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Laura J. Snyder
THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB: FOUR REMARKABLE FRIENDS WHO TRANSFORMED SCIENCE AND CHANGED THE WORLD New York. Crown Publishing Group. 448 pp reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com not listed 11/29/2010 but see Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society by Snyder, Laura J same book, different title? Would you recommend this book to other readers? review: =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 12/04/2010 name of review: "Knowledge is Power" - Sir Francis Bacon rating: * * * * * review: In 1833 The British Association for the Advancement of Science met, 852 members attending. Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge rose and took the meeting to task for the ungentlemanly kind of work that British so called "men of science" or "savants" were now doing. They grubbed in pits for fossils.They played with electricity. They got their hands dirty. They had lost the right to call themselves "natural philosophers." On the spot a new word was proposed: "scientist." The proposer was 30-something William Whewell, Professor of Mineralogy of Trinity College, Cambridge. It was another 40 years before the new word caught on and in the USA before in stodgy Britain. Professor Laura Snyder tells the story of Whewell, the son of a carpenter, and three of his like-minded friends in THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB: FOUR REMARKABLE FRIENDS WHO TRANSFORMED SCIENCE AND CHANGED THE WORLD. The other three were -- Charles Babbage,
inventor
of the first computer,
-- astronomer William Herschel and -- mathematician RIchard Jones. All were students together at Cambridge University. After they graduated and had begun to publish, these four friends between 1820 and 1870 made the practice of science more precise, more mathematical, more inductive, less a priori deductive and more in the service of humanity. This program they had determined to do during a very few Sunday morning meetings after chapel in 1812 -1813 in the St. John's College rooms of William Herschel. With a few others they formed the short-lived but fruitful Philosophical Breakfast Club. Each week a different topic was discussed. But the driving force was Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626). Bacon said, "Knowlege is power." And he meant the power to subject nature to the control of men in a mental structure that Bacon called "Solomon's House." The four friends and their allies vowed to update Bacon's agenda and revolutionize the world of science. And they did. Author Snyder tells their individual stories and how the four lives, marriages, cooperative projects and much besides interlocked one with another. Each man was a creative genius impacting a United Kingdom and a France and Germany running over with genius. Laura Snyder uses these four lives to frame colossal scientific advances in a score of areas, including optics, telescopes, astronomy, economics, mathematics, electro-magnetism. measurement of the tides, the first computers and the birth of artificial intelligence. Mapping of land masses, codes and ciphers, natural theology, Darwin and the origin of species, even music: nothing that could be known by men or, increasingly, women of genius, was foreign to the program of the Philosophical Breakfast Club in their desire to bring old Cambridge scholar Francis Bacon back to life. Fossils, minerals, sun spots, new moons and planets, nebulae, ethics: all were grist for their mill. This was also the age of steam engines, power looms, ironclad ships, steamboats, railroads, of Napoleon, Czars and empire-building. THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB is a thorough-going work of careful historical and scientific scholarship. It is also popular, clearly written, fast paced and pleasant reading. Judge for yourselves! -OOO- http://www.lunch.com/reviews/book/UserReview-The_Philosophical _Breakfast_Club_Four_Remarkable_Friends_Who_Transformed_ Science_and_Changed_the_World-1671558-195590-_Knowledge _is_Power_Sir_Francis_Bacon.html1 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com 12/06/2010 title of review: Science should imitate neither ant nor spider, but the bee. (Francis Bacon) rating: * * * * * review: Posted 12/6/2010: The scientific methods of two great men of Cambridge University: Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon were re-formulated and re-applied in the 19th Century by four Cambridge students. The four friends were Charles Babbage, William Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell. THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB is their story. Although the book is long, complex and refers to 25 or 30 distinct objects of science and technology (e.g. optics, meteorology, computing machines, tides, telescopes, etc.) the author's imposed structure, though debatable, is simple and easily stated. Professor Snyder describes five or six key ideas expressed in the principal works of Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626). She then has us imagine Babbage, Herschel, Jones and Whewell discussing those Sunday after Sunday from late 1812 until Spring 1813. They then resolve in a sort of teamwork to apply Bacon's ideas and models to British and European science. The rest of the text details the impressive Baconian achievements of the four friends. Bacon's ideas are presented in six pages of Chapter 2, "Philosophical Breakfasts." Bacon's two main sources cited are GREAT INSTAURATION (Renewal) - including the NOVUM ORGANUM (1620) and his "exploration genre" novel NEW ATLANTIS (published 1627). His ideas: "a revolution of
thought and action" ... "science should help transform the condition of
life" ... "knowledge is power ... meaning that by understanding nature,
man would have the power to take control of the natural world in order
to bring about improvements necessary for society."
A fresh start was needed. Aristotle as narrowly understood in the Middle Ages must go. There is more to thinking than analytical reasoning from premises to conclusions. People must learn to think like Bacon: inductively, reasoning from facts to hypotheses and testing theories by their predictive power. Observe the real world. Record data accurately and precisely. Notice instances of light that is not hot. Do not be like the spider that "spins webs out of his own substance." Go, as well, beyond the ant, noted for gathering facts but creating no explanatory theories. Imitate the bee. It collects pollen. It digests pollen. The bee then makes something new: honey. Do not consider science and religion to be in opposition. God created two books, the Bible and the works of nature. Read and reverence both books. Reward men of science.
Do not just give them prizes after they have found a solution (as would
one day be done for "longitude calculation"). But give men and women
honors, benefits, pensions for research and for simply pledging to try
to solve problems.
England needs a new kind of scientific institution. Bacon sketched it in NEW ATLANTIS: Solomon's House. In Solomon's House some fellows go forth on voyages to explore. Some review experiments already recorded in books. Some redo the experiments. Some create hypotheses to explain the facts. Others propose theories subject to verification or falsification. The rest of the book shows the four friends over the next 60 years "Baconizing" a world already or soon to be teeming with inventions (steam engines, punch-card fed silk looms, steamboats, electricity, telegraph, photography) and theories (evolution of species, natural selection, survival of the fittest, Malthusianism). A grand romp through 19th century science, mathematics and biography. -OOO- recommended reading: -- Francis Bacon - THE NEW ATLANTIS, NOVUM ORGANUM -- Daphne Du Maurier - THE WINDING STAIR - FRANCIS BACON: HIS RISE AND FALL http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Philosophical- Breakfast-Club/Laura-J-Snyder/e/9780767930482/?itm =1&USRI=laura+j.+snyder+-+the+philosophical+breakfast+club =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com/VINE 12/06/2010 title of review: "how unlike chance everything looks" rating: * * * * * review: Professor Laura J. Snyder, author of THE PHILOSOPHIC BREAKFAST CLUB makes a plausible case. According to her, four young men, in a series of weekly meeting from late 1812 into the spring of 1813, resolved to implement for the first time ever in 19th Century Great Britain revolutionary ideas about science originally proposed in the 1620s by Sir Francis Bacon. The young Cambridge undergraduates were Charles Babbage, William Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell. Whether these Dumasian intellectual "musketeers" actually did or did not resolve in 1813 to work together throughout their lifetimes to reform science, Snyder says that they did. And she structures this hypothesized project to unify her lively romp through a score or two of scientific, industrial, mathematical and philosophical preoccupations of 19th Century Britain. And this unifying structure works very well, so far as this reader is concerned. Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) had argued in NOVUM ORGANUM and NEW ATLANTIS that science should be both inductive and deductive. "Scientists," a term not coined before1833 by William Whewell, should get their hands dirty, go into the world, observe, measure with great accuracy, then form hypotheses to explain what they have observed and to predict future events. Bacon also called for cooperation among scientists in new kinds of associations. Their researches should be funded by governments and their achievements rewarded with titles, pensions and high social status. Author Snyder shows all four friends hard at work to realize the Baconian vision. -- Charles Babbage
spent a lifetime pioneering artificial intelligence and
proto-computers.
-- William Herschel took over from his Astronomer Royal father the mapping of the heavens, including during a four year stay in Capetown, South Africa. -- Richard Jones recognized the value of statistics and applied hands-on inductive methodology of geology to economics. Karl Marx would praise Jones's meticulous study of history in relation to economic phenomena. -- William Whewell was into everything, including university reform. Whewell famously reduced to mathematical forms the economic axioms of David Ricardo, including "men desire to obtain as much wealth with as little effort as possible" (Ch. 5). Scholars look back to William Whewell as "father" of mathematical economics. He constantly encouraged Richard Jones and others to "inductivize" economics along the lines of geology and then make Baconized economics their model for doing likewise for other existing sciences. Richard Jones died in 1855, four years before Charles Darwin finally published his ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. But the other three friends were still living and each read and commented. Decades earlier Darwin had been set on fire by the ideas of how to do science by Herschel and Whewell. -- Babbage was early
converted to Darwinism.
-- Herschel's reaction was negative. He could not accept random, arbitrary selection, "the law of higgedly-piggedly (sic!)" (Ch. 12). According to Darwin, a faster wolf was not born pre-programmed for survival. Random variation just happened to give this wolf and advantage over slower rivals for food. -- To Herschel, the world seemed purposeful: "how unlike chance everything looks!" For his part Whewell believed in fixity of species. He did not accept Darwinism, but he complimented the author for "the amount and broad scope of Darwin's evidence. As long as they lived each of the four friends did science in the revived forms recommended by their hero Sir Francis Bacon. This review gives only a tiny sip from the varied nectars whose raw materials, like Bacon's model the honey bee, the four had inducted into their senses and imagination and then poured out as entirely new substances transformed by their powerful intellects. THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB is fast-paced, very visual voyage through 19th Century science, religion, mathematics and inventions such as the steamship and photography. -OOO- tags: Francis Bacon, Charles Babbage, William Herschel, Richard Jones, William Whewell, solomon's house, laura j. snyder http://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Breakfast-Club -Remarkable-Transformed/product-reviews/0767930487/ ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 (5) epinions.com 12/06/20110 Review Title: "Knowledge is Power" (Francis Bacon) Product Rating: * * * * * Pros: 19th Century British Science heyday begins in brief, youthful membership in "The Philosophical Breakfast Club" Cons: The Breakfast Club framework oversimplifies. Its four heroes are not uniquely giants. The Bottom Line: THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB is an exuberant romp across 19th Century British science, mathematics, religion, social unrest and philosophizing. Four men imprint their hero Francis Bacon on the world. aohcapablanca's Full Review: "Knowledge is Power" (Francis Bacon) by aohcapablanca, Dec 06 '10 I summon the boldest, most incisive epinionators to review with me Professor Laura J. Snyder's new book, THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB: FOUR REMARKABLE FRIENDS WHO TRANSFORMED SCIENCE AND CHANGED THE WORLD. If four students at Cambridge, starting in the winter of 1812-1813, launched as many wondrous deeds as this book says that they did for science over the next 50 years, then surely four doughty epinionators can do this volume justice. I could name a couple of dozen outstanding epinionators but will invoke only four to look this book over, take it apart and help the rest of us understand what 19th Century Britain did for modern science. I therefore urge three men and one woman to saddle up and "ride for the sound of the cannons" (Marshal Michel Ney): -- Texas-Swede (you get Charles
Babbage, computers and artificial intelligence)
-- Gas_man (please look into William Whewell's treatment of the revolutionary ideas of Sir Francis Bacon) -- Dolphinboy (for you: John Herschel, star-mapping, botany, photography and much more). and -- Jenniferkateab (take on, if you would, map maker and economist Richard Jones). Author Laura Snyder's a bit wobbly hypothesis is that Cambridge University undergraduates Babbage, Herschel, Jones and Whewell created a lifetime program during perhaps five months of Sunday morning breakast meetings that shaped today's science. The four young men discussed and debated the as yet unapplied ideas of an earlier Cambridge man, Sir Francis Bacon, and used them to transform the world. In old age two of these men translated Homer into English. They were all four myriad-minded and their achievements ranged over many ostensibly unrelated fields. They measured tides, discovered binary stars, mathematicized economics, created photography, probed statistics, ciphers and codes. Two of them inspired Charles Darwin. Three critiqued THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Following Bacon, the four applied science to real world problems, tithe maps, pure drinking water, just distribution of wealth and more. Let me conclude by focusing on only one of a hundred gripping episodes in THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB. The four friends were all about "Baconizing" science, giving inductive reasoning its due, getting their hands dirty digging up fossils and doing chemical experiments. Each felt that theories of scientific discovery should first take account of how scientists actually made discoveries. Let William Whewell stand for all. In 1837 he issued his three-volume, 1600 page HISTORY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES -- a world's first. He gave examples from many major scientific fields, "astronomy, mechanics, optics, mineralogy, botany, geology, acoustics, comparative anatomy, and others" (Ch. 10). Whewell argued that science developed progressively, "leading men and women ever closer to the truth." Scientific discovery resembled staged three-act dramas: preludes, epochs (discoveries) and sequels. Whewell then issued PHILOSOPHY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES: FOUNDED UPON THEIR HISTORY (1840). To know the physical world we use our ideas as threads on which to string pearls. Thus astronomer Johannes Kepler had used his reasoning to go beyond the data-gathering of Tycho Brahe. No discovery is an accident. A scientist's mind must be prepared. Thousands of people had seen apples falling. But Isaac Newton alone strung them on the thread of gravitation. Whewell's belief in the force of clear ideas, argues author Laura Snyder, comes from his earlier discoveries in architecture -- a topic deserving its own separate epinionator, perhaps Vicfar. The intrinsic potential of THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB to be dull or factually overwhelming cannot be overestimated. One science arena rapidly opens out into another and another and another. Systems of decryption mathematics roll past us like an assembly line. The sheer mass of information might produce sensory overload. But this book is downright fascinating. Its unity and concreteness are provided by the author's having framed 19th Century British science as, in large part, the product of the lives of four friends and their program to bring Francis Bacon back to life. Readers are led by philosopher of science, Laura J. Snyder, a mistress of her subject, into the world of phlogiston, oxygen, binary stars, longitude and latitude, debates about science as decoding the mind of God, about Government's obligation not just to reward discoverers with prizes after the fact, but to grant them resources in advance of discovery simply to start looking for solutions -- and on and on. The world changed radically between 1820 and 1870, "a period more remarkable than any ... in the annals of mankind ... those revolutions of science which have had much more effect than any political causes" (Benjamin Disraeli, 1873). The book has its weaknesses. -- Is it plausible that
such a colossal, sustained revolution really begin during just a few
months of breakfasts and discussions in 1812-1813?
-- Did the four friends really change the world as much as, say, their disciple Charles Darwin in evolutionary theory or as much as James Clerk Maxwell in electro-magnetism? Finally, did the four friends, each classically educated, begin building today's wall between humanities and sciences? If so, argues Laura Snyder, a convenient starting point is poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's open challenge to William Whewell at a large gathering of natural philosophers in 1833. You ditch digging, fossil grubbing, ungentlemanly experimenters do not not deserve the name "philosopher," asserted Coleridge. On the spot, Whewell agreed and suggested instead "scientist." It was 40 years before "scientist" as a new kind of inductively reasoning, professional man caught on, and in the USA sooner than in its birthplace, Great Britain. Scientists across the board had by then earned "star" status in Europe and the Americas. Author Snyder's final advice is for readers to look back to the Philosophical Breakfast Club for wise guidance on how to knit back together the two riven cultures (science, humanities), "to help us find a way to bring humanity
back into science, and a scientific wonder back into our everyday
experience of the world" (Epilogue: A New Horizon).
After all, as Sir Francis first said, "Knowledge is power." Thank you Pestyside/Patsy for making this great book reviewable by epinionators everywhere. Thank you amazon.com/vine for sending me THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB to review. -OOO- Recommended: YES. http://www.epinions.com/review/Laura_J_Snyder_The_Philosophical _Breakfast_Club_epi/content_533470613124/show_~allors |