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Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution
by Lisa Jardine
Doubleday
320 pp.; $35

French DNA: Trouble in Purgatory
by Paul Rabinow
Univ. of Chicago Press
200 pp.; $25

Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology
by Kim Sterelny and Paul E. Griffiths
Univ. of Chicago Press
416 pp.; $22, paper

Science is not done in a vacuum. Although the workings of the natural world are arguably in dependent of the human context in which they are discovered, it is undeniable that which scientific questions are pursued, and hence which scientific discoveries are made, depends on the culture in which the scientists are working. It is equally undeniable that scientific discoveries have a moral and philosophical impact on society. Three recent books—Lisa Jardine's Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution; Paul Rabinow's French DNA: Trouble in Purgatory; and Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths's Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology—address the questions of how science fits into the surrounding culture, each from a different angle.

One central message of Jardine's Ingenious Pursuits is that scientific progress depends on money, and money comes when there is economic and political reason to be interested in the scientific results. Al though Jardine's subject matter is Renaissance-era European science, this observation is just as true in America, or anywhere else, today (as I put the final touches on this review, I am also working on two grant proposals).

Jardine recounts the major scientific developments of the period together with the reasons that they were funded. For example, astronomical observatories were established in every major European capital and astronomers employed at those observatories because both land surveying and marine navigation depended on astronomical observations. (Louis XIV of France, on surveying new maps of France based on improved observations, remarked that he lost more of his territory to his astronomers than to his enemies.) Out of vast tables of astronomical data (collected in order to calculate latitude and longitude) emerged Newton's theory of universal gravitation, one of a handful of foundational principles of physics that persisted until it was superseded by Einstein's theory of general relativity in the early twentieth century.

Another theme of Ingenious Pursuits which is as true today as it was 300 years ago is that technology makes scientific progress possible. Astronomy relies on accurate chronometers, so astronomy—both what we would call basic astronomical research and the data tables used for surveying and navigation—advanced as timekeeping technology advanced. Similarly, the development of the microscope opened up the world of the miniature for biologists to observe. (If you're wondering about economic support for microscopy, European nobles were fascinated with the microscopic, and bought both microscopes themselves and books of engravings of things seen through microscopes. Since photography of microscope images was not possible, progress in understanding how to draw three-dimensional objects, and skilled draughtsmen and artists capable of rendering accurately the microscopist's sketches of what he saw, were essential to such work.) Scientists such as Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovered protozoa, learned about the functioning of cells and or ganelles, and studied the anatomy of insects and other small creatures.

Jardine is a good storyteller, and Ingenious Pursuits is filled with stories that are well told, as well as accessible to the reader with little scientific background. Beautiful illustrations enrich the telling, particularly in the chapters on micros copy and botany. Unfortunately, the book fails to tie its stories together into a coherent whole. The eight chapters, each focused on a particular area of science, hang together loosely if at all, held together largely by a common time period and some common characters, rather than by thematic connections. Some chapters with related content (for example, chapters 1, 4, and 5, all of which deal with chronometry and astronomy) are surprisingly repetitive, as if Jardine's editor wasn't paying attention when those chapters came by. And the book is really too long. The same points could be made more clearly and the same stories told more lucidly with less de tail. The historical narrative is so thorough that the book misses opportunities for both brevity and insight. Nevertheless, Ingenious Pursuits is enjoyable to read as well as informative, at least in small doses.

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