My friend Jim is helping me see science’s current troubles from an historical perspective. And that’s making me, the end-of-science guy, even gloomier about science’s prospects.
James E. McClellan III is professor emeritus of the history of science at Stevens Institute of Technology, where I teach. Together with the late historian Harold Dorn, Jim wrote Science and Technology in World History, which traces human knowledge-seeking and invention from the Stone Age to the digital age. It’s deeply researched and yet fun to read, quite the accomplishment.
Jim has been re-researching and re-writing his book for a new edition, and I’m reading his updated chapters as the finishes them. One theme jumps out at me: Power, not truth, has always been the primary aim of human knowledge-seekers. Almost all ancient societies accumulated knowledge for practical reasons: because it helps us heal, feed and house ourselves, plan ahead, travel and communicate, kill our enemies and so on.
The exception is the Hellenistic empire, which resulted from the conquests of Alexander the Great (tutored by Aristotle) and lasted for three centuries. Greek rulers built the library of Alexandria and other centers of learning, where scholars could indulge their curiosity just for fun. Within reason.
The Romans, who displaced the Greeks, cared a lot about medicine and engineering, but they didn’t invest much in research for its own sake. Either did ancient civilizations that emerged in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India and the Americas. For most cultures, religion served as the source of ultimate truth.
Not until the 19th century, long after Newton had done his thing and when the industrial revolution was under way, did Europe and the U.S. begin recognizing the economic, medical and military potential of research untethered to specific practical goals. And only after World War II did governments invest heavily in “basic” research, hoping for more spinoffs as nifty as The Bomb.