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Hidden Histories of Science
This volume examines the ways in which science is influenced by culture. It highlights the misleading images that have distorted people's view of the history of life. It explores areas of darkness and forgetting in scientific research, and the use of inappropriate mechanistic metaphors in the understanding of biological systems. It also considers the neglect of useful research that does not fit the current intellectual fashion in science. Stephen Jay Gould gives a summary of his critique of conventional "progressive" pictures of evolutionary change, using trees, ladders and cones. Richard Lewontin rejects the attempt to reduce the complexity of living things to the simplicity of physics. Oliver Sacks offers tour of scientific roads not taken, or taken too late. The history of science, Daniel Kevles recounts the the strange story of resistance to the idea that viruses can cause cancer. Jonathan Miller, with typical wit and insight, shows how the discredited panacea of hypnotism could have helped to reveal a non-Freudian view of the unconscious - an unconscious that is not simply the dark underside of the mind, but a powerfully enabling form of knowledge.
193 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Robert B. Silvers
26 books4 followersRobert Silvers was an American editor who served as editor of The New York Review of Books from 1963 to 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 22, 2016
Enjoyed this book a great deal. Great idea also, to review how an idea can be asserted then either forgotten or persecuted and then later resurface and end up being the seed for great leaps forward in science.
The book contains 5 essays. The first covers how theories and observations of the unconscious were first observed, how another idea then buried it, but now we are going through a re-emergence of the original idea. The second essay covers a very interesting - slightly off topic to me- of how scientific ideas are illustrated and the disconnect between reality and how the illustration ingrains a over-simplified/or inaccurate idea of the scientific theory. The third one, which is a great example of the book's idea is the path of studying cancer and how an idea got buried, or snubbed, only to re-emerge later with great ideas on how to crack open this puzzle. The fourth essay, about how biology went from a "lower" form of science to one of top concern was I found while an interesting idea... the essay didn't really grab me. The last one, by Oliver Sacks, was the most satisfying and one that approached the topic head on... the whole process of how ideas come to be and how they are accepted or rejected etc... If you can only read one of the articles I would pick this one. He really gets to the heart of the matter and discusses the topic posed by the editors SPECIFICALLY! yay- love you Oliver Sacks.
Really great book that makes you understand how science is not done in a straight line, that ideas and discoveries can be squashed due to competing egos, or an idea comes to a society too advanced for its understanding, etc... how ideas are strangely forgotten, and how they re-emerge and how that comes about. Will probably be re-reading the Sacks' essay again, due to how well it covered the topic and how timely it is to read as so many people are scrambling to innovate.
The book contains 5 essays. The first covers how theories and observations of the unconscious were first observed, how another idea then buried it, but now we are going through a re-emergence of the original idea. The second essay covers a very interesting - slightly off topic to me- of how scientific ideas are illustrated and the disconnect between reality and how the illustration ingrains a over-simplified/or inaccurate idea of the scientific theory. The third one, which is a great example of the book's idea is the path of studying cancer and how an idea got buried, or snubbed, only to re-emerge later with great ideas on how to crack open this puzzle. The fourth essay, about how biology went from a "lower" form of science to one of top concern was I found while an interesting idea... the essay didn't really grab me. The last one, by Oliver Sacks, was the most satisfying and one that approached the topic head on... the whole process of how ideas come to be and how they are accepted or rejected etc... If you can only read one of the articles I would pick this one. He really gets to the heart of the matter and discusses the topic posed by the editors SPECIFICALLY! yay- love you Oliver Sacks.
Really great book that makes you understand how science is not done in a straight line, that ideas and discoveries can be squashed due to competing egos, or an idea comes to a society too advanced for its understanding, etc... how ideas are strangely forgotten, and how they re-emerge and how that comes about. Will probably be re-reading the Sacks' essay again, due to how well it covered the topic and how timely it is to read as so many people are scrambling to innovate.
June 30, 2021
Hidden Histories of Science, edited by Robert B. Silvers, is a series of essays by five leading scientists; Oliver Sacks, Johnathan Miller, Stephen Jay Gould, Daniel J. Kevles, and R.C. Lewontin. Both separately and together they take us through the history of how important scientific discoveries were often rejected, forgotten, denied, or erased.
After reading this book I have come to the conclusion that the biggest problem facing scientific discovery is that scientists are human. As such they are often lead, or mislead, by their own preconceived notions, their emotional bias, the desire for fame and/or fortune, their fear of losing their academic standing, and the competition for the limited number of grants, teaching positions, book publications, and Nobel prizes.
Throughout history, science has often been held back by various religious, political, and economic pressures. For example, in the early twentieth century both steam and electric cars were quite popular and more reliable that the new gasoline engine models. Of course, oil companies could not profit from steam or electric cars so they were forced off the road in favor of the polluting internal combustion vehicles. Over a century later we are finally seeing the error of this decision and electric vehicles are slowly coming back into favor.
As Daniel Kevles writes in his article, Pursuing the Unpopular, research showing the role that DNA and RNA plays in the development of cancer was pushed aside for decades. Rather than religious or ideological prejudice, it was the “resistance from his community of peers” that held back the discoveries of Rous, Bittner, Gross, Termin, and others.
Let me be clear, as a human being, I am also often trapped into resisting new thoughts, concepts, and discoveries. My favorite example of this is that I drive into New York City from Connecticut by the same route that I learned from my father over fifty years ago. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” nor GPS, new road construction, or traffic report, can stay this driver from his appointed route.
The thing is, we expect better from scientists. Their education, training, and experience are all geared to looking at things in new ways, to forge new connections, and to expand and extend human knowledge. Unfortunately, as this book so clearly illustrates, scientists are often far too human for their, or humankind’s, own good.
After reading this book I have come to the conclusion that the biggest problem facing scientific discovery is that scientists are human. As such they are often lead, or mislead, by their own preconceived notions, their emotional bias, the desire for fame and/or fortune, their fear of losing their academic standing, and the competition for the limited number of grants, teaching positions, book publications, and Nobel prizes.
Throughout history, science has often been held back by various religious, political, and economic pressures. For example, in the early twentieth century both steam and electric cars were quite popular and more reliable that the new gasoline engine models. Of course, oil companies could not profit from steam or electric cars so they were forced off the road in favor of the polluting internal combustion vehicles. Over a century later we are finally seeing the error of this decision and electric vehicles are slowly coming back into favor.
As Daniel Kevles writes in his article, Pursuing the Unpopular, research showing the role that DNA and RNA plays in the development of cancer was pushed aside for decades. Rather than religious or ideological prejudice, it was the “resistance from his community of peers” that held back the discoveries of Rous, Bittner, Gross, Termin, and others.
Let me be clear, as a human being, I am also often trapped into resisting new thoughts, concepts, and discoveries. My favorite example of this is that I drive into New York City from Connecticut by the same route that I learned from my father over fifty years ago. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” nor GPS, new road construction, or traffic report, can stay this driver from his appointed route.
The thing is, we expect better from scientists. Their education, training, and experience are all geared to looking at things in new ways, to forge new connections, and to expand and extend human knowledge. Unfortunately, as this book so clearly illustrates, scientists are often far too human for their, or humankind’s, own good.
August 20, 2013
All of us are pretty much familiar with the history of scientific thought and its various contributions in the society, not to mention the implications that these contributions bear on the level of everyday life. This book, however, presents what lies on the fringes: theories and propositions that have been ignored, only to point out that they are important in a sense that they help us question and break apart our common notions. And the point of this book is to precisely see that those we think are wrong because they do not agree with what lies at the center of scientific thought can help us in seeing and considering answers to fundamental scientific questions on a different perspective. It points out that it doesn't mean that when the scientific community of today declare them to be wrong doesn't mean that they do not have a point. Take for example the icons of evolutionary biology that led us to think that there is one specie superior over the other on account of its survival are nothing but icons. Or perhaps those discoveries which seem to point out that science can be the answer to everything tend to be mistaken and those that have been forgotten can be the "correct" one. In a way, this book presents an "alternative" way of thinking scientifically, one that encourages scientific and human humility, curiosity, and hope.
In the end, this book tells us that despite the greatness that lies behind science, there is a need to look at where it has gone wrong and where it could correct itself, if it promises to contribute something good to humanity.
In the end, this book tells us that despite the greatness that lies behind science, there is a need to look at where it has gone wrong and where it could correct itself, if it promises to contribute something good to humanity.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews