Book review: Curiosity by Philip Ball

Curiosity

Philip Ball

Bodley Head, £25

All of this and more is tackled in this intriguing but rather overwritten examination of, as the subtitle on the cover puts it: How Science Became Interested In Everything.

Ball has a long history of serving up quality popular science writing, starting on his home turf of chemistry but diversifying into all sorts of other areas, making him a true polymath. Unlike some of his other work, this book doesn’t purport to explain an area of science to the masses, rather it’s an overview of the history of science, focusing in on the 17th century and a change in thinking that can broadly be categorised as moving from closed to open-mindedness.

Ball coherently argues that prior to the 1600s, human thought was largely dominated by superstition and magic, with no real feeling for the causes and effects of life, nor of the idea that overarching theories could be developed about certain behaviours or phenomena, theories that could potentially be verified or not by empirical evidence.

In the past, Ball argues, histories of science have painted a rather black and white picture of this transformation from the Dark Ages to the Age of Enlightenment. Ball suggests that the picture is much more complex, and provides plenty of evidence from the archives to back himself up.

Indeed, the conflation of ideas like science, philosophy, magic, superstition, alchemy, curiosity and wonder is a fascinating one, and Ball here does a good job of delving inside the 17th-century mindset. It is already well known that some of our most famous scientists of this age also had other theories and ideas that, from a 21st-century view, seem entirely misguided and daft.

As Ball puts it: There was more magic and demonology afoot in the entire Royal Society than we are wont to believe, not because the members were superstitious or credulous (or at least, not all of them), but simply because that is how people thought in the 17th century. Nevertheless, the establishment of the Royal Society in the 1640s, with its motto of Take nobody’s word for it, seems to have been a turning point in the harnessing of natural human curiosity into a more focused and methodical form of scientific endeavour.

Ball handles all of this material well, especially in the later chapters when he lucidly talks through developments in astronomy thanks to the telescope, the influential role of the microscope in widening the mind’s horizons, and the very first tinkerings in chemistry thanks to experiments on luminosity and the nature of light.

But earlier on there is too much history and not enough science. One early chapter in particular reads like a rather boring Who’s Who of the European courts of the day, and could have easily been excised or heavily edited.

It’s a shame because the overarching story here of how astrology gave way to astronomy, how alchemy gave way to chemistry and how magic gave way to science is a fascinating one, and a more streamlined approach to telling it would have made for a more engaging tale. «