Putting science into words

2 Update Endeavour Vol. 35 No.1

house the Imperial War Museum, a juxtaposition that,Scheinfeldt argues, dramatically altered its direction, moti-vating it to take up ‘the mantle of peace museum’. DavidRooney’s chapter on the ‘Temporality of Space’ expands onthese themes, asking howmuch theMuseum’s galleries arethe ‘result of explicit plans . . . and howmuch have they beenshaped by external forces?’ Through case studies, Rooneypersuasively shows the contingency of successive Museumplans, with ‘[f]unction reforming form, perpetually’.

Politics and the demands of being a national institutionhave influenced the Museum just as significantly, as PeterMorris’s in-depth analysis of the Museum’s temporaryexhibitions exposes. From elucidating the complex sciencebehind the new medium of television in 1937, to hostingShell Oil’s ‘The Story of Oil’ in 1947, to supporting the GasCouncil’s switch to Natural Gas in 1971, the Museum hasconstantly faced shifting, contingent factors that haveresulted in numerous different styles of display, withmanydifferent purposes and messages. The picture one gains isof a highly versatile, open-minded museum, both proactiveand reactive to the scientific concerns of the day, as well asthe internal pressures of space and curatorial demands.

Although Science for the Nation’s target audience maybe relatively limited, the Science Museum deserves creditfor publishing a book that contributes to the study ofmuseology, history of collections and the material cultureof science. For students of these disciplines, the volumeposes numerous questions and presents avenues for fur-ther study. For example, Anna Bunney’s engaging chapter

Book Review

Corresponding author: Barrett, K. (kle.barrett@googlemail.com)Available online 30 November 2010.

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on the ‘Children’s Gallery’ (opened in 1931) argues that theMuseum’s efforts to ‘segregate’ the rising number of childvisitors resulted in displays that were ‘centred upon con-textualisation in the real world’ and that, consequently, itwas through this gallery that ‘realism and history wereadopted in Science Museum displays’. How, then, did weget from this model of child-oriented display – in whichhistory and context were used to humanise science andmake it more understandable – to the model that super-seded it, an ‘exploratorium’ style of display that is radicallydecontextualised? And what does this tell us about changesin the way museums interpret their responsibility as edu-cators?

On amore general level, many of the chapters in Sciencefor the Nation provide insight into, and pose questionsabout, enduring problems faced by most science collectionsfor most of their history: science versus technology; spe-cialist audiences versus the mass public; past scienceversus future and history versus science communication.In his thoughtful and reflective chapter on the Museumsince 1983, Timothy Boon ends with an appeal for a ‘newsynthesis’ between these often separated strands. This isno doubt an admirable idea, but if there is one thing thisbook teaches us, it is that the Museum’s curators of thefuture will have to face and overcome numerous unfore-seen challenges to achieve this goal.

0160-9327/$ – see front matter � Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2011.01.002

Putting science into wordsNever Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society,and Struggling for Credibility and Authority by Steven Shapin, The John Hopkins University Press, 2010. 568 pp., Price: $30.00, ISBN

978-0-8018r-r9421-3

Katy Barrett

Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RH,

United Kingdom

Steven Shapin’s latest publication beautifully showcaseshis methodology in the history of science, both through theessays included and in the explanatory framework inwhich he places them. The collection pulls together workpreviously published between 1987 and 2007, with anintroduction and section headings which consider the de-velopment of the history of science as a discipline andShapin’s own, highly influential, role within that. Hebrings the same tools to bear on his own work that heusually implements on seventeenth-century England.

In the introductory chapter, Shapin outlines his under-standing of what his work has achieved in the history ofscience. This he describes as ‘lowering the tone’ – movingthe main object of study from hagiography of the great

scientific names onto a ‘heterogeneous, historically situat-ed, embodied and thoroughly human set of practices’ (p.14). He emphasises people within their social and culturalsurroundings, both as objects of study for the history ofscience, and as practitioners of that study, linking devel-opments in the history of science to twentieth-centurychanges in the status of scientists. The essays that followare framed into six sections, which each showcase a newavenue in the history of science, down which he has trod-den, and pull together a heterogeneous body of work tohighlight connecting intellectual strands.

Part One discusses ‘Methods and Maxims’, the move toacknowledge the objects of the history of science as neitherspecial nor ‘sacred’. Chapters deal with the differencebetween modern and early-modern understandings ofcredibility; the question of whether it is ‘anti-scientific’to claim that scientific truth is not absolute; and the

Update Endeavour Vol. 35 No.1 3

question of how ‘good’ science relates to a ‘good’ society.Such themes recur in later sections. Part Two deals with‘Places and Practices’, emphasising the need to maintainthe context of where, how and by whom science is made.Shapin looks at how, in the seventeenth century, RobertHooke, Robert Boyle and the Royal Society performedscience across the boundary between public and privatespace; and at the different ‘technologies’ – literary, materi-al and social – exploited by Boyle to widen the audience forhis experiments.

Part Three looks at ‘The Scientific Person’, the mythsand expectations that have surrounded scientific giantsand have therefore affected how scientific knowledgeis created. Three out of four chapters again focus onseventeenth-century England, looking at the ‘repertoires’of solitude utilised and opposed by Boyle and Newton;Boyle’s attempt to establish science as a ‘gentlemanly’pursuit rather than the preserve of pedantic scholars;and Robert Hooke’s struggle to establish his identityacross the boundaries between public and private, tech-nician and natural philosopher. The tenth chapter bringsthese conflicts forward to twentieth-century science toconsider whether industrial science is in conflict withacademic training and how the effect of this on practi-tioners has been studied by industrial managers andsociologists.

The fourth part focuses on ‘The Body of Knowledge andthe Knowledge of Body’, looking at the relationships be-tween diet, knowledge and morality. The two chapters lookat the idea that asceticism relates to genius, as exemplifiedbyNewton, Wittgenstein andMore; and at the discussion ofdiet by seventeenth-century courtesy books that empha-sised the dietary moderation and sociability necessary fora gentleman. These ideas appear again in Part Five whichconsiders the links between ‘The World of Science and theWorld of Common Sense’, emphasising that the formercannot be separated from the latter. Chapters considerhow the eighteenth-century physician George Cheyne’s die-tetic advice to his patients mixed ‘ontological’, public exper-tise with private, ‘prudential’, intimate advice; the types ofactive, context-specific knowledge that are embodied in

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proverbial ‘economies’ and how this relates to scientificknowledge; and the seventeenth-century idea that a naturalphilosopher’s own health was the best marker of his genius,considered through the medical ideas of Descartes.

In the final section, a single chapter considers whethermodern, industrial society is the product of a particularlyscientific mentality. Shapin concludes that modern culturecannot be a product of scientific ‘method’ or an ‘idea’ ofscience but only of science’s ‘institutionalisation’. The par-adox of scientists’ loss ofmoral authority and independencewithin this process is the very reason why it is hard todescribe themodernworld, and the role of science within it.

The erudition, scope and importance of these essays areunquestionable and have been established on their previ-ous publication.What remains for this reviewer to questionis what Shapin’s intention is in producing this collection,and whom he sees as his audience. The aim is clearly morethan to provide a single volume compendium of his work.He seems to wish to open the history of science to ‘thegeneral educated reader’, highlighting the complexities ofboth the content and the disciplinary framework; an admi-rable intention that informs much of Shapin’s accessibleand informal style. Yet, the essays do not form a coherentand accessible single work, and many of Shapin’s ground-breaking methods require a detailed and highly specificterminology which alienates such a ‘general’ reader. Like-wise, when read cover to cover, the essays drawing onseventeenth-century English science become somewhatrepetitive, while those outside this focus sit awkwardlyamong them. The essays provide an unrivalled collectionfor the historian of science, but here the framework surelyrequires a deeper consideration of the specific historicalcontext of each of Shapin’s own essays (certainlymore thanthe brief publication outline given on p. ix).

‘Never Pure’ will enrich the bookshelf of any historian ofscience, but the subtitle’s length and complexity are indic-ative of a collection which, for the ‘general educated read-er’, may represent one word too far.

0160-9327/$ – see front matter � Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2010.10.001