Nobel prize-winning scientist writes a history of science

Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg views himself as a modern day Whig when it comes to the history of science. His new book grew out of a series of lectures he gave at University of Texas, Austin, for a course he began teaching a few years back.

So, from a professional historian’s perspective, To Explain the World has ‘newcomer’ written all over it.

The thing about classic Whig histories, though, is they tend to dismiss large chunks of the past where, superficially, no progress toward enlightenment appears to have taken place. (For example, until recently, the period between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance would get the shortest shrift, being passed off as the Dark Ages, dominated by superstition and religious intolerance, etc.)

Weinberg doesn’t fall into this trap. Which is why the book is so entertaining.

This is not to say he’s shy about offering his personal assessment of many icons in the history of science and philosophy.

“I confess that I find Aristotle frequently tedious, in a way that Plato is not,” he writes,  “but although often wrong Aristotle is not silly, in the way that Plato sometimes is.” ...