The Invention of Science: The Scientific Revolution from 1500 to 1750

Summary (from the publisher): A companion to such acclaimed works as The Age of Wonder, A Clockwork Universe, and Darwin’s Ghosts—a groundbreaking examination of the greatest event in history, the Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our world.

We live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. Yet today, science and its practitioners have come under political attack. In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history.

The Invention of Science goes back five hundred years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently, but came to intersect and create a new worldview. Here are the brilliant iconoclasts—Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, Newton, and many more curious minds from across Europe—whose studies of the natural world challenged centuries of religious orthodoxy and ingrained superstition.

From gunpowder technology, the discovery of the new world, movable type printing, perspective painting, and the telescope to the practice of conducting experiments, the laws of nature, and the concept of the fact, Wotton shows how these discoveries codified into a social construct and a system of knowledge. Ultimately, he makes clear the link between scientific discovery and the rise of industrialization—and the birth of the modern world we know.

 

Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book from HarperCollins.

 

As indicated by the title, this is a history of what we recognize today as "science." Science as we know it was invented between 1572 and 1704. Modern science is so deeply ingrained in our society and culture that it's difficult to imagine a world before scientific facts. While there were systems of knowledge we call sciences before this time period, few of them functioned like a modern science aside from astronomy. Wootton further argues that between 1600 and 1733, "the intellectual world of the educated elite changed more rapidly than at any time in previous history, and perhaps than at any time before the twentieth century" (11). The compass, surface tension, the geography of our planet, microscopes, telescopes, and more advanced knowledge of stars and celestial bodies all emerged during this time period.

 

Interestingly, a main focus of the book is on the evolution in terminology and concepts related to modern day science. For instance, "before Columbus discovered America in 1492 there was no clear-cut and well-established idea of discovery; the idea of discovery is [...] a precondition for the invention of science" (55). In other words, before Columbus, intellectuals concerned themselves with recovering lost knowledge of the past, not in establishing new knowledge. Modern day science, which seeks to discover or uncover new knowledge had to evolve as a concept before experimentation and scientific exploration could evolve. Similarly, the very word 'science', 'hypothesis,' 'experiment,' and 'fact' as we know them today did not exist before the Scientific Revolution. A world without facts is difficult to comprehend to readers who live in a culture so wholly dependent on facts, but in the past there was only truth, opinion, knowledge, experience, or persuasion - "facts" did not exist.

 

I also learned some interesting background on multiple well known historical figures including Galileo. The section detailing the emergence of many mathematical theories through the work of artists was fascinating. Additionally, the book is quite literally littered with interesting tidbits of facts. For instance, through as late as 1320, it was thought that "ships sail uphill as they sail out on the ocean (we still acknowledge this traditional view when we use the term 'the high sea' or 'the high seas')" (113).

 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I must confess that aside from the few specifics I shared above, I struggled making it through this book. For someone whose only knowledge of science's history comes from high school history and science classes, this book felt far too in-depth and way over my head. On top of that, the book is immense and sprawling and I felt bogged down by its hundreds of pages of minutiae related to hundreds of individuals and amazingly diverse scientific developments. I would not recommend this history for a novice. That being said, it was obviously incredibly well researched and made many valid points that have relevance for everyone who lives in the modern world.

 

Stars: 3