Science and Human Values [Paperback]

Jacob Bronowski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 1990 | ISBN-10: 0060972815 | ISBN-13: 978-0060972813 | Edition: Revised

Thought-provoking essays on science as an integral part of the culture of our age from a leader in the scientific humanism movement. "A profoundly moving, brilliantly perceptive essay by a truly civilized man."--Scientific American

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

"A profoundly moving, brilliantly perceptive essay by a truly civilized man."

About the Author

Jacob Bronowski was born in Poland in 1908. At the age of 12 he came to England, and within six years was a brilliant mathematics student at Cambridge. During the war he helped to forecast the economic effects of bombing Germany. After many years working for the National Coal Board, he moved to the Salk Institute in 1964 while developing his career as a broadcaster. In 1973, he presented for the BBC the ambitious 13-part series The Ascent of Man, which made him a household name. He died the following year. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Revised edition (April 3, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060972815
• ISBN-13: 978-0060972813
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,160,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Science and Human Values - a call to Holism, October 12, 2001

By 

Michael I. Poutiatine "Makalu" (Spokane, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Science and Human Values (Paperback)

While Bronowski's book, Science and Human Values is often lauded as a critique of logical positivism, I found it to be much more than just that. Bronowski launches a critique on a more pervasive foundation of western philosophy, that of dualism. Bronowski seeks to reduce the dualistic view that somehow science and technology are antithetical to the human spirit. The book is constructed as an extended essay consisting of three distinct, though closely related arguments:

a) The Creative Mind - an argument that the human mind operates creatively whether engaged in logical constructivist activities or in more subjective expressions of thought. In short, Bronowski argues here that the Poet and the Physicist have much more in common than we allow ourselves to believe.

b) The Habit of Truth - an argument that both the right (creative) and left (analytic) sides of the brain are doing the same thing, seeking truth, in the generative process.

c) The Sense of Human Dignity - an argument that the objective exploration of science and technology are just as "human" as the quest for introspective or subjective understanding of the human condition.

Epilogue) The volume also contains an interesting fictional dialogue titled The Abacus and the Rose, held between a public servant, a scientist and a literary figure regarding the nature of their thought processes.

Bronowski emphasizes the notion that the outcomes of science and technology are mere tools and artifacts, it is the spirit and creative energy behind them form the basis for human values and ideals. For Bronowski human values are what drive scientific discovery just as they drive public policy or artistic creativity. We get into trouble when we try and separate these ventures from human values, and thus confuse means and ends. In this way Bronowski offers a compelling argument that is less a critique of positivism than a call for a more holistic vision of human development and the creative spirit.

The essay is well written and easy to follow and provides some solid insight on the ever more difficult task of linking scientific and technological progress with human value systems.

"Whether our work is art or science or the daily work of society, it is only the form in which we explore our experience which is different; the need to explore remains the same." (Bronowski, 1965, p. 72)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A profound meditation on the human condition, May 25, 2007

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Science and Human Values (Paperback)

This is a small but profound work. The three chapters" 'The Creative Mind'
'The Habit of Truth' ' The Sense of Human Dignity' taken together constitute an argument against modern positivistic philosophy and logical analysis regarding the absolute separation of 'is' from 'ought'. As Bronowski understands it the sense of values pervades and in a sense brings together the major realms of creative life. The special values of Science itself are for Bronowski 'independence and originality, dissent and freedom and tolerance; such are the first needs of science; and these are the values, which , of itself, it demands and forms."
Yet Bronowski also strongly emphasizes the evidence- based nature of Science in its search for Truth. And he speaks of the process of its development ," the view that our concepts are built up from experience, and have constantly to be tested and corrected in experience." Here is the great distinguishing feature of Science not only its quest for truth but in its power to transform the world.
What Bronowski does in another sense is cut across the 'Two Cultures' divide posited by C.P. Snow. A person of both literary and scientific background himself he finds that ' the exploration of likenesses' through symbolic concepts define creativity both in literary and in scientific realms.
Bronowski is in a very deep sense a humanist who defines and dignity of mankind in its search to understand and transform the world.
There is much to be thought and said about this very important book.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Integration of Science into the Human Condition, September 4, 2011

By 

Edward J. Barton (Tukwila, WA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Science and Human Values (Paperback)

Written in the aftermath of the Second World War, and inspired by the scenes of destruction at Nagasaki, Bronowski attempts to reconcile science, culture, values and the human condition in this well written and profound little book. Comprised of three lectures and a fictional interaction between an artist, a scientist and an establishment plitician (The Abacus and the Rose), the book outlines theintegral role that science has to play in creativity, develoment and cultural integration if we are to make thebest use of the knowledge coming from it in the new era of atomic power.

In a profound comparison betwen Rutherford and Rembrandt, Bronowski shows the parallels between the artist and the scientist - each attempting to creatively describe and convey the world as they see it through different, but related, media and methods.

Not an easy read, but a profound one, Bronowski provides an eloquent overview for science as an integral part of the human culture, values and condition on par with the arts and a framework to integrate and reconcile the apparent differences in the two positions.