nealalex's review against another edition
3.0
The original title of this book was ‘Free Radicals’ so the ‘Anarchy’ shouldn’t be taken seriously. Doubtless via hasty editing, some supposedly ‘anarchic’ behaviours, such as belonging to a North American labour union, clearly are not.
Still, the book has a point. Some scientists insist we follow, or should follow, ‘the’ scientific method even though they can’t say what it is. Experiments, for example, are not vital to all sciences, such as astronomy. The book gives deserved mileage to Feyerabend’s ‘anything goes’ assessment. Although Feynman is quoted a few times, his description of science as ‘organised scepticism’ isn’t mentioned, perhaps for fear of making the book seem verbose and superfluous.
At school I was taught the ‘tongue map’ of flavour zones. In fact, if memory serves, I got different substances dropped onto my tongue and was asked to affirm the theory: doubtless I obliged. The trouble is that there’s no evidence for this theory. At least, that’s what Wikipedia says. No, I haven’t checked the primary sources: no-one can do that for everything they rely on, so there are always likely to be some false ‘facts’ circulating. One of the book’s examples is Watson and Crick being misled by incorrect textbooks, with Crick concluding that he shouldn’t ‘place too much reliance on any single piece of experimental evidence’. We’d like to think that scepticism will self-correct such errors, although this may be far from reliable (see eg last year’s ‘Trouble at the Lab’ article in The Economist).
The book’s serious and valid points are cheapened by its bluster, for example introducing a chapter on scientific rivalries by way of a bridge-blowing scene from For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Still, the book has a point. Some scientists insist we follow, or should follow, ‘the’ scientific method even though they can’t say what it is. Experiments, for example, are not vital to all sciences, such as astronomy. The book gives deserved mileage to Feyerabend’s ‘anything goes’ assessment. Although Feynman is quoted a few times, his description of science as ‘organised scepticism’ isn’t mentioned, perhaps for fear of making the book seem verbose and superfluous.
At school I was taught the ‘tongue map’ of flavour zones. In fact, if memory serves, I got different substances dropped onto my tongue and was asked to affirm the theory: doubtless I obliged. The trouble is that there’s no evidence for this theory. At least, that’s what Wikipedia says. No, I haven’t checked the primary sources: no-one can do that for everything they rely on, so there are always likely to be some false ‘facts’ circulating. One of the book’s examples is Watson and Crick being misled by incorrect textbooks, with Crick concluding that he shouldn’t ‘place too much reliance on any single piece of experimental evidence’. We’d like to think that scepticism will self-correct such errors, although this may be far from reliable (see eg last year’s ‘Trouble at the Lab’ article in The Economist).
The book’s serious and valid points are cheapened by its bluster, for example introducing a chapter on scientific rivalries by way of a bridge-blowing scene from For Whom the Bell Tolls.
ederwin's review
4.0
A very entertaining series of anecdotes about scientists behaving badly. The author is trying to make a point as well, but I don't care. I simply found the anecdotes entertaining. The biggest shock was that most of them were new to me. He even had stories to tell about Einstein that I hadn't heard before.
halfmanhalfbook's review
4.0
An interesting book about the maverick scientist, but jumps about a bit too much for my liking
More...