A scholarly evaluation of arguments in favor of science.
Although she has not written a polemic but rather a philosophical examination of ideas, Oreskes (History of Science, Earth and Planetary Sciences/Harvard Univ.; co-author: The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future, 2014) addresses a topic. In his introduction to this book, based on the 2016 Princeton University Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Princeton professor of politics Stephen Macedo writes that she “defends the role of values in science, discusses the relationship between science and religion, and sets out her own credo as a scientist and defender of science.” Following the introduction, the text contains commentaries from four colleagues and concludes with Oreskes’ replies. Proofs are limited to mathematics. No scientific statement can be proven, and even Nobel Prize winners have changed their minds, so Oreskes joins a distinguished line of thinkers who explain why we should trust the findings of the scientific community, many of which people reject if they “clash with their economic or cherished beliefs.” After ruling out the major philosophical approaches to its authority—empiricism, induction, fallibilism, etc.—Oreskes concludes that good science is a collective enterprise whose objectivity arises from the social practices of peer review, criticism, and correction. She emphasizes that on most hot-button science-denial issues—e.g., evolution, vaccine safety, climate change—“there is a scientific consensus. What is lacking is cultural acceptance by parties who have found a way to challenge the science.” Thus, reversing climate change will require government regulation and interference in the free market, which is anathema to conservatives, who respond by questioning the science. Unfortunately, it also means that additional scientific evidence is unlikely to win them over. In this convincing yet often dense argument, Oreskes clearly reminds readers that science has consistently brought home the bacon.
Not for general readers but interesting debate fodder for the scientifically inclined.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-691-17900-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Categories: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.
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Award-winning scientist Jahren (Geology and Geophysics/Univ. of Hawaii) delivers a personal memoir and a paean to the natural world.
The author’s father was a physics and earth science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Both of these early influences engrossingly combine in this adroit story of a dedication to science. Jahren’s journey from struggling student to struggling scientist has the narrative tension of a novel and characters she imbues with real depth. The heroes in this tale are the plants that the author studies, and throughout, she employs her facility with words to engage her readers. We learn much along the way—e.g., how the willow tree clones itself, the courage of a seed’s first root, the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi, and the airborne signals used by trees in their ongoing war against insects. Trees are of key interest to Jahren, and at times she waxes poetic: “Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” The author draws many parallels between her subjects and herself. This is her story, after all, and we are engaged beyond expectation as she relates her struggle in building and running laboratory after laboratory at the universities that have employed her. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student at Berkeley and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist.
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-87493-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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