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Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science

by Alan Cromer (Author)

4.5 31 ratings

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Most people believe that science arose as a natural end-product of our innate intelligence and curiosity, as an inevitable stage in human intellectual development. But physicist and educator Alan Cromer disputes this belief. Cromer argues that science is not the natural unfolding of human potential, but the invention of a particular culture, Greece, in a particular historical period. Indeed, far from being natural, scientific thinking goes so far against the grain of conventional human thought that if it hadn't been discovered in Greece, it might not have been discovered at all.
In Uncommon Sense, Alan Cromer develops the argument that science represents a radically new and different way of thinking. Using Piaget's stages of intellectual development, he shows that conventional thinking remains mired in subjective, "egocentric" ways of looking at the world--most people even today still believe in astrology, ESP, UFOs, ghosts and other paranormal phenomena--a mode of thought that science has outgrown. He provides a fascinating explanation of why science began in Greece, contrasting the Greek practice of debate to the Judaic reliance on prophets for acquiring knowledge. Other factors, such as a maritime economy and wandering scholars (both of which prevented parochialism) and an essentially literary religion not dominated by priests, also promoted in Greece an objective, analytical way of thinking not found elsewhere in the ancient world. He examines India and China and explains why science could not develop in either country. In China, for instance, astronomy served only the state, and the private study of astronomy was forbidden. Cromer also provides a perceptive account of science in Renaissance Europe and of figures such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Along the way, Cromer touches on many intriguing topics, arguing, for instance, that much of science is essential complete; there are no new elements yet to be discovered. He debunks the vaunted SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project, which costs taxpayers millions each year, showing that physical limits--such as the melting point of metal--put an absolute limit on the speed of space travel, making trips to even the nearest star all but impossible. Finally, Cromer discusses the deplorable state of science education in America and suggests several provocative innovations to improve high school education, including a radical proposal to give all students an intensive eighth and ninth year program, eliminating the last two years of high school.
Uncommon Sense is an illuminating look at science, filled with provocative observations. Whether challenging Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions, or extolling the virtues of Euclid's Elements, Alan Cromer is always insightful, outspoken, and refreshingly original.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I enjoyed reading this book; he makes a good case for the Greek origins of science as a way of knowing."--Linda M. Sweeting, Towson State University

"This is a great book! It will do much to explain what science does to non-scientists."--Tom McCreary, California State University at Chico

"Provocative, insightful, guaranteed to raise the hackles of current "educationists" and parents--as it should!"--William Stern, University of Florida

"I will recommend this book for supplemental reading in my history of medicine and history of biology classes. This book should appeal to students with more than average curiosity."--Professor Lois Magner, Purdue University

"Brilliant...makes a powerful argument for the superiority of the scientific process."--Anchorage Daily News

About the Author

Alan Cromer, a professor of physics at Northeastern University, is actively involved with enhancing middle-level science education.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (August 24, 1995)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195096363
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195096361
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1270L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.95 x 5.29 x 0.51 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #146,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11 in English Literature
- #72 in British & Irish Literary Criticism (Books)
- #250 in Science & Mathematics

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T.A.L.

What is science, how did it come about, how is it done, and how should it be taught?

Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2012

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Answering these questions, Alan Cromer has written a book that should certainly be read by every science educator. It should also be read by most people interested in the history and philosophy of science as all of these topics are covered.

Edward O. Wilson, in On Human Nature: Revised Edition writes that "No intellectual vice is more crippling than defiantly self-indulgent anthropocentrism." It seems Cromer would enthusiastically agree since a central argument in this book is that human thought is mired in unscientific egocentrism and that it took the specific circumstances of ancient Greece and later Europe to give us science.

This stands in contrast to the idea that science inevitably and naturally arises as knowledge progresses. I tend to agree with Cromer that this is incorrect and that it took a specific intellectual climate and historical circumstance for science to develop. Marshalling evidence from the cultures of China, India, and the Middle East where nearly all the ingredients to produce science were present -- such as literacy and mathematics -- Cromer argues that there was nevertheless something vital missing because science did not develop in those cultures. This vital missing element is the rejection of private knowledge or intuition as valid sources of knowledge. This would only come later with the independent European merchant class rediscovering Greek ideas and epitomized by Galileo.

My area of scholarly interest is in the cognitive science of religion and so abuts this topic closely. I would say that Cromer's conclusions are fairly sound. Scientific explanations are often counterintuitive while religious and supernatural explanations are often intuitive. It takes conscious effort to master logical and rational thought while nonscientific explanations are often breezily efficient (and just as airy). This is why science doesn't arise "naturally."

The main thrust of Cromer's book (published in 1993) seems to bear out under scrutiny. Many of the essays, especially "Knowledge Change in Response to Data" in the book Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children agree with his conclusions. Mentioning that book of collected papers by psychologists brings me to my one serious criticism of "Uncommon Sense": its sparse use of psychological sources to back up its claims. Cromer mainly uses Piaget to support his claims of mental development and egocentrism. While I think he is largely correct, this makes for a weak argumentative case.

I'll conclude by quoting a paragraph in the author's own conclusion:

"Science is a new factor in human existence that goes against the grain of our egocentric mind. It originated in the democratic practices of ancient Greece, which replaced private dogma with public debate. Based on the heretical belief in an external world that can't be known intuitively, science replaced speculation and faith with reason and observation. Much of our progress, both political and technological, has come from accepting that truth can arise only from the competition of free and informed minds. It cannot be imposed by cannon or canon" (p. 205).

8 people found this helpful

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Odysseus at home

No matter what you do with your life you should read it.

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2015

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I'm not going to discover this book for anyone. It's one of those work that you should have read several years ago. It's a classic with just twenty years or so (it was published on 1995).

The book is about asking a very simple question: without the Greek civilization, would have been science as we know it today? What Alan Cromer answers is not, or if you prefer, not for sure. And even if you agree or not, the book is not only persuasive but also well thought, well pondered in exploring the doubts or grey zones that a question like that engenders. But as long as the author advances his insight you discover the depth of his thought which means that without knowing you he is in fact weaving with the threads of your own thinking. His question is so valid that is highly possible that you had try to answer it sometime. And if not, then he pushes you to the extreme of your convictions, where the certainties end and some form of light begins.

But that is just one aspect of this work. The other one being Cromer's prose. His sentences are all well done, he thought every single sentence as a closed construction. He simplifies but he never oversimplifies. And to explain a topic, say, the DNA molecule or the problem posed by a double pendulum, he takes his time to let you know what he is talking about and why is important to consider an example before continuing with the narration. The result is that nothing is superfluous. If you have to re-read something here you never think you're wasting your time.

In fact, for non American readers, the last chapter could be seen as one that is interesting just for US readers. But as long as you progress through the analysis professor Cromer does, you realize that the problem he treats is universal. The question "how should we educate our students," is accompanied by the question of "how to do it," and by the question of "how much," and also by "for how much time." Everything is interesting here, even the nice cuestionare that he puts at the end of the book as an appendix (you should try it).

Not only interesting. Also important. Very important.

I don't have words to recommend this book as it deserves. Professor Cromer died on 2005 at the age of seventy. He left a vacuum like Carl Salgan and others like them did.

To read his books, like this one, is to keep him alive.

Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Overall good book for the price

Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2018

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Eventhough the book was a required reading for my philosophy class I still found it interesting enough to read. My complaints about the book are that the author assumes that the reader has an extensive background in history. Also he seems biased toward Western or European civilizations in particular. Overall good book for the price.

One person found this helpful

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kychan

a culture for science, not bunk

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2011

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This book is almost two decades old, first published in 1993, but its subject is as fresh today as it has always been, and its arguments as relevant and potent as you can hope to find in a good scientific text. A very readable book, the paperback light on the hand, the layout inviting, the notes, references and index comprehensive, and two appendices a pleasurable addition, it is very well written, and earns my highest recommendation. That scientific thinking is so different from common sense, that it began from debating as a way of finding truth, in the Greeks, the only ancient culture that could think scientifically, that it was almost lost for good - all those bits of history make one realise how precious a gift scientific thinking is, and how important it is to maintain an environment that allows science to flourish, not to mislead people with bunk. There is much this book shares with Lewis Wolpert's The Unnatural Nature of Science: Why Science Does Not Make (Common) Sense another excellent book.

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Prateek

Must Read

Reviewed in India on March 2, 2018

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Science vs religion, a wonderful book to understand why people act the way they act and we always choose religion over science

Sphex

Science as the search for consensible knowledge

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 11, 2011

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It's easy to be impressed by all the gadgets made possible by science, but what is considerably harder, even for those of us with a science background, is getting a handle on scientific thought itself. In this fascinating book, remarkable for how much ground is covered in relatively few pages, Alan Cromer identifies a key aspect of scientific thinking and argues that the appearance of science was far from inevitable. His fundamental conclusion "is that the social arrangement that is science is a new development in human history... a sort of growing up, a putting aside of childish egocentrism and an acceptance of human responsibility in the face of human fallibility".

In the preface, Cromer lays out a crucial idea. "Most of humankind, for most of its history, never learned to distinguish the internal world of thoughts and feelings from the external world of objects and events. Each individual was indivisibly connected to the natural and supernatural powers that govern the world. Cutting this connection, which is necessary before science can develop, goes against the grain of human nature." A major step toward this separation, Cromer argues, took place in ancient Greece, and he believes it was "the institution of free debate more than anything else" that set Greece apart. A debate is "a competition of minds" and good debate relies on logical consistency, the giving of reasons, and respect for reliable evidence. In short, it encourages objective thinking.

Debate, open inquiry, scepticism, a desire for non-contradiction - all are essential for science to develop. Cromer's central thesis is "that science has a unique historical origin in ancient Greece and that all other civilizations, down to our own, learned science directly from the Greek science". In stark contrast are "the prophetic traditions of the Old and New Testaments" which assumed "that some human beings can directly know the mind of God". "The prophet doesn't attempt to persuade by reasonable arguments, but merely proclaims the revealed truth... In such a cultural setting, reasoned discourse is meaningless." Even if you accept the existence of God, the problem with prophetically based religions, of course, is telling who are the true prophets and who the false, and since there is no rational way to decide this, conflict is inevitable, "thereby driving monotheism further into irrationality and intolerance" - and further away from a culture in which science can thrive.

Scientific thinking, which depends on "a fundamentally different notion of how human beings acquire knowledge" and which necessarily challenges and therefore undermines the power of religious authorities, could never have evolved from the prophetic tradition of Judaism and Christianity. Greece is "the undisputed fountainhead of science" and no other civilization has been as successful in separating "internal thought from external reality". With the rise of Christianity, "egocentrism replaced objectivity throughout Europe" and "the egocentric view that knowledge is belief" flourished. (The term "egocentrism" is important and used throughout the book, but it doesn't imply egoism or selfishness. "Egocentrism is subjective thinking in all its aspects, and it is a basic aspect of the human condition.")

Given this long history, and the complexity of the cultures and social worlds involved, and the complexity of human psychology, it's surprising and also very satisfying to arrive at a simple and yet plausible definition of science, as "the search for a consensus of rational opinion among all competent researchers". Cromer adopts John Ziman's social definition of science, which "helps explain how certainty can arise from a purely human activity". Public (objective) knowledge is "the greatest of all human inventions because it breaks the barrier of egocentrism that has imprisoned humankind throughout its existence". The sociological definition of science gives us a content-free way to distinguish science from pseudoscience: science isn't about the meaning of words, but about things in themselves. "The test of public consensus is severe. Private insights and intuitions, no matter how strongly felt, won't do."

One of the great strengths of science is its ability to throw away ideas that are proved wrong by experiment. Time and energy invested in a hypothesis are of no account when the facts come out different. The trouble with celebrating this flexibility, with acknowledging that science "is necessarily tentative and uncertain at its growing edge", is that "the great foundation of certainty that currently exists is seldom emphasized". For example, if we're talking about chemical elements, "certainty" is an appropriate word to use. All the elements from hydrogen to californium have been isolated: atomic theory is "a concrete example of an important body of scientific knowledge that is both recent and essentially complete". In a hundred or a thousand years from now, the periodic table will still be the same.

It is sometimes claimed that science proceeds by wholesale revolution, in which everything that has gone before is proved wrong. Relativity and quantum mechanics have replaced Newtonian mechanics, this story goes, and so - who knows? - relativity and quantum mechanics themselves could similarly be overthrown in the future. A more sensible view is that Newtonian mechanics is "a special case of the still more general laws of relativity and quantum mechanics" and continues to apply to everything "from the motion of a Ping-Pong ball to that of a galaxy".

Cromer believes "the light really did go out in Europe's Dark Age". However, while the "total dominance of Christianity, a mystical religion with an illogical theology, discouraged the development of logical thinking", the absence of Christianity did not guarantee the appearance of scientific thinking. Despite three thousand years of scholarship and dedicated learning, despite being great civilizations, neither China nor India developed science. Cromer admits that the notion "that science and objective thinking are unnatural human activities seems quite radical at first" but he makes a convincing case, and one that should make us value science all the more, and value and nurture our rational abilities, such as they are. "We are truly a species that has invented itself out of rather unpromising material."

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