The Meaning of Science: Tim Lewens (Pelican Books)

This really is a very basic introduction. Something like this should be essential reading for all schoolchildren keen on science as a career. I wanted something that was simple enough for a grandson (who wants to be a "scientist" but is only now finding out what science is about) but not so simple it wouldn't serve usefully for at least a couple of years. This very short introduction should help with Q's and A's as he first explores the two great sciences (math and physics) but is not so good on biology (where nothing makes sense without evolution). This does not mean that biology is mistreated by the author just that it wasn't helped here by so much compression of complex ideas. Free will receives a thorough treatment and makes excellent light reading - which is true of most of Part 2. Some may complain about an absence of illustrations but this is no bad thing. My grandson lives in a lazy world where it seems all thinking is made visual so a complete absence of pictures throughout makes this his first book without pictures. He'll need to make an effort and draw these himself.

Many of the otherwise excellent reviews presented here may not focus on the book as a whole, its aims and intended audience. Hopefully this review may begin to redress the balance.Although Lewens is a professor of the philosophy of science, this is thankfully not a comprehensive introduction to, or a textbook of that area, and can be read relatively easily by non-specialists. Lewen does not assume any previous scientific knowledge or familiarity with philosophy and it is in this sense that the book provides a basic ‘introduction’ to a selection of some, but not all of the ideas in the field. Although aimed primarily at the non-specialist reader, written in plain English, and in a conversational style, this is not a journalist piece. At the end of each chapter Lewen provides a short guide to further reading if required. Endnotes indicate the sources for the facts, arguments and claims mentioned in the main text, but access to online journals or to a university library would be needed in order to follow many of them up. Books such as Chalmers’ What is this thing called Science? already address the specialist reader, discussing for example the technical implications of a Bayesian approach to science that Lewens does not consider. Lewens book seems to have a different, complementary aim.What science means for us, the title of the second part of the book, implies one of these aims – to explore the meaning and broad significance of science for the non-specialist reader in terms of its political, ethical or practical implications. The four chapters in part two illustrate and discuss themes such as value and truth, altruism, human nature and freedom of will. Lewens argues that science alone may not tell us all we need to know in order to understand our world, to live well and make wise choices. There are judgements to be made on which pieces of research should be passed on to those with the executive power to act on them and how that should be communicated. In passing, Lewens discusses the implications of shale gas extraction, safety of mitochondrial transfer, implications of Lysenko’s ‘biology’, women’s orgasms, climate change, selfish genes and altruism, cultural adaptation and ‘human nature’, freedom of the will and neuroscience. There are implications for our understanding of our personal decision making, moral image of ourselves, and of human nature itself.All this begs the question of what is meant by ‘science’ itself. Lewens discusses some of the problems associated with answering this question in the first part of his book. This provides a jumping off point for what follows, and despite the author’s claim that the chapters can be read in any order, for most readers this part needs to be read before the second. Lewen does not pretend to be able to provide a definitive answer to the question of what is meant by the term science, but rather encourages readers to engage with some of the problems involved by providing illustrations couched in plain language, rather than the technical abstractions of philosophy of science. As in part two, the aim seems to be to encourage non-specialists to think about the issues for themselves and relate them to practical problems. Yes, practical aspects of science such as the design of experiments, operating equipment and interpreting data to avoid error are examined, together with problems such as the use of induction in scientific thinking. As other reviewers have described, there are also very human accounts of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn and their ideas.However Lewen moves beyond this, considering for example the contentious political and cultural implications of including economics, intelligent design theory, Marxism, psychoanalysis or homeopathy as ‘science’. Should we consider economics as ‘akin to The Lord of the Rings with equations’? Is the theory of intelligent design a competitor to the theory of evolution as an account of how species became well adapted to their surroundings, and hence part of the science curriculum in schools? Do the non-committal terms of Freud’s approach, together with his tendency to retrospectively reinterpret evidence to fit his own ideas preclude his work from being regarded as science? Does homeopathy really provide what is right for a unique individual, in idiosyncratic circumstances?In the final chapter Lewens reconsiders the limitations of scientific knowledge, including the modifying impact of special, localised conditions, and the possible incompleteness of science especially because it does not deal with qualitative aspects of human experience such as the personal sensations associated with viewing colours such as ‘red’ (Jackson’s thought experiment about ‘Mary’).Whether or not readers engage positively with this book obviously depends on what they want to get from it. In a pocket-sized edition of 263 pages, and covering selected, illustrative discussions of the broad implications of science, it is complementary to textbooks on the philosophy of science such as Chalmers’, rather than a replacement. For non-specialist readers it is far more accessible than such textbooks, and draws them into Lewen’s discussions, almost as though they were eavesdropping on one of his seminars, but with a full translation into plain English. Some, as Lewens points out, may feel that ‘philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds’. Regardless of whether Richard Feynman actually said this at all, scientists sharing this sentiment may reject not just Lewen’s book, but also much else written on the subject. However, as a non-specialist this book made me want to read more, much more, about the issues discussed. Is this a criticism or a compliment to the author of what is after all a basic ‘introduction’? Four and a half stars, then rather than five, because many issues really needed more nuanced discussion. That however is another issue, and this review is already too long!

Very stimulating but a little hard to read. I'd recommend this to anyone contemplating or starting a joint honours course in science and philosophy. I had to read several of the chapters twice to fully understand what the author was saying.

Everything as expected.

This has to be the worst book thar has ever been written on the subject. But I guess if Trump can be president, this guy can be professor. He has obviously never read a single book of Popper and completely misinterpretes him.I repeat here my comment on the review of another customer:I quote you here: "but going on to the say the process of inductive reasoning, so important to science, isn't valid - which no scientist can honestly find acceptable."???? It would have been a good idea for Tim Lewers to read some of Popper's books, so that he knew what he was writing about. This is just one example. Why exactly did Popper think that induction doesn't exist? Because all observation is theory-laden. Just read Popper's 'Conjectures and Refutations': here is the argument:"The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. I have even been suspected of being insincere--of denying what nobody in his senses can doubt.But in fact the belief that we can start with pure observations alone, without anything in the nature of a theory, is absurd; as may be illustrated by the story of the man who dedicated his life to natural science, wrote down everything he could observe, and bequeathed his priceless collection of observations to the Royal Society to be used as inductive evidence. This story should show us that though beetles may profitably be collected, observations may not.Twenty-five years ago I tried to bring home the same point to a group of physics students in Vienna by beginning a lecture with the following instructions: 'Take pencil and paper; carefully observe, and write down what you have observed!' They asked, of course, what I wanted them to observe. Clearly the instruction, 'Observe!' is absurd. (It is not even idiomatic, unless the object of the transitive verb can be taken as understood.) Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem. And its description presupposes a descriptive language, with property words; it presupposes similarity and classification, which in its turn presupposes interests, points of view, and problems."Karl Popper, 'Conjectures and Refutations'.....And really, is it true that 'no scientist' would believe this? In the appendices from 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery' is a letter of Einstein, where he writes this to Popper:"I think (like you, by the way) that theory cannot be fabricated out of the results of observation, but that it can only be invented."Albert Einstein, 1935, in a letter to Karl Popper (can be found in 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery)...... Do I have to go on? The guy who wrote this book is an idiot. He has absolutely no clue.