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History of the earth sciences during the scientific and industrial revolutions, with special emphasis on the physical geosciences
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History of the Earth Sciences during the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, with Special Emphasis on the Physical Geosciences. D.H. Hall. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1976,297 pp., Dfl. 50 (approx. $19.25). Until recently, most historical analyses of the natural sciences could be characterised as either “internalist” or “externalist” in approach. Internalist accounts focus on the development of observations, concepts and theories, externalist accounts on the social, economic and other circumstances in which scientific work was carried out. This dichotomy is obviously unsatisfactory, but it developed in conscious reaction to a style of interpretation that was even more inadequate. In the 1930’s several marxist scientists interpreted the history of science in terms that made the socio-economic context of science - the “needs of society” - into the cause of the conceptual development of science. Some of the best current historical research on science is beginning once again to explore the relation between content and context, but now in full awareness that the relation is likely to have been one of subtle and complex interaction, not simple one-way causation. In this perspective Hall’s book is a little odd. He leans heavily on the marxist scientists just mentioned, particularly on J.D. Bernal, for his background history of science. The text suggests scarcely any contact with recent historical research on science in general or the earth sciences in particular, and this impression is confirmed by the list of references. He adopts a simplistic historical periodisation (“Scientific Revolution”, “Industrial etc.), apparently unaware of the conRevolution”, “Age of Imperialism”, troversies that have shaken these abstractions to the core in recent years; and most seriously he assumes that the “growth of science” has been caused by socio-economic factors, without realising that this is one of the most problematic and questionable aspects of our whole understanding of science past and present. The underlying and explicit aim of the book is admirable: to encourage a trend in which an unbridled “predatory” approach towards the earth and its resources would be replaced not by an anti-science “hands-off” approach but by what J.G. Crowther termed the “husbandry” approach. The history of science is to help forward this movement by detecting the “laws” of scientific development that can be projected into the future as “science policy”. Such faith in the predictive power of a “science of science” is touching, but it rarely leads to reliable history. Yet the book is not without its positive features. The “physical geosciences” of the title are to be understood quite narrowly as the concerns that led towards the modern sciences of geophysics and geodesy. But within these limits Hall usefully summarises the long historical involvement of all the physical sciences with the study of the earth, and rightly emphasises the continuing practical interests (for navigation, communication etc.) that provided political justification and financial support for research on the magnetic and gravitational characteristics of the earth. As just implied, how-
154
ever, “physical geosciences” does not include even the physical or inorganic aspects of the “geological sciences”; the latter are treated only very briefly, and traditional interpretations (e.g. of James Hutton as the “founder of modern geology”) are repeated without references to any recent research on the history of geology. In chronological terms, the book ranges from the first systematic studies of geomagnetism in the seventeenth century to the beginnings of international collaborative research in geophysics in the mid-nineteenth century; a sequel on more recent periods is promised. Hall attempts to apply quantitative methods of analysis to the growth of geophysics, but I find his conclusions unconvincing, and they are based on data or rather dubious value. On the other hand his diagrams of the historical development of the earth sciences do at least serve the heuristic function of stimulating critical thought. The book is reproduced directly from a typescript, but is clear and legible although hardly elegant. The cover reproduces an early eighteenth-century engraving of the Ark riding on the Flood, but the book makes no mention of the problem of fossils or of the diluvial theory which this charming picture was intended to illustrate. MARTIN
RUDWICK
(Amsterdam)
History of the Earth Sciences during the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, with Special Emphasis on the Physical Geosciences. D.H. Hall. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1976,297 pp., Dfl. 50 (approx. $19.25). Until recently, most historical analyses of the natural sciences could be characterised as either “internalist” or “externalist” in approach. Internalist accounts focus on the development of observations, concepts and theories, externalist accounts on the social, economic and other circumstances in which scientific work was carried out. This dichotomy is obviously unsatisfactory, but it developed in conscious reaction to a style of interpretation that was even more inadequate. In the 1930’s several marxist scientists interpreted the history of science in terms that made the socio-economic context of science - the “needs of society” - into the cause of the conceptual development of science. Some of the best current historical research on science is beginning once again to explore the relation between content and context, but now in full awareness that the relation is likely to have been one of subtle and complex interaction, not simple one-way causation. In this perspective Hall’s book is a little odd. He leans heavily on the marxist scientists just mentioned, particularly on J.D. Bernal, for his background history of science. The text suggests scarcely any contact with recent historical research on science in general or the earth sciences in particular, and this impression is confirmed by the list of references. He adopts a simplistic historical periodisation (“Scientific Revolution”, “Industrial etc.), apparently unaware of the conRevolution”, “Age of Imperialism”, troversies that have shaken these abstractions to the core in recent years; and most seriously he assumes that the “growth of science” has been caused by socio-economic factors, without realising that this is one of the most problematic and questionable aspects of our whole understanding of science past and present. The underlying and explicit aim of the book is admirable: to encourage a trend in which an unbridled “predatory” approach towards the earth and its resources would be replaced not by an anti-science “hands-off” approach but by what J.G. Crowther termed the “husbandry” approach. The history of science is to help forward this movement by detecting the “laws” of scientific development that can be projected into the future as “science policy”. Such faith in the predictive power of a “science of science” is touching, but it rarely leads to reliable history. Yet the book is not without its positive features. The “physical geosciences” of the title are to be understood quite narrowly as the concerns that led towards the modern sciences of geophysics and geodesy. But within these limits Hall usefully summarises the long historical involvement of all the physical sciences with the study of the earth, and rightly emphasises the continuing practical interests (for navigation, communication etc.) that provided political justification and financial support for research on the magnetic and gravitational characteristics of the earth. As just implied, how-
154
ever, “physical geosciences” does not include even the physical or inorganic aspects of the “geological sciences”; the latter are treated only very briefly, and traditional interpretations (e.g. of James Hutton as the “founder of modern geology”) are repeated without references to any recent research on the history of geology. In chronological terms, the book ranges from the first systematic studies of geomagnetism in the seventeenth century to the beginnings of international collaborative research in geophysics in the mid-nineteenth century; a sequel on more recent periods is promised. Hall attempts to apply quantitative methods of analysis to the growth of geophysics, but I find his conclusions unconvincing, and they are based on data or rather dubious value. On the other hand his diagrams of the historical development of the earth sciences do at least serve the heuristic function of stimulating critical thought. The book is reproduced directly from a typescript, but is clear and legible although hardly elegant. The cover reproduces an early eighteenth-century engraving of the Ark riding on the Flood, but the book makes no mention of the problem of fossils or of the diluvial theory which this charming picture was intended to illustrate. MARTIN
RUDWICK
(Amsterdam)