The ORIGINS OF MODERN SCIENCE

Rating:
Summary: Scholarly, but dated
Review: "It is the so-called 'scientific revolution,' popularly associated with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but reaching back in an unmistakeably continuous line to a period much earlier still... - it outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom" (Butterfield, pg.7).

Butterfield begins his seminal work in the hisory of science with these words, which expertly illustrate the thesis, and time-frame, of the book. Given as a series of lectures in the mid-1950's, his audience would largely have been products of an educational establishment used to glorifying the more artistic and religious aspects of Western European history - namely, his two chief targets for dethronement, the Renaissance and Reformation. Thus, his hubris may be seen as warranted in a historical sense. He is beating his audience over the head with a new idea and its associated area of study, the importance of science in and to the development of the modern world.

That having been said, 'The Origins of Modern Science' is worth reading as long as one keeps its triumphalist thesis in mind. It was a groundbreaking work of historiography as Butterfield broke from the previous and largely Whiggish histories of science. It is routinely assigned in undergraduate survey classes on the subject. And his information is accurate. For the novice, however, and given the breadth and scope of contemporary history of science, there are many other titles to choose from whose theses are not so arrogant.

Rating:
Summary: Arrogant? No way. Challenging? Yes, and revolutionary too
Review: A previous reviewer called the thesis of this book - that the progress of science in Western society was the main historical current from the thirteenth to the twentieth century, to the point of relegating Renaissance and Reformation to the status of side issues - "arrogant". To the contrary, it seems to me not only justified (which has more influence on the lives of all men today, rich and poor: Martin Luther or electricity?) but a very welcome corrective to the ridiculous overvaluation of the sixteenth century and its heresies. The largely coincidental presence of a number of outstanding painters and architects (and a few English and Spanish playwrights) have given this period a gloss that it did not deserve; for intellectual and historical significance, the thirteenth, fourteenth and nineteenth are infinitely more important. But as for Sir Herbert Butterfield's delightful masterpiece, what one has to understand is how much it destroys, not only of much historical prejudice, but specifically of the way the history of science itself was taught. His account, in his very first chapter, of the reaction of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century to Aristotle, of the existence of an anti-Aristotelian tradition which reached Leonardo, of the significance of the willingness to challenge an ancient authority not on the basis of another authority but of one's own observation and research - all of this is a desperately needed corrective of historiographical cliches that are still, a full half-century after Buttefield, being taught. Likewise the very title of his second chapter, "the conservatism of Copernicus". And I could go on. Every chapter, almost every page, knocks down some lazy stereotype that is still today being handed down from journalist to journalist.
But what is most important in this book is its central historical thesis: that science is not a "revolution" that exploded out of nowhere with Galileo (or even worse, with that desperate catch-all of ignorant scribblers, the Renaissance), but rather a tradition, you might say almost an apostolical succession, that goes back as far as the thirteenth century; that is, it is coeval with the rise of the distinctive Western (rather than Christian or Roman) civilization, with its distinctive cultural institutions - Universities and the private commercial publication of books. Butterfield's ability to discriminate, his insight into what is genuinely scientific and what he would call "archaic", are used in the service of a historical theory that, as far as I am concerned, has not aged and is still valid.

Rating:
Summary: Classic work
Review: I discovered this book at the age of 15 in a box of one of my father's college books. I ended up reading it, and it sparked an interest in the history of science and technology, as well as the philosophy of science. I ended up reading perhaps a dozen other books in these two areas before I even got to college, becoming fairly knowledgeable about the subjects while still a fairly young teenager, and I continued these studies in college, even though I ultimately majored in something else--neurobiology. I have Butterfield's classic work to thank for this, and although I understand there are better histories on the subject now, it nevertheless fulfilled an important role in my early intellectual development.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Book
Review: Professor Butterfield's history is easy to read and refreshing. Especially interesting are his chapters on pre-Newtonian mechanics and the transfer from Ptolemaic to Copernican models of the universe.

Rating:
Summary: A Good, Basic Overview
Review: The Origins of Modern Science, besides providing a scholarly overview of some of the developments of science in the west since late medieval times, advances the notion that the Scientific Revolution stands far above such epochs as the Renaissance or Reformation in importance to the development of western civilization. This, at least, was the impression I gained from the reading, and the latter point is spelled out in the introduction. Based on lectures of Herbert Butterfield first delivered in 1948, another goal is to stimulate interest in science history from historians, and also from the scientific community.

The modern reader has many choices of science history books from which to choose. For someone a little bit familiar with the field Butterfield's work is a good overview. For someone not familiar with the field, I think it would make difficult reading if not supplemented by other books or by classroom discussion. So far as his second goal goes, I think he is right about the importance of the Scientific Revolution, but his transition from what was to what became is weak. After Newton, Butterfield points out only that the numbers and organization of scientists increased. True, he points out that Newton's mathematization and simplification of the universe was tremendously influential on other fields of thought, but on the whole I don't think he's made the connection.

However, this does not mean that I think the work is without value. Rather, I find it well thought out and well written. The scope is necessarily limited by the original lecture format, but this also keeps the writing concise and focused. Although more recent historiography frowns on calling anyone a 'great mind', I'm sympathetic to the point of view that the men involved in early modern scientific thinking were in fact great and intelligent, and should be commended for their work. This does not mean that Butterfield has presented a laundry list of Dark Ages Ignorance that was overcome by the lone genius, but he has accurately described the prevailing world views of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and explained how much effort it took to change or overthrow them.