The human enterprise of science

Hidden Histories of Science
Edited by Robert B. Silvers
The New York Review of Books, 1995, 193pp. US$19.95 (hb)
Reviewed by Neville Spencer "Science sometimes sees itself as impersonal, as 'pure thought', independent of its historical and human origins. It is often taught as if this were the case. But science is a human enterprise through and through, an organic, evolving, human growth, with sudden spurts and arrests, and strange deviations, too. It grows out of its past, but never outgrows it, any more than we outgrow our own childhood." With these words Oliver Sacks captures the essence of the essays collected in Hidden Histories of Science. That science is a social phenomenon and subject to the vicissitudes of and distortions of society has not always been readily accepted, not least by those within the scientific community. These five essays, which focus on different instances of the history of science, demonstrate its social nature. One thing which Hidden Histories doesn't emphasis is that where the social nature of science has been accepted, its entire validity has often been challenged at the same time. This, however, is not the nature of these essays. They are written by some of the most notable scientists/science popularisers in the world including Sacks, Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould all with reputations for exposing some of the unfortunate abuses of science whilst remaining important contributors to science. One of the essays' themes is the way in which some of the now universally accepted scientific theories were established and investigated against the will of the majority if the scientific community. Many of these theories were the result of some scientist's persistence in face of opposition by their colleagues. One essay makes the point that this has resulted in many important discoveries being ignored, or completely forgotten, only to be "discovered" again decades or even centuries later! While Hidden Histories does not explicitly address the philosophy of the history of science (where the social nature of science is now more acceptable), it does look at the development of some scientific theories which have often been excluded from discussions on the philosophy of the history of science. Hidden Histories avoids making science out to be either black or white, but paints a picture of it generally advancing, but with stops, steps backward, dead ends, as well as leaps forward.