THE ART OF SCIENCE

"Tsundoku" is the Japanese word for buying books and never reading them. So why on earth would you want to do that? Well, a cynic might say, in order to display them on your coffee table or in your bookcase at home … to create an impression that you know something about their content … when of course you don't.

Now, just for the sake of argument, imagine that you do a "Tsundoku" of Professor Stephen Hawking's best-selling hardback on black holes and then decide to throw a dinner party. Further imagine you have the great misfortune to be seated next to one of your guests who just happens to be a prominent member of scientific academia. Imagine further still that this person hasn't read the book but has espied your copy of 'A Brief History of Time'… and, horror of horrors … asks you what you thought of it. You're in trouble, aren't you?

Not necessarily, perhaps you've invested in a copy of 'The Art of Science' by Gareth Morgan. And I strongly recommend that you do so because it is a rare thing indeed … a non-fiction page turner that you can't put down … a book that challenges just about everything you ever thought you knew about … well just about everything. It's that provocative. But don't get the wrong idea. The author isn't anti-science; he's anti-scientific humbug. His beef is against that section of the scientific and medical community that feels that it has a monopoly on the truth and expects to be treated with reverential awe by the rest of us as if it were some kind of priesthood. He argues convincingly why it hasn't and why we shouldn't.

Similar in some ways to Rupert Sheldrake's 'The Science Delusion'; 'The Art of Science' is a well-written, humorous and interesting tilt at the scientific and medical establishment. However, Gareth Morgan is more controversial than Sheldrake and so hard hitting at times that I feel he risks alienating or worse still being ignored by it altogether … which would be a shame … because he has an incisive mind with a talent of taking complex issues, breaking them down and writing about them in a clear, entertaining and digestible way. Furthermore, he is ready, willing and able to defend his views … many of which are quite startling … and, perhaps more importantly, is happy to be proven wrong.

'The Art of Science' consists of two parts, the first entitled 'Pure Genius', the second 'Applied Genius'. Its natural target audience appears to be the reasonably well-informed layman. It is unlikely to be well received by members of the scientific and medical academia about which it is, without wishing to put too fine a point on it, pretty unflattering. Gareth Morgan's challenge is not so much an epistemological one in terms of shortfalls in methodology or paradigm limitations … as is the case with Sheldrake … but more along the lines of calling into question the actual integrity and sheer competence of mainstream Western Science and Medicine. In Part One—Pure Genius—after a briefest of preambles, the author launches his attack in a series of short, punchy, chapters dealing with a wide range of subjects, everything from black holes, dark matter through AIDS and quantum mechanics to meteorology.

And so, returning to the dark matter of black holes, Gareth Morgan explains how Professor Hawking happily admits—towards the end of his best-selling hardback—that they can't exist and that, if they did, they would be the brightest objects observable in the sky due to what's called gravitational lensing. So you could point this out to your troublesome dinner guest … and everything would be alright … wouldn't it? Probably not; because—after a brief moment of stunned silence—this outraged academic is likely to stand up and, in a fit of pique, denounce you as an ignorant fool. How dare you? Everyone knows that Hawking is published and what about all of those other papers? And storm out. You see … you will have violated what the author calls the First Law of Academia: Don't contradict anything that has already been published in a peer-reviewed journal!" He explains how whosoever publishes first sets the gold standard … the scientific position … even if their findings are flatly contradicted by subsequent experimental data derived from careful measurement.

In Part Two—'Applied Genius'—the author gives a detailed account of a highly practicable and very interesting schema for addressing the perennial problems besetting humanity in which he calls for the application of its collective genius. I had originally intended to go into this area in some detail but have come to the conclusion, whilst writing this review, that it is better to recommend the purchase of a copy of 'The Art of Science' and read what he has to say without the dubious benefit of a set of pre-conceived ideas. You may not agree with what he proposes … it may be too radical for your liking … but I guarantee he will set you thinking and … who knows … he may be right.

Unusually for a work of non-fiction, the 'The Art of Science' does not have a bibliography; the author takes the pragmatic view that there was no need to include one as nobody ever reads the references, let alone follows them up. Be that as it may, he does invite his readership to contact him to discuss any issues and welcomes reasonable dissent.

One final thing … if you do decide to splash out and buy a copy of 'The Art of Science' and end up agreeing with the author … be careful who you invite to dinner!