Peter Bowler and John Pickstone, eds. Cambridge History of Science, vol.6: The Modern Biological and Earth Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 680 Pps., $160.00.
Peter J. Bowler is Professor of the History of Science at Queen’s University in Belfast, and John V. Pickstone is Wellcome Research Professor at Manchester University. Together they here edit a set of 33 essays, written by 30 different scholars, drawn from the latest thinking among historians of science dealing with issues and developments in the life and earth sciences since 1800. The volume is expansive (although not ‘encyclopedic’ per se) in its orientation, addressing the ‘traditional’ areas of science, innovations over the last two centuries (e.g. evolutionism), the emergence of genetics and biochemistry, and the developments of medical science. In what follows, we will highlight the distinct portions of the book in more detail.
Within the Introduction, Peter Bowler and John Pickstone outline the volume and provide needed context to the essays that follow. Particularly strong herein is the coverage that they give to the development of the biological sciences post-World War II, referring to it as a complete ‘restructuring’. David Allen begins Part I, which identifies key Workers and Places in these sciences over the last two centuries, with an article covering the transformations that took place within science in the nineteenth century; notable is the assertion that whereas the sciences became increasingly specialized in this century, the scientists working within them were not ‘specialists’, but amateurs instead.
Part II – Analysis and Experimentation – covers such disparate areas as Geology, Zoology, Botany, Evolution, Embryology, and Physiology. Particularly strong within this second part is Jonathon Hodge’s chapter on evolution. Although understandably centered on Charles Darwin, this chapter by Hodge spends considerable time clarifying the context – both before and after 1859 – of the evolutionary debate. Especially interesting is his coverage of the debates concerning the specifics of evolution: is it gradual or jumpy?, externally or internally directed?, regular or irregular? No definitive answers are given to these questions, but the coverage of them is more than satisfying.
Henry Frankel begins part III – New Objects and Ideas – with a chapter on Plate tectonics; particularly strong within this third part is the chapter on Genes by Richard M. Burian and Doris T. Zallen. Burian and Zallen highlight the current debate as to whether one should consider the gene as a discovery or invention, seemingly leaning towards the latter, giving substantial credence to the notion that the concept of a “gene” is more dubious than popularly presumed. Part IV – Science and Culture – is the apex of the volume, both in terms of location and worth; James Moore’s essay alone makes the volume worth the purchase price. In “Religion and Science,” Moore accentuates how (post?)modern historians seek to situate science and religion on common ground so as to recover the religiosity of science, and the scientificity of religion.
In sum, the editors have succeeded in providing a concise – inasmuch as possible – introduction to the life and earth sciences since the early 1800s; the volume is split – roughly – between the earth and life sciences, though I deem the life science material to be stronger. Written by experts in their respective fields, the chapters chart the increasingly specialized subdisciplines within the life and earth sciences, and will be profitably used as supplementary texts in graduate courses; I could see the text being used in upper-level courses studying the history and philosophy of science, as well as in courses covering – broadly – the dialogue between science and religion.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.