James Burke. The Day the Universe Changed (1985)

     James Burke. The Day the Universe Changed (1985) A companion book to the BBC/PBS series of Burke’s favourite style of documentary, one that ferrets out and demonstrates how apparently unrelated events changed everything. This one is more linear, showing how human beings have thought about and imagined the way the world works. It’s a history of ideas, and as such a pretty good introduction and overview.
     Burke shows for example how our theories of the universe, of astronomy, biology, matter and energy, changed over time, and which discoveries and inventions prompted the changes. The Greek notions of astronomy were supplanted and emended by theories based on interpretations of the Bible, and when these in turn were challenged by new discoveries, what we now think of as the inevitable conflict between science and religion began. It took a while for people to realise that Kepler’s heliocentric model and Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter challenged the more simplistic readings of biblical references to the heavens. But that’s what happens when an institution claims authority over every aspect of a person’s life. The smallest demonstration of autonomous thinking becomes a rebellion.
     In his last chapter Burke takes up this theme and expands it. He argues that in every age, ideas about the world and our place in it more or less adequately explained what facts were known. Further than that, he shows that what is accepted as fact, and therefore to be explained, changes as our theories change. (Sidebar: “Theory” derives from the same Greek root as “theatre”. It’s the way we look at the world. "Idea" is the Latin version of the same root.) But we resist changing our theories. A phenomenon that doesn’t fit is often ignored or denied. For example, educated opinion refused to accept meteorites until the newly improved methods of observing the sky demonstrated their reality; and then the first attempts at explanation classified them with atmospheric phenomena, hence their name.
      In short, our theories change because new methods and instruments of observation add to the store of facts and force a rearrangement, a reclassification, of what we believe constitutes the world. Our theories always explain what we happen to think is real, and therefore they are always limited. This stance may seem paradoxical, for of course what we are pleased to call scientifically established fact is merely another stage in the ongoing changes of our thinking. But it is in fact the most scientific stance of all. It takes for granted that what we think we know, and what we believe are adequate explanations of what we think we know, will continue to change, for every new discovery or idea will change what we think we know, and so entail changes in our explanations.
     A good book, nicely illustrated, but marred by far too many typos. It is an early example of computer typesetting, and people back then hadn’t yet realised that spell checkers did not make proof-reading obsolete. An example of how long it takes for people to adapt to new technologies, new ideas, new options. ***

Proofread and edited 2023-04-22