Naturally-Scientific-Review-of-The-Age-of-Scientific-Naturalism-Tyndall-and-His-Contemporaries-Bernard-Lightman-Michael-S-Reidy-editors-Pickering-amp-.pdf

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Book Review
Endeavour
Vol. 38 No. 3–4
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Naturally Scientific: Review of The Age of Scientific Naturalism: Tyndall and His Contemporaries,
Bernard Lightman, Michael S. Reidy
(editors), Pickering & Chatto, 2014.
Michael Rectenwald
726 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10003, United States
As Bernard Lightman points out in the final essay of this
anthology, the term ‘‘scientific naturalism’’ was mar-
shaled by Thomas H. Huxley to refer to the movement
in the last half of the 19th century to ‘‘redefine science
and transform British society’’ (193). Scientific natural-
ism was premised on the uniformity of nature, a strict
adherence to empirical findings and an evolutionary
view of nature and the cosmos. But as the contributions
to this volume suggest, in the second half of the 19th
century, scientific naturalism was neither homogeneous
nor completely dominant. Rather, variations existed
within it. And, contrary to what John Tyndall and his
contemporaries claimed, it was not the only epistemo-
logical framework for understanding and conducting
science in the period. Further, scientific naturalism, like
the competing theological perspective, should be consid-
ered a
cosmology,
that is, as a framework that informed
how scientists (and others) viewed the proper objects of
knowledge. Neither framework provided a transparent
window on the world.
The anthology is divided into three parts. Part I
focuses on the scientific and popularizing activities of
the physicist John Tyndall. The volume opens with
Elizabeth Neswald’s contribution, which probably does
the most to show how Tyndall grappled with scientific
findings that did not suit his cosmological predilections,
in particular his notion of an endlessly cycling universe
sustained by the conservation of energy. Neswald shows
how theistic scientists, such as the physicist William
Thomson, were much better positioned ideologically to
incorporate the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entro-
py) within their physics because it pointed to an end of
the universe. Joshua P. Howe argues that the under-
standing of science history promoted popularly in con-
nection with climate science ends up laying too much
emphasis on the progress of science and granting science
too much credit (and responsibility) for solving the cli-
mate crisis. Jeremiah Rankin and Ruth Barton compare
the scientific and popularizing work of Tyndall and
George Henry Lewes, noting in particular that while
both men did much to advance their respective sciences
and the popularization of science in general, Tyndall’s
more elitist approach represented science as the province
of the professionally trained, while Lewes advocated a
more democratic model of inclusion. Interestingly, it was
the former model that held sway.
Part II focuses on the diverse and changing formula-
tions of scientific naturalism over the period. As Josipa
Petrunic observes, some scientific naturalists, such as
Corresponding author:
Rectenwald, M. (michael.rectenwald@nyu.edu)
Available online 6 September 2014.
www.sciencedirect.com
0160-9327/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2014.07.002
the mathematician William Kingdon Clifford, were
committed to the perspective of scientific naturalism
from the beginning of their careers. As Robert W. Smith
makes clear regarding the astronomer William Huggins,
others were converts to the epistemological and cosmo-
logical framework later in life. As Jonathan Smith
argues (rather inconclusively) in connection with the
ornithologist Alfred Newton, still others could be techni-
cally Darwinists without being scientific naturalists as
such.
Janet Browne opens Part III of the book – focused on
epistolary writing of scientists and their correspondents
– by suggesting that ‘‘correspondence-history’’ should
join the ranks of other important prongs for studying
past science-in-the-making, which now include the his-
tory of the book, periodical studies, studies of institu-
tions and other approaches. Melinda Baldwin examines
correspondence between Tyndall and the physicist and
physical sciences editor of the Royal Society’s
Philosoph-
ical Transactions,
George Gabriel Stokes, in order to
show how the correspondence between the two men
contributed to the detailed making of science, even more
so than the referee reports issued by Stokes. Finally,
Bernard Lightman rounds out the volume with a study of
the Metaphysical Society, an elite debating club founded
in 1869 that included both the metaphysicians of the
established faith and the scientific naturalists. Lightman
concludes from examining this society that the relation-
ship between the scientific naturalists and religionists
was more complicated than Frank M. Turner suggested
in his groundbreaking monograph,
Contesting Cultural
Authority
(1993). Lightman suggests that the neither the
theists nor the scientific naturalists viewed the struggle
in terms of ‘‘science versus religion’’. The theists fought
on the grounds of science itself, unwilling to yield scien-
tific authority to the scientific naturalists. For their part,
the scientific naturalists argued only against
theology’s
truth claims, not against
religion’s
role in the private
realm of feeling.
Aside from organizational issues (Lightman’s essay
surely belongs in Part II), the lack of material treating
cultural and philosophical precursors represents a par-
ticular weakness, especially given Lightman’s own
claims. If, as Lightman suggests in his conclusion,
‘‘the disputes within the Metaphysical Society.
. .
should
not blind us to the significance of the wider debates
taking place outside the society’’ (206), neither should
the focus on the scientific naturalists themselves blind us
to those who paved the way for them. These include not
only Charles Lyell, who advanced the notion of unifor-
mity in geology much earlier in the century, but also
152
Book Review
Endeavour
Vol. 38 No. 3–4
supporters of phrenology and the mid-century movement
of Secularism.
a
Attention to such precursors would help
‘‘keep in view all those groups who saw science as a key
to bolstering their claims to cultural authority’’.
The anthology nevertheless provides a striking view of
various scientific naturalists and their interactions with
opponents. It also gives us a glimpse into the kind of work
we can expect to result from the ongoing John Tyndall
Correspondence Project.
Respectively, Charles Lyell,
Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to Explain the
Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface, By Reference to Causes Now in Operation,
I–III
(1830–1833); John van Wyhe,
Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific
Naturalism
(Ashgate, 2004); and Michael Rectenwald, "Secularism and the cultures
of nineteenth-century scientific naturalism",
The British Journal for the History of
Science
46 (2013): 231–254.
www.sciencedirect.com
a

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