杏吧原创

Rivals by Michael White, Secker & Warburg, 拢12.99, ISBN
0436204630

THE role of conflict in the history of science is explored in Rivals.
This is rich ground for a writer to till, and Michael White ploughs through
some interesting episodes. From the tensions between astronomers and the Roman
Catholic church during the Renaissance, to more clearly recognisable rivalries
such as those between Newton and Leibniz, and Lavoisier and Priestley. Then he
moves into modern times: the Manhattan Project, the space race and contemporary
conflicts over software.

But despite the subtitle, Conflicts as the fuel of science, White concludes
that rivalries both suppress and stimulate progress. 鈥淧rogress鈥� is a strong
theme here. Woe betide any scientist on the losing side: phlogiston theory was
鈥渁n intellectual blind alley that retarded the subject for almost a
肠别苍迟耻谤测鈥�.

Poor Aristotle was uniquely responsible for the Dark Ages. The only useful
purpose such villains serve in the history of science is to provide the heroes
with something to kick.

An editor could perhaps have sorted out the meandering plots, and sifted out
the irrelevant material. A critical reader of the manuscript might also have
addressed the claims that Darwin鈥檚 work was quantitative, that Martin Ryle was
the author of big bang theory, and that the Los Alamos scientists working on the
Manhattan Project did not know that the Germans hadn鈥檛 built a bomb. There are
better stories, and better histories than these to be told about scientific
rivals.