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Tom Jackson’s History of Science is a comprehensive and popular account of Western science from the seventeenth century to the present day. One or two pages are devoted to a famous experiment, theory or method, illustrated and explained richly and colorfully in an easy-to-read manner. The range of subjects is wide: physics and chemistry form the main focus, but biology, astronomy, computer science and even the Milgram experiment, which was used to test human obedience to authority, are also represented.
Amusing but not accurate
The selection does not follow any recognizable system, but is the “best” of an arbitrarily compiled flag. As fun as it is to browse the 200-page brochure, a lot of inaccuracies, gross simplifications, or inconsistent comparisons of text and images are annoying. The task of the popular scientific presentation is to make the basics of a generally complex subject area understandable, without shortening or distorting the facts in such a way that they are eventually misrepresented. The history of science itself is a huge and complex area whose complexity should not be underestimated. It is always amazing that authors without professional training dare to make a contribution here. In the end, they often repeat well-known errors, such as that Albert Michelson wanted to verify the existence of the aether through his experiment and that Einstein then refuted it with the help of the theory of relativity.
We don’t know where Jackson copied it, because there is no bibliography. A disturbing note in the introduction shows that the author has no scholarly-historical access to his collection. There he says that hypotheses and theories are the same and become facts through evidence. And then: “However, some theories are still described as such, although they have been proven correct, which could cause confusion.” Such a crude scientific theory is certainly not helpful.
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