Are Ideas Free to Roam?Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter by Gillian BeerReview by: Desmond King-HeleNotes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Sep., 2000), pp. 400-402Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/532196 .

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Book Reviews

ARE IDEAS FREE TO ROAM?

Gillian Beer, Open fields. science in cultural encounter Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 341, £17 (paperback). ISBN 0-198-18369-0.

reviewed by Desmond King-Hele, FR.S.

7 Hilltops Court, 65 North Lane, Buriton, Hampshire GU31 5RS, UK

This book is composed of 14 admirably written essays about the interactions between science and other cultures. First published in 1996, it has now deservedly appeared as a paperback.

Most of the essays originated either as lectures or as invited chapters in multi- author books. There is some overlap, but the abiding impression is that the essays fuse together well and express a consistent intellectual stance. To avoid distorting the theme and intention, I shall quote excerpts from the blurb, on the assumption that it was approved by the author: 'Science always raises more questions than it can contain. These ...

essays explore how ideas are transformed as they come under the stress of unforeseen readers.... Gillian Beer tracks encounters between science, literature, and other forms of emotional experience.'

The 'open fields' of the title are the scenes of encounter between one culture and another. Devotees of each culture may prefer to play in a field with a barbed-wire fence around it to keep out the barbarians; but in the world of ideas there are no fences. Gillian Beer is an observant and most intelligent guide to what goes on in these arenas when science is one of the cultures. Not only does she write well, but she also skilfully avoids giving offence to activists in minority groups-scientists, feminists,

historians, religionists, homosexuals, politicians, animal rights enthusiasts and so on.

A recurrent theme of the book is science and language. Scientists have to use language to expound their ideas and results. In doing so, they sometimes hijack language, exploiting its emotive and propagandist tendencies and thereby moulding future expectations.

One powerful example given by Professor Beer is T.H. Huxley's rhapsody about the aims of the new journal Nature, namely, 'to mirror the progress of that fashioning by Nature of a picture of herself, in the mind of man, which we call the progress of Science'. Today this seems rather weird. Does 'Nature' exist? If so, is Nature female? Even if a female Nature exists, has she taken the trouble to 'fashion' a 'picture of herself'? And for our benefit? If so, do men (and women too) merely have to look at the picture in order to advance science? Perhaps experiments are unnecessary? This cruel analysis of mine exposes the motive behind Huxley's rhetoric, namely to upgrade science by establishing 'a stable accord with a sacrilized external world', as Gillian Beer acutely remarks. This encounter between language and science leaves both lying badly wounded in the open field.

Another example, which figures in several of the essays, is the episode of the

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Book Reviews

Fuegian 'savages' who were kidnapped (or given the privilege of visiting England) by Robert FitzRoy during the first voyage of the Beagle. They were taken back to their native haunts on the second voyage, after 'education' in England. To FitzRoy's dismay, they soon reverted to their old ways.

The young Charles Darwin was on the second voyage, and wrote, 'I have seen nothing, which more completely aston-ished me, than the first sight of a Savage'. There is much irony here, because Darwin had seen three of the 'Savages' for many months, on board the Beagle. But these were Savages dressed in English clothes, who had been taught Christianity and English customs, whereas the newly observed Savage was naked. Education is not visible, and the crucial factor was the clothes, as is obvious too from a later example, the sculptured figures on the Albert Memorial, which declare their degree of civilization by the splendour of their clothing, or lack of it. Religious Victorians believed that God made us, naked, but they were keen to undo God's handiwork by covering up. If you had a God-given appearance, you were written off as a Savage. An observer from outside the closed field of Victorian morality might wonder whether the Victorians were insulting the God they professed to honour.

FitzRoy's abduction of the Fuegians has other cultural implications. It was not in the least racist. FitzRoy believed that cultural indoctrination could in time transform the three Fuegians into regular Christian-English citizens. He did not regard the English as a master race in any eugenic sense. But he was absolutely certain that orthodox current English

beliefs were both correct and all- powerful. Such certainty, naive as it may seem today, was the backbone to the creation of empire, and sometimes a barrier to scientific advance.

If I had to make a criticism of Gillian Beer's essays, I should note a tendency to operate within the (closed) field of her immense knowledge of the 19th century, without mentioning the illuminating 18th-century roots of many topics. For example, Huxley's 'Nature', personified ad nauseam in the 18th century, was a deity that affected the practice and progress of science. A more potent example arises when Gillian Beer rightly emphasizes the importance of Charles Darwin's bold speculation that all species are descended from 'one parent' (even though natural selection could operate just as well with seven or 17 ancestors). She might have pointed out that Charles's grandfather Erasmus Darwin, in his exposition of evolutionary development in Volume I of Zoonomia (1794), contended that all life is descended from a microscopic 'single living filament'. There are five statements about this on pages 503-509, and his conclusion, diplomatically expressed as a rhetorical question to deflect criticism, is that 'one and the same kind of living filament is and has been the cause of all organic life' (p. 511). This quotation is not unknown. Indeed, it is used as a launching pad by Matt Ridley on page 12 of his book Genome (1999). Nor was it unknown to Charles Darwin, who read Zoonomia when he was 17, much admired it, yet failed to heed its message: it was another 12 years before he started to develop his own evolutionary ideas.

Though any further criticism of so

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Book Reviews

excellent a book may seem unfair, I was disappointed that there is no discussion of the idea that science nearly always progresses, whereas 'the arts' tend to go in circles or cycles, with many regressions: 8000 slices of putrid ham dumped in an art gallery, or a wall of butter built there, may not, in the long run, be rated as high art. A mathematics undergraduate today knows more than Newton did; but can any arts undergraduates outdo Shakespeare? The edifice of science is continually being extended, and only occasionally does some of it have to be knocked down. The fact that science advances is the wonderful quality that attracts most scientists to the hard grind of grappling with the real world. They find satisfaction in contributing to the edifice. In the world of the arts, too, there are many dedicated scholars who selflessly seek to extend the edifice of scholarship. 'But most 'arts-ists'-and certainly those who make the most noise -flaunt their own ideas and opinions, sometimes wise, sometimes silly. And unfortunately they have no real-world test that can validate their ideas and prejudices. Anyone can set up as a moralizer.

I have some regard for the subversive scenario of science as that which progresses, probably because I spent many years on the mathematical minutiae of creating theory for satellite orbits in an atmosphere. Very few people understood it, and it was satisfying not

because of any applause but because it successfully explained real, observed phenomena-the movement of satellites across the night sky. But when writing poetry, or this review, I am like the noisy 'arts-ists', on an ego trip, expressing opinions that cannot be tested objectively. I may incur criticisms (if any critics happen to read this); but the critics themselves will only be expressing opinions with no objective validity. And even if my waffle seems indefensible, my defence could be that I am exercising my right to roam in open fields, fortified by Gillian Beer's assurance that there are no fences, and no defences against attacks by intruders.

Natural justice (another dodgy concept) demands that I should give some idea of the contents of the book. There are six essays under the title 'Darwinian encounters', starting with 'Four bodies on the Beagle' and 'Can the Native return?' The other four subjects are the truth of travel narratives, anthropological writings, evolution and language theories, and the missing link. The second section is on scientific writing-its use of literary allusion, how discoveries are described, and the relations of literature and science. Four essays come under 'Victorian physics and futures'. The finale is a review of Tony Harrison's Square Rounds. Such a bald synopsis is inevitably demeaning. The secret of the book's success is in the writing, lucid, beguiling and so cleverly inoffensive.

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