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Phil Anderson’s most recent collection of essays highlights the portion of his career that has been dedicated to thinking about, rather than doing science. Such reflection is a common avocation among physicists, and Anderson has an uncommon gift for resisting the temptations of glib generalization and grandiose rhetoric, which so frequently beguile the reflexive physicist. The essays Anderson highlights here are predominantly purpose-written pieces—editorials, book reviews, lectures, etc. We are permitted thereby to see Anderson and his views in context, rather than filtered through the lens of hindsight. The volume is an excellent compendium of the portion of Anderson’s career for which, justly or not, he is best known.
Emergence is the watchword that sums up Anderson’s agenda. If the sum of this book’s essays can be said to have a common goal, it is the advancement of the idea that science, in its most fascinating, fruitful, and as yet poorly understood form, grapples with how to understand complex phenomena by examining how new, novel, unpredictable laws emerge from simple constituents. Anderson recalls arriving at this view through his own scientific work, particularly in the aftermath of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory of superconductivity, which awakened the physics community to the importance of spontaneous symmetry breaking. He also extends this view beyond physics, to the “seamless web” of science as a whole, embracing—reservedly—the hope that techniques honed investigating complex physical systems might offer insight to the study of complex biological, social, and economic systems.
Seen as a paean for emergence, the book might be split roughly in half. Anderson develops his emergentist view of science in the first. In the second, we see it applied to a series of debates, of both contemporary and historical interest. The first half begins with a series of historical recollections. The most substantial of these are the two chapters, excerpts from Anderson’s unpublished history of superconductivity. These strike a balance between biographical background and clear exposition of conceptual details. Sections III and IV contain what is likely to be the most interesting material for many readers. They outline Anderson’s views on emergence, present his attack on reductionist theories of everything, and outline thoughts on how a national science infrastructure organized his way might look.
The second half is less focused. Its many tangents include reflections on the nature of scientific genius, lamentations about the hopelessness of futurology, arguments against the wisdom of Strategic Defense Initiatives, and a small spat with Nancy Cartwright over the epistemological foundations of science. Section IX on complexity picks up the thread of the first half again before the final section, “Popularization Attempts,” attempts to articulate what it is condensed matter physicists do in a manner that is, alas, likely to exceed the grasp of most lay readers; Anderson’s scrupulous habit of presenting his arguments in all their nuance and complexity, which is an asset elsewhere, makes him a poor popularizer. The winding path the second half takes, while it does not directly advance the objectives evident in the first, nonetheless provides several instructive examples of how Anderson’s distinctive take on science plays out in actual political, scientific, and philosophical controversies.
My biggest gripe is that the book feels slapped together. Many of its 10 sections appear to be ad hoc devices minted solely to impose some semblance of structure on its 55 essays. Several of the later sections contain primarily book reviews. Although Anderson does use the occasion of reviewing a book to expound on his own views, these sections are thin compared with earlier, more substantive sections. The text contains a larger than average number of typographical errors, further reinforcing the unpolished feel. Sparse annotations leave the provenance of many of the essays unclear, and Anderson’s perfunctory introductions to each section give the impression that he set out to write a popularly accessible book articulating his distinctive view of science, only to discover that, in aggregate, he already had. That said, the unmanicured quality that results conveys a sharper sense of Anderson’s views and their development than a more polished work might have. Although a lay reader might find its meandering off-putting, historians and physicists will appreciate the way this book chronicles the evolution of one of the sharpest critical voices in American science.
- Paperback: 422 pages
- Publisher: Wspc; 1 edition (September 1, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 9814350133
- ISBN-13: 978-9814350136
- Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 10 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#1,866,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #788 in Science Essays & Commentary (Books)
- #1231 in Electromagnetism (Books)
- #541 in Solid-State Physics (Books)
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