Science: A Four Thousand Year History: Amazon.co.uk: Patricia Fara: Books

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Publication Date: 12 Mar 2009 | ISBN-10: 019922689X | ISBN-13: 978-0199226894 | Edition: First Edition

Science: A Four Thousand Year History rewrites science's past. Instead of focussing on difficult experiments and abstract theories, Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to the practical world of war, politics, and business. Rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people - men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals in their quest for success. Fara sweeps through the centuries, from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi-tech experiments in genetics and particle physics, illuminating the financial interests, imperial ambitions, and publishing enterprises that have made science the powerful global phenomenon that it is today. She also ranges internationally, illustrating the importance of scientific projects based around the world, from China to the Islamic empire, as well as the more familiar tale of science in Europe, from Copernicus to Charles Darwin and beyond. Above all, this four thousand year history challenges scientific supremacy, arguing controversially that science is successful not because it is always right - but because people have said that it is right.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } Science: A Four Thousand Year History rewrites science's past. Instead of focussing on difficult experiments and abstract theories, Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to the practical world of war, politics, and business. Rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people - men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals in their quest for success. Fara sweeps through the centuries, from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi-tech experiments in genetics and particle physics, illuminating the financial interests, imperial ambitions, and publishing enterprises that have made science the powerful global phenomenon that it is today. She also ranges internationally, illustrating the importance of scientific projects based around the world, from China to the Islamic empire, as well as the more familiar tale of science in Europe, from Copernicus to Charles Darwin and beyond. Above all, this four thousand year history challenges scientific supremacy, arguing controversially that science is successful not because it is always right - but because people have said that it is right.

Product details

Hardcover: 424 pages
Publisher: OUP Oxford; First Edition edition (12 Mar 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 019922689X
ISBN-13: 978-0199226894
Product Dimensions: 2.5 x 15.6 x 23.1 cm

Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 279,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

An impressive and commendable effort to square the circle, to tell science's history, from the beginning. (Martin D. Gordin, Science)

It offers pretty exciting material. (Michael D. Gordin, Science)

...unfailingly enjoyable...The punchy, short chapters make Science suitable for commuting or reading in bed. It can be prescribed as a remedy or palliative for many maladies, including scientistic hubris and the myopia of anyone who still has faith in progress (Felipe Fernandez- Armesto. Times Literary Supplement)

Patricia Fara...is now one of our most entertaining, incisive and irreverent historians of science. (Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Times Literay Supplement)

Wide-ranging and provocative. (The Economist)

Epic history of science. (Jo Marchant, New Scientist)

Fara's book could not be more wide-ranging, beginning [with] the quest to take the story of science as far back as she possibly can, and ending bang up to date. (Jim Bennett, BBC History Magazine)

It is a book to provoke thought and argument. An impressive achievement. (Jim Bennett, BBC History Magazine)

Patricia Fara has written a fascinating account. (John Gribbin, Literary Review)

About the Author

Patricia Fara lectures in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and is the Senior Tutor of Clare College. She is the author of numerous books, including Fatal Attraction: Magnetic Mysteries of the Enlightenment and Newton: The Making of Genius. Her writing has appeared in New Scientist, Nature, The Times, and New Statesman, and she writes a regular column for Endeavour. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Science set in its social context 3 April 2010

By Ralph Blumenau TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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. Read more ›

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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable 15 Nov 2009

By Steve Keen TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

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. Read more ›

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Oh dear 4 Oct 2011

By P. Collins

Format:Paperback

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. That'll teach me to rely on Amazon reviews! Everything is filtered through Fara's 21st century feminist world view. OK, so there weren't many prominent women scientists going back in history, but why go on about it instead of accepting that that was the way the world was? Let's celebrate the achievements of Caroline Herschel, Marie Curie, Henrietta Leavitt etc and look forward to many more women at the forefront of science in the more enlightened future.

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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining But Deeply Flawed 19 Aug 2010

By John Dexter

Format:Paperback

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. Nonetheless, despite the book's ambitious scope and the title's bold promise, it seems that Fara is less interested in presenting a coherent historical narrative as she is in engaging in blatant historical revisionism built on nothing more substantial than personal ideology and a tenuous platform of cultural guilt.

Clearly, there's nothing inherently wrong with challenging the status quo or confronting systemic inaccuracies after all, that's what good science is based on and Fara accepts the role of iconoclast with alacrity: however, in her haste to promote her socio-political agendas, her work is littered with sweeping generalisations, logical fallacies and prosaic inconsistencies that, more often than not, result in outright contradictions or the ridiculous rehashing of long discredited canards. Employing religious metaphor throughout her work, she recasts scientific figures as heroes and villains to suit her world view, elevating some actors (generally women) to a status that belies their modest contribution and attacking others (predominantly men) for failing to meet the (her) standards of modernity. Indeed, most scientists (the middle-class, white-male type, anyway) are characterised as self-promoting liars who usurp credit and exaggerate research findings in pursuit of funds for some undisclosed nefarious end. No (male) scientist is safe from Fara's attention: she even belittles Newton; deriding him as an alchemist (pp.5-6, p.165) despite devoting a whole chapter (II ch.7 pp.100-107) to alchemy's role in the birth of modern chemistry.... Moreover, not content with limiting her criticism to science, Fara also takes the occasional swipe at non-scientists; branding Dickens' humanism as nothing more than petty self-interest (p.312).

Of course, she does have a point: it is entirely proper to address the inequities of a (still) male-dominated society and apportion credit to those who contribute most to progress (whatever sex they happen to be). However, there is nothing novel in this approach and other authors (Bizony (2007), Singh (2004), Dawkins (TV 1996), et al) have managed to restore some balance without the need to embark on a wholesale revision of history. Moreover, it is meaningless to divorce a discussion on the subject of sexual inequality from the context in which it flourishes and Fara avoids the opportunity to explore the role of religion in marginalising women in both society generally and the scientific endeavour particularly, preferring instead to extol Christianity as the guardian of science during the Middle Ages (p.83) and Islam as a religion that "inherently fosters education" (p.69).

However, the fatal flaw with Fara's work is the bizarre suggestion that no scientific luminary is worthy of celebration because "[e]verybody has predecessors" (p.6). In Fara's homogenised world, everyone deserves equal credit unless they can demonstrate a genuinely original advance or some unique insight. Even Einstein doesn't qualify having "relied heavily on the work of other mathematicians" (p.298) and failing to develop the Theory of Relativity in a single leap. What Fara fails to appreciate (or simply ignores) is the fact that science is a "self-correcting enterprise" (Sagan 2008 p.110): knowledge is cumulative (a gift from our predecessors) but some contributors (Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Einstein and many others) changed the way that we think about the universe, correcting misconceptions and advancing the cause of science. These contributions are not always realised overnight and perhaps even introduce new errors into the scientific body of knowledge: however, building on the efforts of their predecessors, such contributors' insights and efforts add significantly to the advancement of civilization and that, surely, is something to be celebrated.

The irony is that, despite the deep flaws in this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Fara challenges preconceptions and forces the reader to confront their own prejudice even if her conclusions are suspect. Read more ›

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