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The Science Of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, And The Laws Of Nature (2010)

by Timothy Ferris(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0060781505 (ISBN13: 9780060781507)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Harper

review 1: Ferris argues that science promotes liberty, or he argues that liberty promotes science. It's not clear from the get go. On page 2, he says that his book “maintains that the democratic revolution was sparked – caused is perhaps not too strong a word – by the scientific revolution....” Yet, two pages later, he writes that “The claim that science flourishes only in liberal-democratic environments rests on five assertions,” thereby suggesting that a liberal-democratic environment is the causal agent. Either way, the two are intimately connected and the rest of this book covers Western intellectual history about how this is so – rewriting what has been covered so many times before by others but now loosely weaving together the connections between liberty and ... morescience.It's an interesting argument but I'm not sure it's compelling. “'Only the educated are free,'” Ferris quotes Epictetus. That might be news to the illiterate monk in the Himalayas or to the Comanche warriors. And Ferris has a full chapter on that part of highly educated academia that is rabidly anti-science, and includes a long discussion about how some intellectual activists resist scientific findings regarding our biological nature because that would make it more difficult to correct social problems (it's easier to work with a blank slate). The rise of science in the West came from the Muslim importation of Greek thought to the Italian city-states, “known for their liberty,” Ferris writes, thus suggesting that liberty preceded science at the beginning of the renaissance. Of course good science in the wrong hands (Hitler, Stalin) is not such a good thing, and not all scientists are enlightened regarding human freedom (e.g., espousal of eugenics). And, others have their own theories about the origins of freedom. Robert Heilbroner, for example, writes in "The Nature and Logic of Capitalism" that “political freedom in modern times...has only appeared in capitalist states.”At the beginning of his final chapter, Ferris quotes Emerson; “The world exists, as I understand it, to teach the science of liberty.” I presume this is the basis for the title of Ferris' book, but it throws me off. This suggests that the book is about the science that underlies human freedom – it's evolutionary origins, perhaps, and why we care about freedom at all so that we can seriously yell out, “Give me freedom or give me death.” That's not what Ferris' book is about. His argument is that science promotes or creates liberal democracies. Whether it does or does not is an open question. It is an overstatement to call it a “science.”
review 2: Very Good. I like this book. This will become a reference tool for awhile, as it covers all one needs to know about how science and liberty fostered some of the greatest advances of science and liberty! The entire planet needs to read this book but, I will start by passing it on to my friends. . . But first, I must read it again (11/11/2012). I read this back in June and I loved it but, I was moving and couldn't really absorb it. I started reading it again and, I moved again! I am a big fan of Ferris and I may just keep this one. less

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