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Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science And Changed The World (2014)

by Laura J. Snyder(Favorite Author)

4 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1299005144 (ISBN13: 9781299005143)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Broadway Books

review 1: If scientists cannot write on science for the non-scientist, the occasional philosopher can do better. While I found the science descriptions a bit Potemkinish and monolithic, they are clear and well composed. This book tells a story in about as good a fashion as can be expected given the complications. I would have liked a bit more comparison between philosophies of science practice. For example, Whewell's view of science as flowing from the scholar-scientist is not compared to todays idea of the scientist as reacting to science. Both are likely accurate states with mixed forms stable. But the work is well worth reading but needs be balanced with something a bit more contemporary lest one come to the hypothesis that scientists are now extinct.
review 2: For a ... morefew months, from late 1812 until the spring of 1813, four students at Cambridge would meet on Sunday mornings to discuss science (among other topics). These four - Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Richard Jones, and William Whewell - vowed to change science by making it more "scientific" (this term had not yet been coined). This book uses the story of these four friends, all of whom went on to very illustrious careers, to frame the larger narrative of how science changed throughout the nineteenth century.If you're at all interested in science, it's a great read. It is long, but I never really felt like it dragged. Often several paragraphs are spent introducing someone who is then only mentioned once or twice in the rest of the book; these almost-parenthetical references may be annoying to some, but they are so well done that I seldom really took note of them. less

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