James Burke
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By: Back Bay Books
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
The evolution of change. 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.
This review is based on the first American edition, which was published as a companion to the PBS program, "The Day the Universe Changed". I am assuming that the book is identical with the original British edition.
This is another in the series of excellent popular science and technology books by James Burke. The title is a little misleading, though, in that it does not deal with a specific day, rather with the overturning of paradigms (although the term paradigm is never used in the text). The book is lavishly illustrated, in the mold of the books that are companions to PBS series. (In this regard, I do not know if the original edition is also as lavishly illustrated.)
Each chapter begins with a view of the world before "The Day the Universe Changed", for instance, a world in which the sun revolves around the earth and the sun, moon, planets and stars each reside on Celestial Spheres. The book then shows how this view was changed by the observations of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Kepler, then how Galileo and then Newton synthesized this data into a new view of the heavens. The same sort of approach is given to chemistry, medicine, geology, biology and other fields. The main theme of the book is that the view of the universe is not static. While Newton's view of light prevailed for over 200 years, it was eventually changed by Einstein. The book shows how the retrieval of the philosophy of the Greeks from the Arabs started these changes. It shows how many factors interact, for instance and how the development of perspective drawing and printing affected the development of science.
The last chapter of the book is the most thought provoking. It proposes that there is no objective truth, but that what we see as truth is actually a construct of the current structure of thought and that "truth is relative" to this structure. The "truth" of an earth-centered universe was framed by the prevailing structure of reality. When this structure was changed by the development of experimental data and scientific thought, the view of the universe changed, but Burke maintains there is no basis to believe that the "scientific" view is any more valid. "The truth is relative." Fortunately, one can skip this chapter and view this book as a history of the evolution of the ideas of physics, chemistry, geology and biology, which it is.
In view of the current controversy over intelligent design, the chapter on the changes in the geological interpretation of the earth and how it spawned the theory of evolution is particularly enlightening. It draws into clearer perspective why the theory of evolution and the geological view of an earth that is billions of years old is such a threat to the paradigm believed by fundamental Christians.
Editorial Review:
When people knew the earth was flat and it was the center of the universe, all life revolved around that truth. Galileo's telescope changed the truth. And with that one change, all architecture, music, literature, science, politics -- everything changed, mirroring the new view of truth. This tape is James Burke's examination of the moments in history when a change in knowledge radically altered man's understanding of himself and the world around him.Few people are able to look at human history and see it not as a jumble of half-remembered names and dates, but as an intricate mosaic of neatly interlocking pieces. Fewer still can describe the patterns and explain the parts of the puzzle so that it not only makes sense, but so that it also fascinates and intrigues, excited and entertains. James Burke tells history like it's the plot of the most interesting mystery ever written.
