I read this book for the first time about 10 years ago. It's interesting, but not near so coherent as the last book I read, Objective Knowledge . It kinda carries on with some ideas that are embedded in another book he wrote, The Ascent of Man . I haven't read that one since high school, more than 17 years ago, but I hope to read it again some time.
The book is composed of three chapters titled "The Creative Mind," "The Habit of Truth," and "The Sense of Human Dignity." In the first chapter, he, like C. P. Snow before him makes the case that scientists and artists are alike in that they both attempt to "find unity in variety." From the last paragraph of the chapter:
"Science, like art, is not a copy of nature but a re-creation of her. We re-make nature by the act of discovery, in the poem or in the theorem. And the great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself re-creates them. They are the marks of unity itself; and in the instant when the mind seizes this for itself, in art or in science, the heart misses a beat."
The second chapter tells us how important the search for truth is to science. It's best summarized in a quote from a guy named Clifford that he gives in the final chapter, but I'll let you read that for yourself. He also quotes Clifford about not just believing things without evidence because it makes society as a whole more gullible. I won't quote that either. However, I will say that it reminds of something I read in Russell's Skeptical Essays which Carl Sagan quotes in his Broca's Brain . It goes something like this (apologies for errors...I'm doing this from memory):
William James used to preach the will to believe...For my part I should wish to preach the will to doubt. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Chapter three ends with these words:
"What is true of poetry is true of all creative thought. And what I said then of one value is true of all human values. The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline."
Rather evocative (and perhaps provocative) words and I wish I understood what they meant. I'm having a much better time with the following:
"We have not let either the tolerance or the empiricism of science enter the parochial rules by which we still try to prescribe the behavior of nations. Our conduct as states clings to a code of self-interest which science, like humanity, has long left behind."
This, I think, I understand. The idea is not that science defines our values for us, but that there is an implicit set of values inherent to the community of scientists which can illuminate the way for the rest of the world if we would only let it. This is, I believe, a very bold statement. It reminds me of what a friend of mine, K. Nunn, once pointed out concerning one segment of Sagan's Cosmos series. He's a future inhabitant of our cosmos who comes across the Encyclopedia Galactica , as I recall. He looks up the entry (on this multimedia library) on "Earth" and finds all sorts of interesting information including the fact that its inhabitants have destroyed their planet and there are none of them left. The last entry for the planet is their epitaph which went something like "They accepted the fruits of science, but rejected its methods." Quite poignant.
And possibly there is much merit to the notion. But I wonder how far Bronowski thinks these values of science would carry a humanity that wants to get its trash emptied and all the other mundane things that make it possible for scientists and artists alike to spend their time in the pursuit of their creative interests. To the extent that he says that science can provide a context for our values, I agree with him. To the extent that he implies that the society of scientists is comparable to society at large as ruled by governments of whatever persuasion, I have grave reservations.
The part of this book that I had best remembered from my previous reading was the dialogue that appears after the first three chapters, "The Abacus and the Rose: A Dialogue on Two World Systems." It's an argument between a literary intellectual and a scientific intellectual that is "mediated" by a government beaurocrat. It ends with the scientist getting the last word with an interesting bit of doggerel:
I, having built a house, reject The feud of eye and intellect, And find in my experience proof One pleasure runs from root to roof, One thrust along a streamline arches The sudden star, the budding larches. The force that makes the winter grow Its feathered hexagons of snow, And drives the bee to match at home Their calculated honeycomb, Is abacus and rose combined. An icy sweetness fills my mind, A sense that under thing and wing Lies, taut yet living, coiled, the spring."
Not bad. Rather a pleasant poem, but that bit about the icy sweetness was too unsubtle for my tastes. Kinda ruins the whole thing for me. The "under thing and wing" also sounds a little hokey, but I can live with it. But that 'icy sweetness' business...well, yuck.
Definitely worth the three (maybe four) hours I spent reading it. It's only about 120 pages or so. There's tons of material that deserves to be quoted and tidbits of factoids just waiting to be assimilated into someone's coherent world view. An enjoyable and thought-provoking read. Would be nice if this were required reading in colleges.
