Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything by Philip Ball

Abstract

Philip ball. Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. viii+ 465 pages. $25.25.The historical period often referred to as scientific revolution brought about a change in practices and evaluation of curiosity. Philip ball 's Curios- ity: How Science Became Interested in Everything is a study of vicissitudes of curiosity during scientific revolution. The first several chapters place practices of curiosity, and way they are expressed and transformed during scientific revolution, in their cultural context: chapter 2 focuses on secret societies dedicated to study of mysterious phenomena, chapter 3 discusses wealthy collectors of curiosities, and chapter 5 notes emergence of poly- math academics. Middle chapters highlight extraordinary seventeenth- century scientific and technological advances, including Galileo's defense of heliocentrism with his telescope (chapter 7), boyle's experiments with his air- pump (chapter 9), and Hooke's detailed depictions of microscopic world (chapter 10). Final chapters explore social, literary, and philosophical critiques of scientific curiosity, and discuss present-day scientific projects, such as Large Hadron Collider and Mars rover, aptly named Curiosity.What is curiosity? ball notes term curiosity is polysemous-the multiple meanings of term are made salient in his study of shift in way curiosity is expressed, institutionalized, and judged as a trait worthy or wicked. The mode of curiosity as wonder-as collecting curious items, as ex- ploring mysterious phenomena in a secret society, and as display of strange feats for courtly patrons-is more prominent in early stages of scientific revolution, ball argues. such wondrous curiosity becomes denigrated as scientific revolution takes hold, during which mode of curiosity as inquiry becomes more dominant-the systematic observation of nature, often with technical devices, with aim of explanation. This inquisitive curiosity trou- bles conservative academics and clerics, but becomes dominant mode of natural philosophers by mid- to late-seventeenth century. This rapid cultural shift causes some confusion. For example, around 1617, Johann valentin An- dreae began to promote societies were dedicated in part to pursuit of scientific knowledge, but only a couple of years later he published Treatise on Pestilence of Curiosity, which condemned curiosity as that immodest thirst to know and do what lies beyond customary cleverness of human beings (qtd. in ball 75). Perhaps Andreae had a subtle view about sorts of subjects lie within customary cleverness of humans, or perhaps he was simply using terms in different senses. At this historical turning point, it is hard to know.One of central themes of Curiosity is a shift in way curiosity was expressed and evaluated. early modern natural historians collected unfamiliar items with intention of evoking wonder. such collections were typically displayed in a cabinet of curiosities and were undisciplined by theoretical frameworks or organizational categories. Plenty of data about all sorts of sub- jects were collected, but little sense was made of this data, according to ball: vast, undisciplined lists of claims and recipes and marvels, of widely varying credibility, lacking any coherent explanation or structure (47). This practice was, to use a kuhnian term, pre-paradigm, and thus not quite science. simi- larly, magicians manifested strange phenomena with intention of evoking mystery and surprise. Francis bacon was unsatisfied with such a hodgepodge of mysterious artifacts and phenomena: the mark of genuine science is its explanations take mystery out of things. imposture dresses things up to seem more wonderful than they would be without dress (qtd. in ball 100). Natural philosophers became more systematic in their investigations, and they began to develop theoretical explanations for some phenomena. …