Those who reject the idea of convergence outright may not get far in this book, but readers with no objection to a sweeping,...
The journalist and polymath delivers a delightful exploration of “the deepest idea in the universe.”
Intellectual historian Watson loves big ideas and long books, and publishers keep publishing them and buyers buying them because they’re great reading—no exception here. After 600 pages of The Great Divide: Nature and Human Nature in the Old World and the New (2012), his new book takes on the history of scientific pursuits in just under 500 pages. Passing lightly over its history before the 19th century, the author maintains that discoveries of the conservation of energy and Darwinian evolution in the 1850s began a great convergence where the sheer mass of scientific knowledge has begun “to invade other areas, other systems of knowledge traditionally different from or even opposed to science, and is starting to explain—and advance—them. Science is…bringing order to philosophy, to morality, to history, to culture in general, and even to politics.” The “soft” sciences—i.e., psychology, economics, sociology—are growing “hard.” Ethologists studying animals have quantified the devastating effects of defective parental care, and child psychologists, formerly dependent on Freud, have taken note. Today, physicists advise investors, and historians and politicians ignore science at their peril—but do it anyway. The origin of life itself has moved from a hypothesis featuring implausible chemical reactions in ancient pools to a matter of convergence. Watson argues that life, as well as consciousness, culture, even morality, may be inevitable under certain conditions. Accepted in the scientific community, convergence remains controversial among philosophers, literary critics, and some sociologists who claim that scientific knowledge is overrated, culturally determined, and only one of many ways to describe reality.
Those who reject the idea of convergence outright may not get far in this book, but readers with no objection to a sweeping, entirely fascinating history of science during the last 200 years will find an abundance of enlightening material.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5434-5
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
PROFILES
A rare treat: cutting-edge science combined with a perceptive portrait of the people who perform it. Dressler (Astronomy/Carnegie Institution) was one of a team that set out to perform a survey of elliptical galaxies and ended by revising a fundamental axiom of modern cosmology. The ``Seven Samurai,'' as they became known on the release of their results, combined expertise in observation and theory, bringing an unusual level of astronomical talent to their task. Dressler gives brief biographies of himself and the other team members and devotes considerable space to detailing their personal interactions over the course of the project, providing an unusually candid look at not only what scientists really do, but how they feel about it and about each other. As the data from their survey accumulated, the team's initial goal of discovering clues to the absolute magnitude of distant galaxies began to fade as they realized that a large number of galaxies were traveling at unexpectedly high velocities—1,000 km per hour or more—that could only be explained by the attraction of a huge mass. Equally important, this discovery forced a reconsideration of the assumption that the velocities of distant galaxies are almost entirely due to the expansion of the universe and directly related to their distances from Earth. The implications of the discovery, and its theoretical underpinnings, take up much of the last part of the book, a generally clear overview of current thinking on the origins of the universe. A readable and engaging glimpse behind the facade of contemporary science; Dressler does for astronomy what James D. Watson's The Double Helix did for molecular biology. (31 photos, illustrations, charts, and graphs) (Library of Science and Astronomy Book Club main selection)
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 1994
ISBN: 0-394-58899-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
A hunt-and-peck collection of 30 pieces assembled to benefit Share Our Strength, a group dedicated to feeding the hungry. Shore (editor, Mysteries of Life and the Universe, 1992) has managed to gather a host of fine nature writers, but with mixed results. Al Gore's flimsy introduction leads with ``John Muir once wrote''—you can almost hear the snores rising off the page. But then there is Diane Ackerman's smart take on summer (``Summer''), with its bright and insightful appreciation of birds. The good and the not-so-good trade punches: Natalie Angier tries to get poetic as she recalls an urban childhood grappling with nature (``Natural Disasters''), but she is no Charles Simic, and the result is Kansas-flat and without humor. Then Edward Hoagland shines even as his eyesight dims (``Mind's Eyes''), and in his melancholy way he gathers a special sense of the land: learning to distinguish trees by the feel of their bark, finding walking ``such a puzzle as to be either exciting or tearful.'' Ted Kerasote (``Logging'') takes the adage ``An unexamined life isn't worth living'' and beats it to death; here it is logging rather than hunting (see Bloodties, 1993) he picks apart, but, Ted, an overexamined life gets darned boring. Thankfully, Karen Pryor delivers an extraordinary throng of birds (``A Gathering of Birds'') of many different feathers which gathered on a bush next to which she sat and stared at her—a bunch of birds out-humaning her, as it were. And so it goes. Half of the contributions are worth the trouble; .500 isn't a bad batting average, but it's not a great percentage when the quality of the authors is considered. Worth the price of admission all the same for the 15 crack nature essays gathered under one roof. (b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-100080-8
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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