Anaximander and the Nature of Science - Carlo Rovelli ****

In my experience, working scientists often get history of science wrong - in this case, as it's arguably more history of philosophy, I can't say whether or not Carlo Rovelli is straying far from what's known to make his point, but what he has to say about the Greek philosopher Anaximander from the 6th century BC is fascinating.

All I really knew about Anaximander was that he had proposed an early cosmology, with a cylindrically shaped Earth and the light of the Sun and stars produced by fire contained in rings that had holes in to let the light out. This was interesting, but not necessarily hugely inspiring. By contrast, what Rovelli proposes is that Anaximander came up with a number of steps forward that were effectively foundational for the scientific method.

At first this seemed like hyperbole from someone championing a particular favourite, but by the end of the book I was convinced. What Rovelli attributes to Anaximander are the idea of a non-flat Earth floating in space - surrounded by the heavens, rather than a flat Earth with the heavens above; building on Thales' example as the first known explanation for physical processes without divine intervention; introducing the concept of natural law; and challenging his master's ideas rather than simply building on them.

The next step Rovelli takes is to try to understand why 6th century BC Greece was pretty well the only such starting point. He emphasises, for instance, that despite their impressive mathematics, astronomical observation and technological developments, Chinese philosophers and scientists never came up with the insight of a non-flat Earth floating in space, only switching to this viewpoint when they received information from missionaries in the seventeenth century. He suggests that it was the combination of having the first fully phonetic simple alphabet, the lack of dominant royalty and the independence of the city states that enabled this revolution in thinking in Miletus where Anaximander was based.

The rest of the book (about half of it) concentrates on what science is, the dangers of cultural relativism and understanding the world without gods. I found this a lot less interesting, partly because I'd seen most of it before, and partly because it is more a matter of paddling in the murky waters of philosophy of science rather than the more interesting (to me) origins of the history of science. 

For the first half alone, though, this is a book well worth having. Rovelli has improved hugely since his early super-waffly titles - if you have an interest in where science came from, this is arguably his best so far.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here