Page 39 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

“It’s surprised me how far the

great natural scientists of the
past were from anything like our

modern conception of science”

names of Islamic science, they’re all before between science and mathematics in a way though you can marvel at the importance
that date. that had always been muddled. Before him, of every great change in physics, you see the
Why that’s the case is an endlessly and perhaps a few other people around at roots of that change in what went before –
interesting issue. It may have something to the same sort of time, there had been a and you don’t forget about it. Indeed, you
do with the appearance of a fiercer version large body of thought that felt that science see the new theory as an improvement on
of Islam: for example, Spain was taken over was a branch of mathematics and that its the old theory, not an abandonment of it.
by people from north Africa who formed truths could be determined by purely We build on the past, and that, I think, is
the Almohad caliphate, which was mathematical reasoning. This goes all the one of the reasons why the writing of
extremely repressive. There were episodes way back to Plato, who thought that it science is different from art history or even
in which books of scientific or medical wasn’t necessary to look at the sky in order political history. We can’t say that the
technique were burned by Islamic authori- to do astronomy – that pure reason was all Impressionists were right to abandon the
ties, and the 11th-century philosopher and you needed. photographic realism of the Romantic
theologian Al-Ghazali argued explicitly Huygens specifically said we can only period, or that the Norman conquest was a
against science because he saw it as a make our assumptions because we intend ‘good’ thing. That kind of judgment is silly.
distraction from Islam. to work on their consequences and see if On the other hand, we can certainly say
So, had Islamic science run out of steam they agree with observation – and if they that Newton was right and Descartes was
or was it suppressed by changes in Islam? don’t, we will abandon them. This attitude wrong about what keeps the planets going
I don’t know the answer, but it’s a similar is one you just don’t find very much before. around the Sun – there is a definite sense of
question to that about Greek science. Did I also think I’d have liked Ptolemy: he discovering right and wrong.
that simply run out of steam around 400 expressed his joy of astronomy in a way That’s another important point: science
or 500 AD, or was it suppressed by the that was lovely. In just a few lines he wrote is not just an expression of a cultural
adoption of Christianity? I think that that, when he studied the wheeling milieu, as some historians and sociologists
there are good arguments on both sides motions of the planets, he felt his feet leave of science have argued. It’s the discovery of
of both questions. the ground and stood with the gods truths that are out there to be discovered,
drinking nectar. and it can help prevent us from making the
Are there any characters in this story same mistakes as the past. As I was once
that particularly stand out for you? Are there any misconceptions about crass enough to say, the study of the history
If I understand that in the sense of who I’d science and its history that you’d like of science is the best antidote to the
like to have a beer with, Christiaan this book to change? philosophy of science.
Huygens is a strong contender. He was a One misconception that’s been foisted on
17th-century Dutch polymath who did a us by a generation of philosophers of
huge variety of things: he discovered the science is the idea of the 20th-century To Explain the World:
physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn
rings of Saturn and the formula for
MATT VALENTINE centrifugal force, he invented the pendu- that science undergoes discontinuous The Discovery of Modern
Science by Steven Weinberg
changes after which it’s impossible to
lum clock… I could go on!
understand the science of a former age.
But what stands out for me is that he very
(Allen Lane, 2015)
I think that’s wrong. I think that, even
explicitly understood the relationship
The Story of Science & Technology 39