Public Understanding of Science (1996), 179-81. Science and the Retreat from Reason, John Gillott & Manjit Kumar, 1995 (London: Merlin Press), xiii+287 pp., price? A scan of the title and chapter headings leaves little doubt about a central message of this book: that science, its analysts and its public have taken a wrong turning. Evocative headings such as 'retreat from reason', 'the sense of an end', 'loss of certainty' and 'belittling humanity' foreshadow the critical tenor of the contents. The authors mount a sweeping attack on 'anti-progress thinking'. Despite this seemingly straightforward message, this book raises (and rejects) such a broad range of issues that it is difficult to summarise both succinctly and fairly. Gillott & Kumar have directed this book towards an intelligent lay readership, but with a welcome absence of condescension. The text, which is readable and admirably jargon-free, does not interpret science and scientists so much as discuss them in the important context of their history, sociology and politics. Its timeliness is emphasised by references to Václav Havel (1992), Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein (1994), the 59 year old British 'test-tube mother' (1994) and the Oklahoma City bombing (1995). In seven chapters, the book presents a wide-ranging criticism of twentieth century science and science studies. Some of the themes are well-developed; others are slipped in half-formed. The principal threads are that: (a) the direction and goals of science have foundered in this century; (b) scientific progress has unjustifiably become divorced from social progress; a spirit of pessimism has overtaken the public and scientists themselves, the reasons for which include (1) the direction taken by philosophy of science in this century and (2) certain ill-founded scientific theories which have promoted the erroneous generalisation that scientific progress is neither sustainable nor desirable; and (c) a recent tendency to 'over mathematise' science and to emphasise a 'search for beauty', leading to a divergence of experiment and theory and a detour of physics into metaphysics. The authors bemoan the replacement of media protrayals of the 'triumph of progressive technology' by visions of 'technological dystopias'. They present their work as a right-thinking substitute for popularisations that 'often tend toward mysticism and metaphysics, the enemies of scientific thought' (p. 2). Unsurprisingly for a book that claims a mistaken direction for science, their thesis is one that has become increasingly untenable to historians, working scientists and the general public Email: s.f.johnston@leeds.ac.uk Tel: (0113) 233-3849 Fax: (0113) 233-3846 in the past thirty years: namely, that science and technology can and should represent unproblematic social progress. Anti-science prejudices are not new, say the authors, but the changed relationship between science and society is. The authors' claims regarding the timing of this loss of direction sets them apart from most recent commentators. Indeed, the chronology of the historical trends that the authors cite are contentious. Although they note initially that the heresy took hold by the end of the 1960s, following the halcyon days of nylon, polio vaccine, lasers and the first moon-shot, Gillott & Kumar want to argue that the post-war enthusiasm was a temporary aberration in a century of increasing intellectual constraints. In support of this they cite pessimistic scientific theories (e.g. quantum mechanics) and philosophers (e.g. Karl Popper and Pierre Duhem) sprinkled through this century. The authors are not merely critics of some of the recent trends in sociology of science; they summarily reject a swathe of philosophers with relatively little analytical finesse. In weak support for their claim of a century-long philosophical decline, for example, the authors condemn Pierre Duhem's claim of continuity between medieval and modern science; in their version, the Scientific Revolution quite simply replaced superstition by rationality. But the philosophical rot, they argue, set in with the heretical theories of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn. Popper's examination of scientific falsifiability is curtly dismissed as an error because it undermines the authors' claim that 'science is a rational activity'. Popper's theory is cited as evidence of the 'irrational undercurrents which provided the real undertow to the [Vannevar] Bushian vision' [of science as an endless frontier] (p. 16). Unsurprisingly, Thomas Kuhn's work is said to 'fly in the face of common sense' with his 'deceptively simple and beguiling hypothesis' of the relativism of scientific knowledge. The resulting insecurities about social progress, according to Gillott & Kumar, became conflated with perceived limitations in scientific progress. Thus, the atomic experiences of the 1960s were more able to subvert the broader public, making individuals pessimistic about both scientific and social progress. Subsequent philosophers and historians are treated briefly, if not lightly. Michael Polanyi, for example, is said to have 'sought to puncture the Enlightenment and expectations it had aroused' (p. 206). Paul Feyerabend's 'openly irrationalist writings', are linked to his 'liberal Green' politics and an attitude 'deeply fearful of progress' (p. 23). Recent work on scientific relativism receives no explicit mention. The book's stance on scientific relativism is decidely unclear. On the one hand, Gillott & Kumar devote several pages to discussing how society can shape science. They even credit the contentious 'Forman thesis' (which postulates the scientific shaping of quantum mechanics by the Weimar German culture in the 1920s) S. F. Johnston Book review for Public Understanding of Science 18 June, 2007 1 with demonstrating just how much scientists can be 'misdirected by cultural context', and particularly how the Copenhagen interpretation 'cast its spell' (p. 211). Indeed, their general argument is that extraneous social factors have unfortunately diverted science from its proper course. On the other hand, the authors link scientific relativism to conservatism; one cannot progress unless the goal can unambiguously be identified. The authors want to make the study of different belief systems subject to Reason with a capital R. Problems arise not just from outside science but from inside as well. Gillott & Kumar argue that the 'twentieth century blues' have been exacerbated by certain illfounded scientific theories which have promoted the idea of a fundamental limitation in knowledge. They cite three cases: the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (not quantum mechanics itself), chaos theory and complexity theory. Three chapters are devoted to refuting these subjects, which are cited as promoting dangerous and wholly unwarranted generalisations. Gillott & Kumar claim that all three subjects – fashionable to scientists as well as science popularisers – belittle humanity by setting limits to human ambition, and must not, therefore, be allowed to become new paradigms in thinking about natural law. For quantum mechanics, the authors' argument is that the so-called Copenhagen interpretation (which, e.g. postulates a fundamental uncertainty in defining particle dynamics, and an intrinsic dependence between the observer and object) is flawed. In short, Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg 'brainwashed a whole generation of physicists' (p. 88). Nevertheless, the failure of contemporary alternatives (e.g. the Bohm theory) is not raised. Digressing to a chronologically amibitious foray into the nature of light, the authors conclude that the quantum hypothesis is on shakey ground (p. 66). This historical diversion is at odds with the rest of the book in that it is almost entirely narrative, rather than analytical, in construction. Its theme seems to be that physicists at every stage were troubled and unconvinced about the reality of quantisation. If scientists placed so little confidence in its meaning, argue the authors, why should we derive anything fundamental from it regarding the meaning of science? Chaos theory is decried as an evocative term, while the authors describe its proponents as 'zealots', employing 'talismanic' words that 'conjure up' images (p. 45). The subject is portrayed as a temporary craze already suffering from declining output. They conclude that chaotic models of the physical world and human society are generally simplistic and unconvincing. Hence, again, why extrapolate to the view that there are any intrinsic limitations to science and to a progressive outlook? Complexity theory is dismissed as one which promotes the idea of humanity's pre-ordained existence (p. 51), a religious affectation that scientists must not espouse. S. F. Johnston Book review for Public Understanding of Science 18 June, 2007 2 The imputed religious and metaphysical views of several scientists (e.g. Duhem) are condemned. Reading between their lines, the authors deem Ilya Prigogine (complexity theory) and Murray Gell-Mann (complexity and nuclear physics) to make over-generalisations about the applicability of complexity theory to both physics and society. The book's arguments become somewhat sketchier in the final chapter, where the authors assert that a quest for 'beauty' or 'elegance' is a recent perversion of science. Their historical evidence for this is selective and highly contentious. Much of modern physics is described as an 'irrational aestheticisation of the natural world' (p. 229) too far divorced from testable theory. Over-mathematisation is seen as leading to 'leaps of faith', so that '[f]rom Beauty in and of itself, it is a short step to Magic and then to God' (p. 231). Instead, we are urged to be pragmatic, like Richard Feynman, in not searching too strenuously for the meaning of Q.M., but only to apply it. But does not this same motivation convince us to reject seeking an ultimate purpose to science, which the authors claim is to achieve progress and perfection of knowledge? The book's pace of coverage results in a shallow justification for many of its authors' claims. There are resonances here with Bryan Appleyard's Understanding the Present. Their themes are admittedly different. Appleyard's concerned the loss of the human 'soul' to science; Gillott & Kumar criticise his making 'a virtue of denigrating science and dampening down the human desire to be freer and happier'. Their theme, by contrast, is that science and social progress have become hindered by extraneous human pessimism. But both books broadly attack some of the same targets and embrace the same mission of redressing extensive mistakes and righting detours. Both mount audacious attacks on a broad line of modern scientists. There are many tacit assumptions buried in the text. The most contentious is that 'good' and 'bad' science are unproblematically distinguishable. And that science, technology and progress are indisputably good things suffering from bad publicity. Thus, they claim that '[u]se of science in the cause of progress' is easily discernable from 'abuse in the service of [war]' (p. 27). Is science as clear-cut as all that? Can its progressive components be cleaved neatly from the sociological and 'quack' excrescences? Many recent commentators see the benefits of science, instead, as contextand community-dependent. The book alienates just about everyone. Besides the assortment already mentioned, it criticises scientific reductionism, which attempts 'to reduce human drives and desires to the level of a natural system' (p. 220). So, too, are all political persuasions savaged. The Old Left (particularised as the socialist idealism of historian/scientist J. D. Bernal), the New Left (typified by historian E. P. Thompson), S. F. Johnston Book review for Public Understanding of Science 18 June, 2007 3 and the Right (embodied in the militaristic scientism of the RAND corporation) are all censured for having abandoned belief in linked scientific and social progress and limitless change. Institutions such as The British Medical Association are criticised for pontificating and raising the 'ethical evils of discoveries and experiments in genetics' rather than speaking of 'the advantages, in terms of meeting human needs and aspirations' (p. 220). Similarly, ecological doomsayers are cited as overlooking the possibilities of carefully planned production. Again identifying and attacking exemplars, Gillott & Kumar deride biologist Rachel Carson for criticising the 'drive to manipulate the world through science'. The clarity of an already sketchy argument is impeded, however, by the authors' denial that they are arguing for 'social progress through greater human domination over nature' (p. 197). Criticism is a central component to the discussion of ideas, but the book's approach makes for simplistic and superficial critiques. The reader gains little sense of a ranking here; all of the above philosophies, viewpoints and theories are portrayed as quite simply wrong. Discerning the positive views of the authors is considerably more difficult. Gillott & Kumar offer no clear path to put science 'back on the tracks'. Nor do they convincingly explain how science should once again be coupled to social progress. Their positive aim is limited to identifying the heresies of social relativism, philosophical pessimism and scientific claims of fundamental boundaries to knowledge. Given that the authors find a great deal to criticise, what do they offer as an antidote to our loss of certainty? By a process of elimination we can, to some extent, locate the authors' beliefs. What, and who, are not attacked? In contrast to their analysis of every other philosophy of this century, logical positivism and its figureheads are not explicitly discussed or even mentioned. And, despite their flirtation with scientific relativism mentioned above, they seem also to espouse philosophical realism. There is an 'objective reality that human beings can understand' (p. 18). On the other hand, in contrast to the card-carrying positivist, the authors criticise Neils Bohr in his reticence to claim objective reality for the merely indirectly observable electron. Furthermore, positivism's progenitors come under attack. Auguste Comte is linked to fundamental conservatism for having decoupled science from Enlightenment optimism about improving the human condition. By identifying progress with order, argue the authors, Comte was robbing science of 'any association with historical change and development' (p. 158). Who, then, do the authors enlist as allies and positive examples? Here we find a clearer answer: some 50 references to the Marquis de Condorcet, Albert Einstein and physicist Leon Lederman appear to be uniformly positive. Thus Condorcet, the S. F. Johnston Book review for Public Understanding of Science 18 June, 2007 4 Enlightenment philosopher, is praised as the bearer of an 'optimistic vision' (p. 150). Einstein's opinions on quantum mechanics and scientific progress are lauded. Lederman's views are reported verbatim; e.g. 'commercialisation of science has led to myopia and neglect of fundamental work' (p. 196), and competition and scientific rivalry 'act as a drag on truly innovative research'. Similarly, the Age of Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution are presented in simplistic historical terms with correspondingly straightforward and optimistic viewpoints concerning scientific and human progress. Science and the Retreat from Reason is a thoroughly unsatisfying book. Its criticisms are too broad and unpolished to be convincing, and its alternative view of 'good' science and society are unclearly framed. It is a call to arms by unpersuasive and unarmed revolutionaries. Sean Johnston, Division of History & Philosophy of Science, and IRC in Polymer Science & Technology, University of Leeds, Leeds, U.K. S. F. Johnston Book review for Public Understanding of Science 18 June, 2007