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Review
| Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions and Discoveries of the 18th Century, by Jonathan Shectman. Westport, CT & London: Greenwood Press, 2003. 317 pages. $65.00, hardcover.
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| This book consists of sixty-two engaging entries in encyclopedia format, supposedly compiling the most important scientific events of the eighteenth century. The overarching point of Shectman's work is to show that, through the course of the eighteenth century "scientific research and its practical applications had become two sides of a golden coin" (xix). In short, the spirit of this new age maintained that "Science must and will have a purpose. Science will make things better, easier, more efficient. Science will improve the lives of ordinary people" (xx). Shectman goes on to explain that questions of how this transition occurred form the basis for the entries he has chosen: "Each entry represents a groundbreaking experiment, invention or discovery on the road from science-in-transition in the seventeenth century 'age of genius' to science-as-benefit in the eighteenth-century 'age of reason' (and beyond)" (xxi). Yet, I wonder for whom some of these experiments, inventions, or discoveries were groundbreaking—for the "ordinary people" of the eighteenth century, or for scientists today? Perhaps the most obvious entry requiring explanation is the discovery of the planet Uranus (256–60). Very few ordinary people of the eighteenth century (or today) would have much use for such a discovery; its application is vague at best. Likewise, John Michell's work on Newtonian "Dark Stars" (166–69) and Henry Cavendish's "'Weighing" the World by Measuring the Gravitational Constant" (272–76) do not have the same apparent applicability as James Watt's work on steam engines and wet-transfer copying, or the creation of the smallpox vaccination. Shectman's criteria for selection are simply not always clear. |
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More problematic than Shectman's vague criteria, however, is the Series Forward. Although outside of the author's purview, the Series Adviser Robert Krebs provides a rather confrontational beginning to a book that should not be about agenda, considering its stated audience of middle and senior high school students, nonscience-major college students, and the general public interested in science. According to Krebs, the intent of this series is to reinforce the idea that science is a cumulative, self-correcting, and ostensibly objective pursuit, as opposed to the contentions of "the recent irrationalist philosophy of the history and philosophy of science" (xiii) that suggests that science might be influenced by the culture and prevailing ideas of its respective historical periods. Shectman continues in this vein, leaning heavily on a problematic progress narrative to praise the scientists of the eighteenth century as they "unshackled" themselves from "backward" thinking. My disagreement, then, is not with the fact that some philosophers and historians of science have taken 'relativism' too far (they have), but that science is not, and has never been solely a selfless, impartial pursuit seeking to benefit society. It is an activity undertaken by humans and, as a result, is susceptible to all the shortcomings and triumphs attributable to humanity. Perhaps scientific discovery is closer to Joel Achenbach's musing in a recent issue of National Geographic: "Sometimes in science we get interesting answers—but can't quite decide what it was that we asked" (Vol. 205:1, Jan 2004). |
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While Shectman does a fine job of showing the scientific and technological importance of these various inventions and discoveries, he does not do as well showing their relevance within the social and political circles of their day, or how the agents of these discoveries and inventions were affected by the social and political (not to mention theological and philosophical) events of their own culture. Indeed, all relativism aside, these factors are as important to the evolution of scientific thought as previous scientific thought itself. |
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Overall, Shectman sets out a wonderful bundle of scientific tidbits, even if his presentation is, at times, a bit triumphalist. As for audience, I would reserve the text for an introductory college-level level course for nonscience majors, though I doubt I would use it as a course textbook at all. It is somewhat too specialized for a high school audience, that is, I cannot imagine a high school class that would need a textbook on eighteenth-century science, though it could be quite useful as a reference text, especially for students doing term reports in either a science or history/social studies course. For an instructor, the text could certainly help spice up lectures on the various topics contained. Explaining to students previous (sometimes outlandish) ideas once held about subjects now seemingly "given" is always an effective attention-getter. |
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| Claremont Graduate University |
Garth D. Reese Jr. |
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