Science for All: The Popularization of Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain | Date: 15 April 2011, 04:50
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Recent scholarship has revealed that pioneering Victorian scientists endeavored through voluminous writing to raise public interest in science and its implications. But it has generally been assumed that once science became a profession around the turn of the century, this new generation of scientists turned its collective back on public outreach. Science for All debunks this apocryphal notion.
Peter J. Bowler surveys the books, serial works, magazines, and newspapers published between 1900 and the outbreak of World War II to show that practicing scientists were very active in writing about their work for a general readership. Science for All argues that the social environment of early twentieth-century Britain created a substantial market for science books and magazines aimed at those who had benefited from better secondary education but could not access higher learning. Scientists found it easy and profitable to write for this audience, Bowler reveals, and because their work was seen as educational, they faced no hostility from their peers. But when admission to colleges and universities became more accessible in the 1960s, this market diminished and professional scientists began to lose interest in writing at the nonspecialist level.
Eagerly anticipated by scholars of scientific engagement throughout the ages, Science for All sheds light on our own era and the continuing tension between science and public understanding.
Summary: The Dissemination of Science in Early 20th Century Britain
Rating: 5
It has been well documented that in the 19th century there was an active interaction between British scientists and the general public which helped advance the general understanding of science. See, e.g., Lightman's "Victorian Popularizers of Science" (also reviewed on Amazon). But as to the early 20th century, the picture was not so clear. The author believes a myth grew up about this period which was that the now professionalized scientists were reluctant to engage in popular writing because of their fears that this would lead to recriminations by their fellow scientists. This book is a successful repudiation of that myth demonstrating that quite the contrary was true.
Following a helpful introduction, the book is divided into three sections. The first deals with some of the topics and themes in "popular science." Much was going on during the early 20th century: science v. religion; developments in the practical and industrial applications of scientific discoveries; new knowledge about human origins from fossils; advances in genetics; and debates about genetics and eugenics, to mention just a few. I found the real heart of the book to be in the second part, where the author focuses upon publishers and how they sought to tap the market for popular writing on science. Why did some books become bestsellers while many others were not successful? What were the keys to writing on complicated scientific topics for the general public? To address these issues, the author discusses individual books, series of books, the use of encyclopedias and serial publications, popular science magazines, and even newspapers as dissemination devices. Many excellent illustrations of publications are included, often drawn from the author's own collection, and this evidences the dedicated research that is the foundation for the book.
In the final section of the book, the author discusses the scientific authors themselves. Among the big names he focuses upon are Julian Huxley, J.B.S. Haldane, Arthur Keith, and J. Arthur Thomson. All were prominent scientists; all wrote popular material; and none suffered any professional retaliation. The author also discusses the new arrival of professional scientific writers, who while not practicing scientists, had solid scientific backgrounds. In an interesting appendix, a "Biographical Register," the author offers brief bios of many of those who wrote for the general public, highlighting their scientific backgrounds. It is quite a large number as it turns out. A final chapter looks briefly at the period after World War II, when popular writing by scientists became somewhat less frequent. So the book refutes any idea that fruitful interaction between scientists and the general public, conducted via various forms of printed material, declined in the 1900-1940 period due to apprehension about professional sanctions being unleashed on such authors. Quite an interesting and informed discussion of a topic on which not much previously has been written.
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