 Scientists and Scholars and Ancient GreecebyGillian Polack
Always read the acknowledgements. I was taught this as part of my history training. Always read forewords and afterwords and footnotes and endnotes and indices and appendices, Even if the word ‘appendix’ looks like it only belongs in a medical book (which I thought quite firmly until I was ten years old) always read them. Or at least take a quick look through, in case there’s anything important. For example, take the Acknowledgements in Stephen Bertman’s The Genesis of Science. He says that “most commercial publishers had little faith in the intellectual curiosity of today’s book buyers, while most academic publishers felt it was beneath their dignity to publish a book written for a wide audience.” The reason I have this book in front of me is because Lauren received it as a review book and instantly thought “Gillian needs to see this.” She thought it strongly enough to spend a small fortune on postage to get it to me. And yet other publishers thought that it wouldn’t have a readership. I’m torn. I want to say “Just go out and buy it and prove that those other publishers are idiots.” Readers like thinking. Readers are the specific subset of the human race that is most addicted to learning. All the editors I know already know this, but it turns out that big publishing houses don’t. This is a pity. So yes, I want to rant about the need to assume readers are thinking people, because if we are treated as creatures with interesting brains we will become them, even if we aren’t already. I won’t though, because the other thing I want to do is discuss this book. It’s such a very interesting book. The acknowledgements saddened me, but those words were proven wrong. A group of people (starting with Bertman’s agent) worked to get The Genesis of Science in print. And yet . . . the book is imperfect. Why did Lauren look at this book and instantly think of me? It’s about Ancient Greek science. I’m a firm believer in not throwing the baby out with the bathwater (also in tired metaphors); pre-Newtonian science has stuff to offer. Fascinating stuff to offer. It can grow our world just as much as modern science, but it takes it in different directions. It shows us a completely different cosmology, based on methods of interpretation (observation, mathematics, experiments) we already know. It adds cultural interpretations we need to understand, if we want to understand ourselves. The Genesis of Science claims to look at this for one cultural group, the one that historically was probably the most influential of all in terms of how we measure and explain our physical reality: the Ancient Greeks Always read the acknowledgements. Always read the prologue. The prologue in this book shows Bertman’s basic approach. He adores Ancient Greek science and he trusts in the eighteenth century view of it. This comes up throughout his book; his view of the Greeks is the Enlightenment view. If you don’t agree with this (which I admit, I don’t) you may want to skip the first few chapters, where he uses the same standpoint to examine (briefly) Prehistoric and Mesopotamian and other Ancient Sciences. Also the last few chapters, where he looks at Ancient Rome, more modern Greek science, the science of Central America, of Stonehenge, of Ancient China. Where this overview falls down is that it’s far too inclusive and at the same time far too selective. He dismisses Jewish science as irrelevant, he hardly discusses the Middle Ages at all, and yet he includes Stonehenge and Central America. Also, Bertman is far too dependent on that Enlightenment view. Ancient Hebrews weren’t scientists, apparently, even though the Ancient Hebrews did some astonishing things with calendars and were (just possibly) linked to the Ancient Mesopotamians who were good with science. The Ancient Mesopotamians chronologically overlapped with Ancient Hebrews in Bertman’s recounting, so the links cannot really be denied. To put the same issue quite differently, Bertman sets up a thesis—in this case, that it takes a certain kind of culture to succeed at science—and then everything is shoehorned in. This works much better for the detailed examination of the Greeks than it does for the cursory summary of other cultures. Bertman cherry picks from other ancient sciences to prove his case. Fortunately, although these chapters are multitudinous, they are also short and not what the book is about. They do, however, demonstrate that the relationship between science and religion (or assumptions of historical religion) is not something that’s easy to handle. There are perfectly authoritarian and also good deeply religious approaches to science. Sometimes the scientist is not a hero. In fact, quite often the scientist is making a living and has invented a better way to clean metal or a prettier pigment that will sell nicely to artists or desperately needs a calculation that will get that ship safely home when it goes to sea. Science is as much about pragmatics as it is about ideals. I would have liked to see more exploration of this in Bertman’s book. What were the different motivators in Ancient Greece for all the science? How did it fit into the wider culture and why was it recorded and treasured? Some of the answers to these questions are implicit in the book itself: the science is treasured today because Bertman has some excellent company in his view of the Ancient Greeks as one of the great peoples in human history, for instance. Other answers aren’t even considered. Bertman lauds scientists. For him they are deep thinkers and inquirers who interpret the universe. The attitude Bertman espouses comes from the Enlightenment and beyond and deeply informs modern science. While it’s limiting—it excludes some cultures that have made major scientific breakthroughs, and in heroicising it excludes the everyday—it’s important we know where Bertman is coming from, what his position is in these matters. If we didn’t, I would have less respect for the book: it’s the position and biases of the author that show us how to interpret the book. Additionally (and this is an important “additionally”) a writer who is intellectually honest about what shapes his own thinking, is giving the reader a gift of great importance. Bertman gives us the key to interpreting his book and understanding his strengths and weaknesses through putting his own philosophy and approach up front, in the prologue. He assumes intelligent readers who can interpret his book and that means, for those intelligent readers, the book is wide open for interpretation. The body of the book is an excellent short introduction to the science, scientists and sources of Ancient Greece. Bertman footnotes generously and provides translated quotations from works as varied as Aristophanes (for whom I have a strong weakness) and Cassius Dio. Very sensibly, he talks about the transmission of our knowledge of each aspect of science we know about for Ancient Greece. In other words (with caveats about the opening and closing sections) this is an excellent introduction to the subject. It’s written in a lively fashion and Bertman understands how historical interpretation of the primary sources works. This latter is particularly important: a history of science is only as good as the writer’s understanding of sources. There is a big difference in the reliability of something that’s a summary of an account that was written hundreds of years after the event and an eyewitness explanation. Pointing readers to where they can check the sources themselves is also crucial. There aren’t that many end notes and most readers may ignore them, but it’s very important they are there. Bertman’s science is lucid and his examples well-chosen. He does, however, connect this science directly to modern science, which is as problematic as the cherry-picking of other ancient cultures to give overviews. Tracing modern technology from Ancient Greek ideas needs a lot more time and space than Bertman gives. Making these links ignores the work of the two thousand-plus years of scientists working in between the Greeks and the moderns—this (again) is a very Enlightenment view. In the Enlightenment the Grand Idea was to revive and build upon the brilliance of the Ancients, which assumes that the brilliance of the Ancients outshone the mundane souls who lived in between two periods of greatness. It’s an assumption that contains many, many problems. The biggest assumption is that the ideas are closely linked. They may be. It may be that a particular group of modern scientists have used a particular historical piece of science as their inspiration. This needs to be demonstrated in each and every case, however, in the same excellent way Bertman explains the sources for Greece itself. Bertman assumes, in other words, an historical continuity for science and doesn’t demonstrate that continuity. What’s interesting (from my, Medievalist, point of view) is that it’s perfectly possible to demonstrate the links between Ancient and Modern, because there are some rather wonderful works of Medieval science (Grosseteste on optics, for instance, would be interesting) that can be used. It’s complex, however, and would require a longer book. I suspect that I, personally, would rather Bertman had not made any links at all than that he made the simple ones, leaving out the work of all the scientists who worked in that rather long time period between ancient and modern. When Bertman changes his formula and talks about the application of principles first articulated by the Greeks, the gap in time ceases to be a problem. In short, Bertman’s book has some excellent sections. It also has summaries of events and thought that are too cursory and rest on assumptions that need demonstrating; i.e., that are not obviously true (my best example of this is the assumption than ancient alchemists wanted to make gold—the reason I would have liked to see this proven is that, from my reading, Medieval alchemists were far more interested in chemistry with use for metalwork or art—e.g., pigments for painting, acids for etching—weren’t ancient alchemists also interested in income?). In my ideal world, there is a second edition, where Bertman addresses these issues. In the real world, the actual explanations of Greek science and its sources make the book very worthwhile. In other words—read, but read with care. The core of the book is wonderful, but Bertman tries to make the specific universal, and the discussions of Ancient China, Central America and etcetera are not so useful. Books mentioned in this column:
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