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The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science Hardcover – Illustrated, October 13, 2020
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“The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise.” ―Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex
A paradigm-shifting work, The Knowledge Machine revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science.
• Why is science so powerful?
• Why did it take so long―two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics―for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe?
In a groundbreaking work that blends science, philosophy, and history, leading philosopher of science Michael Strevens answers these challenging questions, showing how science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument.
Like such classic works as Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine grapples with the meaning and origins of science, using a plethora of vivid historical examples to demonstrate that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature.
“With a mixture of philosophical and historical argument, and written in an engrossing style” (Alan Ryan), The Knowledge Machine provides captivating portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in science’s history, including Isaac Newton, the chief architect of modern science and its foundational theories of motion and gravitation; William Whewell, perhaps the greatest philosopher-scientist of the early nineteenth century; and Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of the quark. Today, Strevens argues, in the face of threats from a changing climate and global pandemics, the idiosyncratic but highly effective scientific knowledge machine must be protected from politicians, commercial interests, and even scientists themselves who seek to open it up, to make it less narrow and more rational―and thus to undermine its devotedly empirical search for truth.
Rich with illuminating and often delightfully quirky illustrations, The Knowledge Machine, written in a winningly accessible style that belies the import of its revisionist and groundbreaking concepts, radically reframes much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.
53 black-and-white illustrations- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLiveright
- Publication dateOctober 13, 2020
- Dimensions6.4 x 1.3 x 9.6 inches
- ISBN-101631491377
- ISBN-13978-1631491375
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― Christoph Irmscher, Wall Street Journal
"A provocative and fascinating book.... Strevens’s book contains a number of surprises, including an elegant section on quantum mechanics that coolly demonstrates why it’s such an effective theory.... Ambitious.... Strevens builds on the work of philosophers like Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn to come up with his own original hypothesis about the advent of modern science and its formidable consequences."
― Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"Strevens shows scientists exerting themselves intellectually.... [and] aims to identify that special something."
― Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker
"One of the better examinations of the origins of the scientific revolution."
― Kirkus Reviews
"[Strevens], an NYU philosophy professor, takes a scholarly look at how modern science arose with this erudite study. . . . For readers curious about why science works as well as it does, Strevens provides a convincing answer."
― Publishers Weekly
"The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise."
― Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex
"Michael Strevens is one of the leading philosophers of science at work today, so I knew this book would be powerful, bracingly argued, and important. What I did not expect was that it would be such a rollicking good read."
― Jim Holt, author of Why Does the World Exist?
"Strevens treats us to fascinating episodes in the history of science, wittily and illuminatingly recounted, and to beautifully lucid and accessible accounts of the underlying philosophical issues. A rare achievement, it is entertaining and edifying all at once."
― Paul Boghossian, Silver Professor of philosophy, New York University
"A book as thrilling to read as it is important. . . . To move through The Knowledge Machine is to have one’s assumptions about evidence-based inquiry challenged in captivating fashion; I read it in a trance of delight."
― Nathan Heller, The New Yorker staff writer
"As with Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, its brevity and simplicity cannot conceal the boldness of its conception, the extraordinary scope of its ambition. It is a very important, perhaps even a great book."
― David Wootton, author of The Invention of Science
"A delight to read. . . . The Knowledge Machine is richly illustrated with wonderfully told, easy-to-understand incidents from the history of natural science."
― Nancy Cartwright, University of California–San Diego
"In this beautifully written, accessible, and often entertaining book, Michael Strevens takes up the serious task of accounting for the success of science, and why it took so long to achieve it."
― Philip Kitcher, Columbia University
"There could hardly be a better introduction to the philosophy of science than The Knowledge Machine."
― Alan Ryan, author of On Politics
"A stylish and accessible investigation into the nature of the scientific method."
― Nigel Warburton, Philosophy Times
"Without the benefits of science, everyday life would be almost medieval. Michael Strevens pulls off the ambitious task of revealing how science really works as he defends the power and effectiveness of the scientific method to reveal the true nature of things against those who deny it very existence. The Knowledge Machine is an engaging must-read if you want to find out what’s so special about science."
― Manjit Kumar, author of Quantum
"It is easy to take science for granted, but in truth it is a peculiar institution that is absent from most of human history. Michael Strevens puts his finger on its essential core―a self-denying rejection of any reasoning that does not trade in new observational evidence―and shows how this ‘iron rule’ explains both why science is strange and why it is successful. Strevens wears his learning lightly, but this elegant book takes us to the heart of the scientific enterprise."
― David Papineau, King’s College London, author of Knowing the Score
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Product details
- Publisher : Liveright; Illustrated edition (October 13, 2020)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1631491377
- ISBN-13 : 978-1631491375
- Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.6 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #103,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29 in Scientific Research
- #92 in Social Philosophy
- #324 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)
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I found this an extremely satisfying book as it, in my judgement, resolved a number of outstanding issues in philosophy of science. The results are not as rich as many might have hoped the field would achieve, but the declaration of many of these as unachievable even in principle appears to be a needed recognition of the realities of how science is practiced.
Then history and examples in the book are interesting and well done. The pivotal role of Newton is well described as is the sequence of events in the early development of science.
I would have given this book six stars if that were possible, but I excluded it because the realities of how Amazon operates.
It takes some time to get to what Strevens means as the Iron Rule of science. At first, the reader might think that it is only that admissible evidence in science be empirical. As stated it would be almost tautological (empirical science must be empirical). But he goes on to use Newton as the epitome of this truth and shows that his meaning is not so obvious.
Newton epitomizes correct science because, despite his musings on alchemy, philosophy and the Bible, his scientific thinking merely laid out rules that described the motion of objects under gravity that could be empirically tested. Unlike Descartes, who argued for his force by contact theory from philosophical grounds, Newton left his gravitational theory somewhat spooky. How bodies transmitted this force at a distance was left unexplained.
Another example is the modern theory of quantum physics. There’s no need to understand how it works, merely the need to test it with more and more mathematical rigor.
In fact, Strevens’ ideal scientist is somewhat of a boring person who takes little interest in matters outside their narrow specialization and devotes years of work on the amassing of more and more data.
All of this is insightful and interesting. But Strevens never fully explains whether his theory is intended to be normative or descriptive. Newton may have epitomized it but many scientists work and publish differently. Does this mean they’re incorrectly doing science or that anything done in a different manner isn’t science at all? It seems Strevens would favor the latter.
Furthermore, as a scientist, I find the idea that scientists should be narrow-minded and avoid other disciplines to be absurd. Important scientific theories, as opposed to their justification, are more likely to come from minds which can draw from a wide variety of sources. No thanks to the years of boring, single-minded work.
Even so, the effort to write a popular yet serious philosophy of science is a noble one. I enjoyed reading it and do recommend it to broad-minded laymen and scientists interested in such questions—however, much Strevens might not approve of their reading it.
One manifestation of the Iron Rule is the "Tychonic Principle": the importance of observations with accuracy out to many decimal places. Kepler's use of Tycho's voluminous data exemplifies this principle. So would the careful measurement of the bending of starlight in the solar eclipse of 1919 — in theory at least. But the eclipse data were not very precise. In their interpretation, Eddington's prejudice had a much bigger role than precision. In general, Strevens' contentions — that early science was so primitive, the Scientific Revolution was so abrupt, and science is at last fully objective — seem debatable to me.
While reading the book, I often wanted to raise a hand and ask a question. Sometimes Strevens came around to the issue, but not always. For example, Strevens says that the Iron Rule guarantees consensus, which allows continuity, which he deems important. But sometimes consensus is completely lacking, as in the theory of evolution. How life evolves is one of the most contentious issues in the history of science. I see no consensus there, only crisis. Strevens has studied Thomas Kuhn but seems little persuaded by him.
Strevens says the Iron Rule guarantees, "Always there is something that even the most bitter enemies can agree to do next: another test." This is starkly wrong. The schism between Darwinism and Intelligent Design illustrates this. From my third-party perspective, the gridlock is especially obvious.
Still, I quite enjoyed reading The Knowledge Machine. I love knowing more about Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Newton, Kelvin, D'Arcy Thompson, Whewell and many others, in well-told episodes and colorful vignettes. Strevens' writing is easygoing, his scholarship is very impressive, and his ambivalence about his own Iron Rule is intriguing.
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It's a shame because the inside of the book is still clean. And of course most importantly, it's a very well written book; you learn a lot by reading.