulate nature, not merely to understand it. So not only alchemists but also magicians like Paracelsus and John Dee, whose mathematical skills made many people believe in their medical prescriptions, find a place in Patricia Fara's history of science.

3. Showing how the pursuit of science was, until fairly recently, not regarded as an end in itself, but was shaped to support pre-existing philosophical or theological concepts. One example is the effort of Kepler and Copernicus to marry their observations respectively to Neoplatonic and Pythagorean notions of harmony. Botanical and anthropological classifications reflected and then reinforced existing prejudices about the hierarchies of gender and race. And even today, Patricia Fara points out, preconceived ideas can influence the compilation and interpretation of data - not to mention the occasional falsification of data or suppression inconvenient results in battles between scientists.

4. Pointing out that the material about which scientists have theorized has often been provided by hosts of unnamed and unacknowledged practical men and sometimes women. During the despised Middle Ages, it was some humble technical inventions and innovations that made revolutionary contributions to progress in agriculture, and instruments initially designed by artisans for practical purposes (navigating, timing, weighing and measuring) provided the initial tools, sometimes refined or adapted by scientists, for scientific progress. The snobbish distinction between gentlemen and aristocrats who "philosophized" about science and those who worked with their hands (and for gain) runs through much of the history of science. Only rarely were those women who collaborated with their menfolk in scientific work acknowledged; and not until 1945 were the first two women actually admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society. And when in the 19th century explorer went to remote parts of the globe on scientific expeditions, in their sense of European superiority they scarcely mentioned the native guides whose local knowledge contributed so much to theirs.

5. Stressing that any successful development of science depends on supportive infrastructures - technological, economic, institutional, political, and cultural. There are interesting illustrations of how the development of science has been affected when it was left largely to free enterprise and commerce (as in 19th century Britain), compared with how it fared with state support (for better, as in 19th century Germany) or worse (as in 19th century France).

6. Combatting (surely outdated) Eurocentric histories of science and stressing the scientific ideas that reached Europe from China, India and the Middle East. Apparently it was not until Joseph Needham's work in the 1950s that Europeans appreciated just how many inventions originated in China and not in the European Renaissance; and there are some socio-political suggestions why Chinese and Arabic inventions did not lead to the explosive efflorescence to which they would lead in Europe.

Apart from these themes, a wealth of fascinating material is packed into this book. Having started with the Babylonians, its last section is a thoughtful and thought-provoking survey of where the different sciences stand today, and also of how important aspects of it are enmeshed in international commercial and military rivalries.

Inevitably there are some passages which many non-scientist will find difficult to follow, especially when we reach modern physics; but they are remarkably few. The style is always limpid and sometimes conversational; the tone pleasantly iconoclastic, occasionally sarcastic and once or twice even cynical in the attribution of motives. And the many illustrations, though often too small for comfort (you can often find bigger versions on Google Images), are beautifully chosen and analyzed to show the social attitudes which inspired them.

A splendid achievement.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Too ambitious, too PC
To attempt a work of this magnitude, one needs a serious ego. I suppose the closest parallel I can think of is Russell's "History of Western Philosophy". Read more

Published 3 months ago by Luka

2.0 out of 5 stars Oh dear
Despite being an avid reader of anything about the history of science in general and the history of astronomy in particular, I had to give up in exasperation after a few chapters... Read more

Published 4 months ago by P. Collins

5.0 out of 5 stars Revealing
This book gives to any non-scientist a glimpse of the marvels of creativity, endeavour and progress of the human race over the millennia. Read more

Published 12 months ago by E. Benjamin

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining But Deeply Flawed
Given Patricia Fara's excellent credentials, one might be forgiven for expecting an impartial account of science's contribution to civilization over the last four millennia... Read more

Published 18 months ago by John Dexter

2.0 out of 5 stars Overly biased
I expected quite a lot from this book. The title must have meant something, mustn't it? Four thousand years must have meant something, mustn't it? Read more

Published 23 months ago by M. Jezierski

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent book, highly recommended
The best comprehensive review on history of the science and development from the east to west and beyond

Published on 9 Jan 2010 by SP

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent popular history of science
Excellent, easy to read, and concise history of science from Babylonian times until the present.

Published on 1 Aug 2009 by William Ernest Jackson

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of the subject matter
Patricia Fara has achieved an outstanding secondary reference to the history of science. The broad focus on the influences affecting the development of "human progress" leaves out... Read more

Published on 8 April 2009 by Stuwert James Patterson

5.0 out of 5 stars Book: A Four Thosand Year History
I ordered the book as new and it arrived as new. It arrived within 3 days, well packaged and exactly what I ordered. I couldn't ask for more than that. Thank you.

Published on 4 April 2009 by Veronica Matthews

5.0 out of 5 stars Wholesome
This is a wonderful and easy to read history of science. It has shed light on many elements of the modern world such as why there are 360 degress in a ciricle, 60 minutes in an... Read more

Published on 22 Mar 2009 by Vexen Crabtree

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