Ronald L. Numbers - Newtons Apple and Other Myths About Science

NEWTONS APPLE

AND OTHER MYTHS ABOUT SCIENCE

Edited by Ronald L. Numbers

and Kostas Kampourakis

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England

2015

Copyright 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

All rights reserved

Jacket illustration: Bridgeman/Apple: Pyrus malus, c.1568, by J.le Moyne de Morgues (c.1530-88).

Jacket design: Graciela Galup

978-0-674-96798-4 (cloth)

978-0-674-91547-3 (EPUB)

978-0-674-91546-6 (MOBI)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Newtons apple and other myths about science / edited by Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Errors, ScientificPopular works. 2. Errors, ScientificHistoryPopular works. 3. ScienceHistoryPopular works. I. Numbers, Ronald L., editor. II. Kampourakis, Kostas, editor.

Q172.5.E77N49 2015

001.96dc23 2015014096

To

Nicolaas Rupke and his colleagues at Washington

and Lee University for hosting a wonderful

conference leading to this book in May 2014

1. by Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis
2. Michael H. Shank
3. Lesley B. Cormack
4. Michael N. Keas
5. Lawrence M. Principe
6. John L. Heilbron
7. Patricia Fara
8. Peter J. Ramberg
9. Adam R. Shapiro
10. Julie Newell
11. Richard W. Burkhardt Jr.
12. Robert J. Richards
13. Michael Ruse
14. Nicolaas Rupke
15. Erika Lorraine Milam
16. Garland E. Allen
17. Kostas Kampourakis
18. Ronald L. Numbers
19. Theodore Arabatzis and Kostas Gavroglu
20. Mansoor Niaz
21. David J. Depew
22. David W. Rudge
23. Bruno J. Strasser
24. John L. Rudolph
25. Peter Harrison
26. Kathryn M. Olesko
27. Daniel P. Thurs
28. Michael D. Gordin

This book was conceived in autumn 2009, when Kostas Kampourakis read and became inspired by Ronald Numberss Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, and immediately imagined a similar book devoted primarily to myths abounding in science education. The two met for the first time at the Darwin Now Conference in Alexandria, Egypt, in November of that year, and Kostas asked Ron the secret to the quality of Galileo Goes to Jail. Ron gladly shared the secret: I asked experts to write on each topic. Kostas kept that secret in mind and in July 2012 paid a visit to Madison, Wisconsin, to propose to Ron to work together on a sequel to Galileo Goes to Jail, focusing on historical myths about science. Thus, a deal was sealed.

Crucial to the success of this project has been the collaboration of over two dozen colleagues, but none more so than Nicolaas Rupke, a longtime friend of Numbers, who invited all of us to a working conference at Washington and Lee University, May 910, 2014, supported financially by the Johnson Lecture Series, the Deans Office, and the Center for International Learning. Rupke and his colleaguesPresident Kenneth Ruscio, Provost Daniel Wubah, Dean Suzanne Keen, Mark Rush, Gregory Cooper, and Laurent Boetschtreated us royally, as did Carolyn Wingrove-Thomas and Alicia Shires. Besides the contributors to this book, Richard Burian (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) and Gregory Macklem (University of Notre Dame) provided insightful commentary and criticism.

Joining us at the conference was Michael Fisher, executive editor for science and medicine at Harvard University Press, who gave us advice and encouragement. We are grateful to him, as well as to Andrew Kinney and Lauren Esdaile from Harvard University Press, and Deborah Grahame-Smith and Jamie Thaman from Westchester Publishing Services, for their work during the production of the book. This book was right from the start intended to be a sequel to Galileo Goes to Jail, and it is therefore a pleasure to have it published by Harvard University Press.

Kostas Kampourakis would like to thank Ron Numbers for accepting to work with him on a book Ron could have easily edited on his own. The present book would never have existed without Rons competence, experience, open-mindedness, and sense of humor, which make him the best coeditor one could wish for. Kostas would also like to thank his family for their love and support. Ron thanks Kostas for his vision, importunity, and dedication; and Margie Wilsman, his favorite science educator, for her inspiration and affection. Both Kostas and Ron thank the contributors to this volume for their cooperation, promptness, and high-quality essays, which made possible the completion of the book manuscript within a year of sending out the invitations to contribute.

Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis

Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1872)

Who cares? a critical reader of this book might ask. Who cares about Newtons apple or Mendels peas? Why should anyone care to learn more about the historical episodes and ideas discussed in this book? Perhaps a biologist should know more about Darwin or Mendel, a physicist about Newton and Einstein, a chemist about Whler and Pauling, and so on. But maybe not? Perhaps even science students and scientists should not worry too much about learning the details of the life and work of the giants of their discipline. In any case, these giants are long dead, and their theories have changed or disappeared. Contemporary science is very different from what men of science used to do in the past. In fact, about half of the historical figures in this book were involved in natural history or natural philosophy, rather than in what we now call science. Therefore, why bother to know the details of what seem to be stories that are esoteric to specific disciplines?

The answer to the reasonable question Who cares? is simple and clear but not always explicit and straightforward: one should care because historical myths about science hinder science literacy and advance a distorted portrayal of how science has beenand isdone. Contrary to what Charles Darwin wrote in the opening

The public learns about science in formal (e.g., schools), nonformal (e.g., museums), and informal (e.g., mass media) ways. In all cases, alongside the content knowledge they acquire about a specific discipline (such as Newtonian mechanics in school, evolution in a natural-history museum, or the genetic basis of a disease in the news), people also get an implicit message about how science was done in each case. This message is often transmitted through a narrative about how a scientist discovered what students now learn as a fact. For instance, it is customary to read in a newspaper about some scientist in a university or research center who made a groundbreaking discovery, which has uncovered or is expected to uncover the secrets of a particular natural phenomenon. The implicit emphasis in such accounts is often on how bright that person was, how many years he or she devoted to the respective research, and how important the achievement is.

No one questions the need to be bright and hardworking in order to achieve something significant in science, but that is not the whole story. Traditional narratives often mask other important components of these achievements, such as the contributions of associates and assistants or the possibility that luck may have played a role. Stories that focus on one component of a scientific achievement may ignore some other equally important ones. This can lead to stereotypes about sciencesome of which are exposed in the last chapters of this book, which focus on how science is practiced and what kind of knowledge it produces. The first chapters, in contrast, explore some clichs about early science and misconceptions about the methods and accomplishments of some well-known scientists.