Volume 26, Number 11 · June 28, 1979
Scientists as Servants
By David Joravsky
The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America
by Daniel J. Kevles
Vintage, 489 pp., $5.95 (paper)
Scientists in Power
by Spencer R. Weart
Harvard University Press, 343 pp., $17.50
Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts
edited by Spencer R. Weart, edited by Gertrud Weiss Szilard
MIT Press, 244 pp., $17.50
Science in a Free Society
by Paul Feyerabend
NLB (distributed by Schocken), 221 pp., $15.50
Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge
by Paul Feyerabend
NLB Verso (distributed by Schocken), 339 pp., $6.75 (paper)
Since Congress cannot repeal the law of gravitation, is physics at odds with democracy? That is high school humor, but it can be turned into scary questions, illustrated with human shadows burned into Hiroshima walls, bewildered refugees from Middletown, Pa., and amphitheaters of docile youths copying equations. Since the laws of nature are established by self-selected fellowships of scientists, may they not subject the innocent majority to their esoteric power? In that form the question still seems the product of an adolescent subculture; it recalls the horror comics that derive from gothic novels, increasingly silly caricatures of fearful belief in occult knowledge as power.
Review, 5768 words
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