Barbarian Science (Town Square Books, 1999) deals humorously with the dilemma of science literacy in America, our continuing struggles with the problem and our regrettable tendency to do the same things over and over and expect different results. It was a reading list selection in many university courses in the literature of science from 2000 to 2006. Sadly, it is still relevant today.
From Chapter 1:
The universe is mostly empty space. Scattered here and there in all that empty space, there are atoms. The empty space is all of the locations where the atoms aren’t. According to the model we currently use, the atoms themselves are mostly empty space. This empty space consists of all the locations inside the atom where the elementary particles that make up the atom are, at any given moment, not. The universe then, is a very large number of potential places for things to be. Fortunately, we only have to deal with where they actually wound up.
Science is the rational and systematic study of how all of the various arrangements of empty space and tiny bits of stuff interact together over time. We study this from every conceivable perspective so that we can make some sort of sense of the universe. Scientific literacy consists of knowing a few general, basic things about that quest. Literacy does not mean you have to be current in every field or in any one of them. It means that you have some modest understanding of where we humans are right now in the long process of sorting things out.
The only rational response to the universe in which we find ourselves is baffled amazement. If you are really paying attention, then you will be constantly surprised, confused, and astonished. Where we are right now is probably not a special place. It is more likely that this is just another point along the line in the unfolding history of our species. If all of it makes perfect sense to you now, then you must be missing big chunks of it. It has taken us a while to get this far and we are far from finished. Those people who have achieved total comprehension of their world have done so at the price of confining themselves to a very small and attenuated cosmos with no windows.
From the Foreword, By Ken Hoffman:
…In this wonderful little book, Jim McMurtray, astronomer, teacher and friend, conveys these and many other important ideas in a unique manner and style born of his own life’s experience. A glance at the Table of Contents will tell you the enormous range of things touched upon: science literacy, science research, university science, school science, science teaching, and ancient science, plus a list of other topics that can best be described as “for all X, science and X”. The variable X ranges from religion to art, economics, politics, engineering, the movies, and the press. Given the breadth and the brevity of the book, it could hardly be a philosophical treatise on any of the above. It wasn’t intended to be. But it has quite insightful things to say in each of its commentaries. And that is not an easy thing to do. There are also a couple of “surprise” sections that we won’t mention, because we don’t want to spoil them for you.
If that is what the book is about, what is it like? That’s easy to answer: In a nutshell, this book is like Jim McMurtray himself. It is irreverent, at times heretical. It is insightful, at times wise. It is laced with wit and humor throughout. It has many serious things to say, yet it never takes itself too seriously.
… The principal topic is science literacy – both its importance and our continuing failures to come to grips with it, as we trip over our own formalisms and institutional structures. If you are interested in issues of science literacy, “general science” or “science and the public”, then this book is must reading. So too should it be for those interested in education reform and revitalization. But it is not a book for specialists. It can and should be read by all those interested in what science is about. There is wisdom in McMurtray’s words of science.
One final thing: We promise that you won’t be neutral about this little book after you read it, especially if you are part of the science or science education establishments. But, even if you get angry almost as often as you laugh, it will make you think. And that is its purpose.
Kenneth M Hoffman
Professor of Mathematics Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Madison, Maryland October 3, 1999
More from Barbarian Science (including inside illustrations and the “Wall Story”)
Jim McMurtray Books Altazimuth Media jim-mcmurtray.com
