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Books

Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond by Jon Agar

Vincent di Norcia finds fault with Jon Agar’s analysis of 20th century science.

This is an extensive chronicle of twentieth century science, from 1900 through World Wars I and II and the Cold War to contemporary times – but there is no index. Agar devotes a chapter each to physics, life science, psychology, and quantum mechanics – but he errs in overusing the Newtonian term ‘matter’ rather than ‘energy’, which modern physics has shown to be the ultimate reality (since matter is equivalent to energy, but energy cannot be created or destroyed, only change its form). Agar goes on to consider the military, political, commercial, ideological and medical contexts of research, small- and large-scale science, and technology – but the book is too wide-ranging and unfocused, and two hundred pages too long. Indeed several sections could have beneficially been dropped: namely, those on the social sciences, networks, large- and small-scale science, and on several non-sciences, such as psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology, Vienna Circle positivism, scientific management, Lysenko’s biology, and Nazi eugenics – all theories of varying, and dubious, validity.

Agar’s aim is ‘synthesis’: he wants “to look for patterns common [to] scientific projects across different disciplines and nations.

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