The Discoverers
Authors: Daniel J. Boorstin, Daniel J. Boorstin
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Overview
My book, The Discoverers, is a history of mankind’s efforts to understand the world around them, from ancient times to the present. Its target audience is anyone interested in learning how we have come to know what we know about the universe, the earth, nature, and society. As the reader will discover, there was no one simple route to scientific discovery. Progress came in unexpected ways from unexpected places, often with the help of newly invented instruments and from the efforts of individual explorers. New insights into time and space expanded the horizons of human experience and brought about new methods of inquiry. The book shows how knowledge itself is a human construct. The world we see today from the literate West is the result of countless inventions and discoveries by countless Columbuses. The book challenges the traditional way of viewing science as a simple progressive endeavor and instead reveals how the obstacles to discovery – the illusions of knowledge – are as much a part of our story as the discoveries themselves. Many of the theories and assumptions that proved to be obstacles – for example, the earth-centered cosmology of Aristotle, or the theory of four humors in Galenic medicine – were not irrational but rather a reasonable response to the evidence then at hand.
Book Outline
1. The Temptations of the Moon
Time was the first grand discovery. Humankind’s separation from the cyclical monotony of nature first happened by marking off months, weeks, and years, and then even days, hours, minutes and seconds.
Key concept: And take upon ‘s the mystery of things, As if we were God’s spies.
2. The Week: Gateway to Science
The week is an artificial time cluster, not something derived directly from nature. The seven-day week is arbitrary, but planet-wide there are at least 15 different ways that people have divided their units of time. It arose from popular need and spontaneous agreement, rather than from laws or government.
Key concept: So long as man marked his life only by the cycles of nature–the changing seasons, the waxing or waning moon–he remained a prisoner of nature.
3. God and the Astrologers
Astrology combines a yearning for the divine with a reach for scientific knowledge. It asserts that unseen forces, acting from a distance, affect human lives.
Key concept: God did not create the planets and stars with the intention that they should dominate man, but that they, like other creatures, should obey and serve him.
4. Measuring the Dark Hours
Measuring useful time meant measuring the hours of sunlight. Sundials, or shadow clocks, were the earliest measuring devices for this purpose, with obvious limitations. They were useful only in sunny parts of the world, and only when the sun was shining.
Key concept: The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours!
5. The Rise of the Equal Hour
The mechanical clock began the process of incorporating the hours of darkness into the idea of a day. The canonical hours were abandoned, and instead the equal hour became the new way of thinking about time. The hour became our modern hour around 1330.
Key concept: Time is the greatest innovator.
6. Making Time Portable
Clocks that were able to keep perfect step with other clocks elsewhere, made time a measure that transcended space. Citizens of Pisa, for example, could know what time it was in Florence or Rome. The invention of the spring meant the invention of the portable clock.
Key concept: Making time portable filled all the interstices of life.
7. Open Sesame to China
China was technically advanced but stubbornly suspicious of things from outside their borders.
Key concept: Of all the great nations, the Chinese have had the least commerce, indeed, one might say that they have had practically no contact whatever, with outside nations.
8. Mother of Machines
The clock broke down the walls between kinds of knowledge and skill. The clock’s components, the gear and the screw, were essential advancements in machine tools.
Key concept: Precisely because the clock did not start as a practical tool shaped for a single purpose, it was destined to be the mother of machines.
9. Why It Happened in the West
Western clock technology spread rapidly while Eastern clock technology stalled because of a fundamental difference in the social function of the clock.
Key concept: In Europe the clock very early became a public machine.
10. The Awe of Mountains
The awe of mountains is a universal human experience. Mountains represent the dwelling place of the gods, a gateway to heaven, and the high places of the world are venerated.
Key concept: Long before men thought of conquering the mountains, the mountains had conquered men.
11. Charting Heaven and Hell
The difficulty of truly mapping the earth was compounded by preconceptions about the afterlife. The underworld was often more vividly imagined than were unknown regions of the earth.
Key concept: The sands of time are sinking, The dawn of heaven breaks.
12. The Appeal of Symmetry
The appeal of symmetry made it natural that the earth itself be imagined as being symmetrical. Many different symmetrical forms were proposed, including the egg, the rectangle, the box, and the disk.
Key concept: Would to God your horizon may broaden every day!
13. The Prison of Christian Dogma
Christian dogma was a powerful obstacle to the discovery of the planet. Christian Geography, during the Middle Ages, focused on fantasizing about known details, rather than exploring the unknown.
Key concept: Christian faith and dogma suppressed the useful image of the world…
14. A Flat Earth Returns
The existence of people whose feet were opposite to Christian Europe – the antipodes – was an impediment to imagining the spherical earth that the ancient Greeks had already understood.
Key concept: Can any one be so foolish as to believe that there are men whose feet are higher than their heads…
15. Pilgrims and Crusaders
The impulse to explore the unknown was not only commercial or scientific, but also religious. Pilgrims and Crusaders, who were searching for sites important in their theology, brought back news of faraway places, but often misunderstood what they saw.
Key concept: From the East, light. (Ex Oriente, lux.)
16. How the Mongols Opened the Way
The Mongols opened the pathways to the East. The Mongol Empire, twice the size of the Roman Empire, protected a path to the East that allowed European travelers and traders access to China.
Key concept: Too far East is West.
17. Missionary Diplomats
Franciscan friars, the first to penetrate the East by land, were both missionaries and geographical pioneers. They hoped to convert the Tartars to Christianity, but also brought back information that corrected European misconceptions about the world.
Key concept: Just at the time when God sent forth into the eastern parts of the world the Tartars to slay and to be slain…
18. The Discovery of Asia
Marco Polo made the greatest impact in opening up a vision of the East. His book, dictated to a cellmate in prison, made a popular romance out of the facts he had observed in his 24 years of travels across Asia.
Key concept: Emperors and kings, dukes and marquises, counts, knights, and townsfolk, and all people who wish to know the various races of men and the peculiarities of the various regions of the world…
19. The Land Curtain Comes Down
The collapse of the Mongol empire also closed the pathways to the East, and forced a turn toward sea routes.
Key concept: After the disruption of that first Mongol Empire the European West lost touch with the farthest East.
20. Ptolemy Revived and Revised
The blocking of the land routes to the East made it necessary for Europeans to turn to sea routes. The science of cartography then flourished on the sea where the needs of mariners required increasingly accurate maps.
Key concept: Enough for us that the hidden half of the globe is brought to light…
21. Portuguese Sea Pioneers
Portugal, on the westernmost edge of Europe and uninvolved in the religious and political conflicts of other European nations, became a natural starting place for exploration and expansion by sea. The caravel, a light, highly maneuverable ship, was the key to their success.
Key concept: There is no sea innavigable, no land uninhabitable.
22. Beyond the Threatening Cape
The greatest impediment to exploration by sea, as by land, were often imaginary. Cape Bojador became the prototype of obstacles to the explorer, where exaggerated fears of the unknown, rather than any real geographical obstacle, made it the turnaround point for earlier navigators.
Key concept: And to say the truth this was not from cowardice or want of good will, but from the novelty of the thing and the wide-spread and ancient rumour about this Cape…
23. To India and Back
The sea voyage of Vasco de Gama to Calicut, India, proved that circumnavigation of Africa was the first practical sea route to the East.
Key concept: Thus shores unknown will soon become accessible…
24. Why Not the Arabs?
Arab geographers and astronomers were at least as technically advanced as contemporary European explorers, but they were not as motivated to find sea routes to the west.
Key concept: Why should I? I’m already there!
25. The Chinese Reach Out
While the Chinese had the technology to construct remarkable ships and navigate far distances, their emperors had little interest in opening up relations with the world outside their borders. They had an insular view, and saw their civilization as complete and self-sufficient.
Key concept: The heavens move without ceasing but so also does water flow [and fall]…
26. An Empire without Wants
Chinese culture had little use for clock technology. Clocks in China became toys and curiosities rather than instruments for scientific inquiry or for organizing daily life.
Key concept: One need not be astonished that the Chinese sages did not make these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all.
27. The Wandering Vikings
The Norse Vikings, unlike the Portuguese explorers of the same period, had the technology to travel far by sea but lacked the motivation or cultural organization to make their discoveries meaningful for themselves or for future generations. Their discovery of a land in the Western Atlantic, Vinland (probably Newfoundland), did not inspire or influence their descendants in the way that Columbus’ similar voyage was to change the world.
Key concept: A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
28. Dead End in Vinland
Failure to grasp the concept of nature as something ongoing, dynamic, and with a history, together with the lack of any incentive to explore beyond the limits of their own communities and the Christian sense that there were no lands beyond the reach of Adam and Eve or of Christ, made the Viking exploration of Vinland a dead end.
Key concept: Nor did his artful labours only shew Those plants which on the earth’s wide surface grew…
29. The Power of the Winds
The Vikings, unlike the Portuguese explorers, did not understand the power of the winds and their ability to get back from faraway places. Latitude sailing, with the help of the mariner’s compass, made it easier to travel long distances and eventually made it possible to navigate around the world.
Key concept: The enterprise of the Indies.
30. “The Enterprise of the Indies”
The success of Columbus’ expedition depended in part on what he had learned about sailing in northern seas with the winds and waves of the Atlantic.
Key concept: That noble and powerful city by the sea…
31. Fair Winds, Soft Words, and Luck
Columbus was fortunate in having both good luck with the weather and the skill to make the best of it. But his skill as navigator and weather forecaster would have been of little help if he had not also known how to keep up the spirits of his restless and apprehensive crew.
Key concept: Fair winds, soft words, and luck.
32. Paradise Found and Lost
Columbus had no desire to explore the unknown. He sought the confirmation of what he had already been persuaded was true by the best authorities of his time.
Key concept: I am convinced that it is the spot of the earthly paradise whither no one can go but by God’s permission.
33. Naming the Unknown
In naming the unknown after Amerigo Vespucci, there was an element of chance and whimsy, just as there had been in discovering these lands in the first place.
Key concept: A noble Florentine, who by the discovery of America rendered his own and his country’s name illustrious…
34. A World of Oceans
The Ocean became the primary fact. The European world concept was changed from that of a dominant Island of the Earth to that of a dominant Ocean of the Earth.
Key concept: There is no sea innavigable, no land uninhabitable.
35. The Reign of Secrecy
The secrecy of the seafaring nations created a black market for charts and maps. This led to a demand for more accurate and reliable maps and to the opportunity for cartographers like Mercator and Ortelius to package geographical knowledge and make a commodity of facts and ideas.
Key concept: The reign of secrecy.
36. Knowledge Becomes Merchandise
The printing press created an audience for cartographers like Mercator and Ortelius. They compiled their atlases from the details provided by countless seamen, whose explorations now had a larger purpose. Knowledge became a merchandise.
Key concept: Darwin has interested us in the history of nature’s technology.
37. The Ardors of Negative Discovery
The most useful discoveries often were those of things that were not there – the negative discoveries. Captain Cook’s famous voyages, for example, did much to dispel the belief in a great Southern Continent.
Key concept: The ardors of negative discovery.
38. Into “The Mists of Paradox”
The telescope provided opportunities to study the nature of light, and Newton’s observations led him to an important theory.
Key concept: Into ‘the mists of paradox’
39. The Witness of the Naked Eye
The telescope offered an opportunity to study the workings of lenses, and so opened the way for discoveries in the invisible world of the very small – through the invention of the microscope.
Key concept: Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins.
40. A Vision Troubled and Surprised
The microscope, an instrument for exploring the hidden worlds within, depended on the discoveries of the telescope. The human body was found to be filled with worlds-within-worlds.
Key concept: Experience does not ever err, it is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments.
41. Caught in the Cross Fire
The microscope, like the telescope, was resisted at first because it seemed to produce only “optical illusions.” Eventually new scientific facts, as in Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood, revealed that the human body itself was an engine with inner mechanisms.
Key concept: And new Philosophy calls all in doubt…
42. New Worlds Within
When the telescope reached China, it led to improvements in artillery but little advancement in Chinese astronomy. The Chinese at the time still believed that all worldly affairs depended on astrological influences, which made it appear that every earthly phenomenon was merely a reflection of some event in the heavens.
Key concept: One need not be astonished that the Chinese sages did not make these steps.
43. A Mad Prophet Points the Way
The history of medicine is intertwined with the history of the study of the human body. Like astronomy and cosmology, these were fields of study where most people had some firsthand experience, but where the traditional knowledge had been codified and put in the custody of an exclusive and respected profession. Progress in this area required the challenging of traditional notions.
Key concept: Generally speaking, people have a very erroneous idea of the type of talent proper to the ideal mechanician.
44. Inside Ourselves
Galen, although he lived in an age when human dissection was forbidden, provided the standard text on anatomy for 1400 years. His works, available first in Latin, then in Arabic, became the foundation of medical knowledge throughout the Middle Ages.
Key concept: The tyranny of Galen.
45. The Tyranny of Galen
Vesalius, like other innovators, found that by going back to original sources and primary facts he could transform the understanding of his subject. His remarkable anatomical charts were the first to depict what he had actually seen and dissected for himself.
Key concept: Thus man is the most intelligent of the animals…
46. From Animals to Man
Understanding the inner workings of the body required new theories. Harvey’s theories about the circulation of blood were inspired by observations of the movements of frogs, combined with facts from other sources.
Key concept: Unseen currents within.
47. Unseen Currents Within
The microscope made it possible to see and describe details unseen before, which were then assembled to explain the workings of the human body.
Key concept: The microscope of nature.
48. From Qualities to Quantities
Santorio pioneered in devising machines to measure internal phenomena and transformed ancient medical theory by measuring what previously had been observed only as qualities.
Key concept: From qualities to quantities.
49. A Parliament of Scientists
New forms of scientific collaboration depended on new technologies for the communication and preservation of scientific knowledge. Scientific societies, using letters and periodicals, disseminated the new observations, and so helped advance science from private experience to public knowledge.
Key concept: Science goes public.
50. From Experience to Experiment
Newton’s public success was a measure of his times. The battle with Leibniz over the invention of the calculus was itself an advertisement for the new science, and stimulated the public’s curiosity about the uses of mathematics.
Key concept: As to science itself, it can only grow.
51. “God Said, Let Newton Be!”
The increasing importance of scientific knowledge gave a new importance to the question of priority of discovery.
Key concept: Priority becomes the prize.
52. Learning to Look
The naming of plants and animals would be an essential step towards a universal catalogue of all living creatures. Linnaeus’ system for naming species of plants, though arbitrary in some ways, served this purpose.
Key concept: Cataloguing the whole creation.
53. The Invention of Species
Taxonomy is a tool for scientific discovery. The question of how and why things fit together, how similar forms came together into larger groups, prepared the way for an understanding of evolution.
Key concept: Forms which are different in species always retain their specific natures…
54. Stretching the Past
The difficulty in grasping the idea of evolution was increased by the difficulty in understanding the vastness of geological time.
Key concept: If you wish to extend your field of vision…
55. In Search of the Missing Link
The
Key concept: In search of the missing link.
56. Specimen Hunting
Specimen collecting became an increasingly important source of data for advancing the study of living things and prepared the way for the science of evolution.
Key concept: Specimen hunting.
57. The Lost Arts of Memory
The lost arts of memory, and the limitations of the storage capacity of any individual human brain, became an obstacle to the further advance of knowledge. The creation of libraries, and then of the printed book, transformed the problem by providing new technologies for storing and preserving human knowledge, making knowledge more and more public.
Key concept: Building up a library…
58. Empire of the Learned
Before there could be a common understanding of the past, there had to be a common way of marking off and measuring time.
Key concept: History had to be discovered before it could be explored.
59. “The Art of Artificial Writing”
Printing and the printing press were themselves products of many earlier discoveries and inventions. Printing began with block printing, but movable type offered new possibilities for making knowledge more public.
Key concept: The art of artificial writing.
60. Communities of the Vernacular
The development of the printing press coincided with the rise of vernacular literature, which created new problems of translation. The development of dictionaries and grammars of the national languages facilitated the translation of literary works for new markets.
Key concept: Communities of the vernacular.
61. Transforming the Book
The printing of books brought a new emphasis on the individual author and on the individual reader. The printed book would have page numbers and indexes, which made it more convenient to access, share and verify the content.
Key concept: Transforming the book.
62. Books Go Public
With the multiplication of books came the invention of public libraries with an emphasis on open stacks and convenient access.
Key concept: Books go public.
63. The Island of Islam
The Islamic empire expanded throughout the Middle East and Africa, but resisted the printing press. The Arabic script, like the Chinese, posed special problems for printers.
Key concept: Building up a library…
64. Toward a World Literature
The development of modern language dictionaries began with translation and etymology and moved toward usage and spelling. National dictionaries became symbols of national consciousness.
Key concept: Toward a world literature.
65. The Birth of History
The modern world opened a new era in the writing of history. Historical consciousness was influenced by advances in science and by new ways of understanding time and human institutions. The study of the past was influenced by the need for a new understanding of the present.
Key concept: History had to be discovered before it could be explored.
66. Explorers among the Ruins
The relics and ruins of the past became objects of study. Archaeology opened up the past in ways that had been impossible in the age when history was mainly a collection of written accounts.
Key concept: Explorers among the ruins.
67. “To Wake the Dead”
Archaeology became the science of discovery. Schliemann’s excavations of Troy and Mycenae provided new insights into a pre-classical age.
Key concept: “To wake the dead.”
68. Latitudes of Time
A true understanding of history requires more than the ability to arrange events in chronological order. Prehistory became an important new era of historical consciousness.
Key concept: Latitudes of time.
69. The Discovery of Prehistory
Prehistoric relics and artifacts were often collected but seldom carefully studied. Museum collections became a source of new clues to human history.
Key concept: The discovery of prehistory.
70. “All Mankind Is One”
A science of culture began with the discovery and settlement of the New World, which exposed Europeans for the first time to the variety and range of human behavior.
Key concept: “All mankind is one.”
71. The Shock of the Primitive
The study of primitive cultures, especially those encountered in the Western hemisphere, became an incentive to develop the science of anthropology as a way of discovering man’s common humanity in the diversity of human societies.
Key concept: The shock of the primitive.
72. An Expanding Universe of Wealth
The discovery and settlement of the Americas also opened a new era in the theory and practice of economics. Economics became a study of how a society could produce the most to satisfy the unlimited wants of the greatest number of people.
Key concept: An expanding universe of wealth.
73. Learning from Numbers
The gathering of accurate and quantifiable information on a large scale, which began to become feasible in the age of printing and the early national censuses, led to statistics, which became the new language of demography and also of the social sciences and other fields concerned with human beings.
Key concept: Learning from numbers.
74. The Infinite and the Infinitesimal
The quest to understand the infinitesimally small, the atom, became a quest to discover the infinitely large, the universe.
Key concept: The infinite and the infinitesimal.
Essential Questions
1. How did the measurement of time shape civilization and pave the way for scientific thinking?
Boorstin shows that the measurement of time is fundamental to the rise of science, of history, and indeed of civilization itself. He reveals how separating time from the sun’s shadows and measuring night and day in equal portions using mechanical clocks changed our very way of thinking, ultimately creating a world where we can plan and act collaboratively. This created a world where knowledge could be accumulated, shared, and used. It was the mechanical clock that gave us a sense of time as a universal measure. This created a foundation for scientific thought.
2. What were the primary motivations behind the great explorations, and how did they contribute to scientific progress?
Boorstin shows how exploration is driven by a combination of practical and imaginative forces. He emphasizes that practical needs were not by themselves enough to drive the great discoveries. While ancient geographers had developed remarkable techniques for representing and measuring the earth’s surface, they lacked sufficient incentives to use those techniques. The urge to explore comes from the desire to escape the monotony of nature and to conquer the unknown.
3. How did the printing press revolutionize the way knowledge was created and disseminated, and how did it both advance and impede scientific progress?
Boorstin points to the printing press as an unlikely agent of change and disseminator of knowledge. While the invention of printing coincided with a revival of older knowledge, it also introduced a new commerce in facts and ideas. The printing press made knowledge accessible to an infinitely larger audience, but also gave new longevity to errors and misconceptions. The most influential texts, such as Ptolemy’s, became popular at the very time when they were being proved wrong by new observations from the world.
4. What is the role of challenging common sense and accepted truths in scientific discovery?
Boorstin argues that scientific discovery relies on the willingness to challenge common sense. He argues that the most important discoveries have come from those who dared to see what others had not seen, to question what others had taken for granted, and to go where others dared not go. He uses numerous examples throughout the book to demonstrate how our present view of the universe, of the earth, of the human body, and of the past was made possible by those who were not afraid to challenge the consensus of their own time.
1. How did the measurement of time shape civilization and pave the way for scientific thinking?
Boorstin shows that the measurement of time is fundamental to the rise of science, of history, and indeed of civilization itself. He reveals how separating time from the sun’s shadows and measuring night and day in equal portions using mechanical clocks changed our very way of thinking, ultimately creating a world where we can plan and act collaboratively. This created a world where knowledge could be accumulated, shared, and used. It was the mechanical clock that gave us a sense of time as a universal measure. This created a foundation for scientific thought.
2. What were the primary motivations behind the great explorations, and how did they contribute to scientific progress?
Boorstin shows how exploration is driven by a combination of practical and imaginative forces. He emphasizes that practical needs were not by themselves enough to drive the great discoveries. While ancient geographers had developed remarkable techniques for representing and measuring the earth’s surface, they lacked sufficient incentives to use those techniques. The urge to explore comes from the desire to escape the monotony of nature and to conquer the unknown.
3. How did the printing press revolutionize the way knowledge was created and disseminated, and how did it both advance and impede scientific progress?
Boorstin points to the printing press as an unlikely agent of change and disseminator of knowledge. While the invention of printing coincided with a revival of older knowledge, it also introduced a new commerce in facts and ideas. The printing press made knowledge accessible to an infinitely larger audience, but also gave new longevity to errors and misconceptions. The most influential texts, such as Ptolemy’s, became popular at the very time when they were being proved wrong by new observations from the world.
4. What is the role of challenging common sense and accepted truths in scientific discovery?
Boorstin argues that scientific discovery relies on the willingness to challenge common sense. He argues that the most important discoveries have come from those who dared to see what others had not seen, to question what others had taken for granted, and to go where others dared not go. He uses numerous examples throughout the book to demonstrate how our present view of the universe, of the earth, of the human body, and of the past was made possible by those who were not afraid to challenge the consensus of their own time.
Key Takeaways
1. Prioritize Data Gathering and Analysis
Boorstin highlights the importance of observation and data collection as a foundation for knowledge. The progression from simple observation to rigorous data collection has been essential for scientific and technological advancements. This is exemplified in the development of cartography, where detailed observations by mariners transformed mapmaking from a speculative exercise to a precise science.
Practical Application:
In the field of AI, prioritizing data gathering and analysis is crucial for developing effective algorithms and models. Just as accurate maps enabled explorers, accurate data is the compass for AI development.
2. Understand the Social and Cultural Context
The book underscores the importance of social and cultural contexts in shaping technological development and adoption. The contrasting paths of clockmaking in the East and West demonstrate how social needs and cultural values influence the trajectory of technological innovation.
Practical Application:
In AI product design, understanding the social and cultural context is essential for developing products that meet user needs and expectations. Just as clocks served different purposes in the East and West, AI products must be designed with cultural sensitivity in mind.
3. Embrace Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
The book emphasizes the power of collaborative knowledge creation and dissemination. The invention of the printing press, the establishment of scientific societies, and the rise of scientific journals facilitated the sharing of ideas and data, accelerating the pace of discovery.
Practical Application:
In today’s interconnected world, promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing across disciplinary boundaries is key to driving innovation in AI. Just as the printing press fostered communication, open-source initiatives and collaborative platforms can accelerate AI development.
4. Question Assumptions and Look for Anomalies
The book highlights the importance of questioning assumptions and looking for anomalies. Discoveries often emerge from observations that contradict existing theories or expectations. This is exemplified by Vesalius’s challenge to Galen’s anatomical authority based on his own observations.
Practical Application:
This principle is crucial for AI safety. By carefully examining unexpected outcomes and anomalies, we can identify potential risks and biases embedded in AI systems, allowing for course correction and improvement.
5. Embrace Iterative Progress and Flexibility
The book emphasizes the iterative and often slow nature of progress and discovery. While some discoveries like America emerge by chance, others like mapping the African coastline by Portuguese explorers are the result of prolonged, incremental efforts.
Practical Application:
In project management for AI products, understanding the iterative nature of development and embracing flexibility is key to success. Long-term projects like developing an effective language translation engine require patience, adaptability, and incremental progress.
1. Prioritize Data Gathering and Analysis
Boorstin highlights the importance of observation and data collection as a foundation for knowledge. The progression from simple observation to rigorous data collection has been essential for scientific and technological advancements. This is exemplified in the development of cartography, where detailed observations by mariners transformed mapmaking from a speculative exercise to a precise science.
Practical Application:
In the field of AI, prioritizing data gathering and analysis is crucial for developing effective algorithms and models. Just as accurate maps enabled explorers, accurate data is the compass for AI development.
2. Understand the Social and Cultural Context
The book underscores the importance of social and cultural contexts in shaping technological development and adoption. The contrasting paths of clockmaking in the East and West demonstrate how social needs and cultural values influence the trajectory of technological innovation.
Practical Application:
In AI product design, understanding the social and cultural context is essential for developing products that meet user needs and expectations. Just as clocks served different purposes in the East and West, AI products must be designed with cultural sensitivity in mind.
3. Embrace Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
The book emphasizes the power of collaborative knowledge creation and dissemination. The invention of the printing press, the establishment of scientific societies, and the rise of scientific journals facilitated the sharing of ideas and data, accelerating the pace of discovery.
Practical Application:
In today’s interconnected world, promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing across disciplinary boundaries is key to driving innovation in AI. Just as the printing press fostered communication, open-source initiatives and collaborative platforms can accelerate AI development.
4. Question Assumptions and Look for Anomalies
The book highlights the importance of questioning assumptions and looking for anomalies. Discoveries often emerge from observations that contradict existing theories or expectations. This is exemplified by Vesalius’s challenge to Galen’s anatomical authority based on his own observations.
Practical Application:
This principle is crucial for AI safety. By carefully examining unexpected outcomes and anomalies, we can identify potential risks and biases embedded in AI systems, allowing for course correction and improvement.
5. Embrace Iterative Progress and Flexibility
The book emphasizes the iterative and often slow nature of progress and discovery. While some discoveries like America emerge by chance, others like mapping the African coastline by Portuguese explorers are the result of prolonged, incremental efforts.
Practical Application:
In project management for AI products, understanding the iterative nature of development and embracing flexibility is key to success. Long-term projects like developing an effective language translation engine require patience, adaptability, and incremental progress.
Suggested Deep Dive
Chapter: Part One: Time
Provides valuable insights for structuring our thinking about time, calendars and pre-digital methods of measuring time. This has implications for a better understanding of the history of technology, as well as the history of consciousness.
Memorable Quotes
Epigraph. 6
Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, “The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out”; as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God’s play-fellows in that game.
A Personal Note to the Reader. 12
This is a story without end. All the world is still an America. The most promising words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita—unknown territory.
Part Two. 43
The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours!
Part Four. 114
Would to God your horizon may broaden every day! The people who bind themselves to systems are those who are unable to encompass the whole truth and try to catch it by the tail; a system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling.
Part Nine. 387
Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?
Epigraph. 6
Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, “The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out”; as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God’s play-fellows in that game.
A Personal Note to the Reader. 12
This is a story without end. All the world is still an America. The most promising words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita—unknown territory.
Part Two. 43
The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours!
Part Four. 114
Would to God your horizon may broaden every day! The people who bind themselves to systems are those who are unable to encompass the whole truth and try to catch it by the tail; a system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling.
Part Nine. 387
Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?
Comparative Analysis
Unlike other histories of science and technology, Boorstin’s The Discoverers focuses less on specific discoveries and more on the changing ways of thinking that made those discoveries possible. While histories of science by Kuhn, for example, have revealed that science did not simply advance by a steady accumulation of facts, they did see a scientific method at work. Boorstin, by contrast, is more interested in challenging our conventional notion of science. Rather than focusing on the scientific method, he focuses on scientific ways of thinking. He emphasizes how essential to the advance of science has been the willingness to challenge common sense, to abandon what has been taken for granted, to accept what might seem improbable, to welcome uncertainty, and to imagine the unimaginable. This helps us to understand why in earlier times the apparent truths of common sense were often more powerful impediments to the advance of science than was the ignorance of the unlettered.
Reflection
Boorstin’s The Discoverers is a history of human consciousness, of how we have come to know the world we live in. It offers a grand overview of the major turning points in the history of Western thought, of how we escaped from the world of cycles into a world of history. He shows how the discoveries of time, space, nature, and society have expanded our understanding of the world. Although, as he notes, the maps of human knowledge still have vast stretches of terra incognita – “unknown territory” – yet the discoveries he recounts have prepared us to live in a world of unimaginable variety and infinite possibility.
The book’s main strength is its sweeping narrative and its ability to synthesize vast amounts of information into a readable and engaging story. It is also a testament to the author’s erudite knowledge of history and his passion for learning. It is well-documented, grounded in the original texts, and enlivened by countless anecdotes. Although it focuses on “discoveries,” the book itself is not primarily a book of discoveries in the sense that it offers nothing essentially new. But Boorstin’s wide-ranging survey puts the familiar in a new and thought-provoking perspective and reminds us that the history of discovery is never finished.
Flashcards
What was the most significant change in our idea of time?
Measuring night and day in equal portions, using mechanical clocks
When did the “equal hour” become a standard unit of time?
Around 1330
What is the main idea of astrology?
The idea that unseen forces from the heavens affect human lives.
What is an escapement?
A way to measure the “escape” of energy from the mainspring into the workings of the clock.
What were two of the most significant mechanical inventions derived from clocks?
The gear and the screw.
Why did the development of cartography stall in Europe during the Middle Ages?
Because of the influence of Christian dogma, which was primarily concerned with confirming established theological truths and less concerned with discovering new facts about the physical world.
Why was Vesalius a more important contributor to the advancement of anatomy than was Leonardo da Vinci?
Because he insisted on publishing his findings, and so made them available to future generations of scientists.
What tool did Malpighi use to “dissect Nature”?
The microscope.
Who was the first director of the Smithsonian Institute and what project did he work on that established the first scientific weather prediction service?
Joseph Henry.
What was the most significant change in our idea of time?
Measuring night and day in equal portions, using mechanical clocks
When did the “equal hour” become a standard unit of time?
Around 1330
What is the main idea of astrology?
The idea that unseen forces from the heavens affect human lives.
What is an escapement?
A way to measure the “escape” of energy from the mainspring into the workings of the clock.
What were two of the most significant mechanical inventions derived from clocks?
The gear and the screw.
Why did the development of cartography stall in Europe during the Middle Ages?
Because of the influence of Christian dogma, which was primarily concerned with confirming established theological truths and less concerned with discovering new facts about the physical world.
Why was Vesalius a more important contributor to the advancement of anatomy than was Leonardo da Vinci?
Because he insisted on publishing his findings, and so made them available to future generations of scientists.
What tool did Malpighi use to “dissect Nature”?
The microscope.
Who was the first director of the Smithsonian Institute and what project did he work on that established the first scientific weather prediction service?
Joseph Henry.