The Scientists...What Can I Say

One review calls The Scientists the super cliche "A tour de force", which it is and for lack of original words to describe the work by John Gribbon...sure, why not. The thingy about this book is that it is totally epic in scale and scope and why not describe it as such. After all, it is about the history of science and the scientists, as well as the technology, so anything less than a 'tour de force' would be lame pants-and that is not good.

So what is 'lil old me supposed to do, with my lame pants reviewing skills (if you have not read one of my book reviews b4, then, well...it's not very epic or detail-ish), and my not attention to detail...bullet points off the top of my head of course.

* The first thingy I noticed very early in the book is that the church f*cks up the early scientists and poo poo's any knowledge that is not Genesis or in the bible in general...then they kill you.

* The second thing I noticed is that scientists do not do much partying. In fact all they do is....science (which is good for the general public, but not very exciting reading. There was one womanizer but I 4got who that was, and I don't approve of that behavior anyways...).

* The book (aprox 700 pages w/footnotes) is a dot to dot history of everything science. The peeps, their discoveries and their boring lives. Covering 500 years is kinda epic and Gribbon goes over the well knowns and the not so well knowns. Sure well all know the Galileo's and the Kepler's, but dude comprehensively goes thru the dudes that make the smaller discoveries that made the bigger discoveries.  That is awesome sauce.

* They were all sickly and weak, not an athlete amongst them and then they all died early. In fact everyone back in the day died early. In fact they all had hella kids because it was common for kids to die early. In fact in fact, it was common for the wife to die during childbirth and then scientists dude would remarry...because they all died early.

No reason, I just like lemon head kitty. Meow meow.

* The coolio thingy about science is...is that it is self correcting. For a long time they thought this thing, phlogesten (basically chi), was fer real. Later they corrected that, and that is the beauty of science, as opposed to the bible. The bible is etched in stone, it never changes. Science changes with new knowledge, that that is a good thing.

* Technology was toooootalllly a factor. Some things had to wait to be discovered, that is until the technology got better. I'm talking microscopes, telescopes (actually lens technology) and vacuums.

* Did I already say that the church would fuck you up if you came up with something that contradicted what they believed ('cause they did). In fact, sometimes peeps kept the information to themselves because they knew that the info was too advanced for the feeble minded believers of the time (and they didn't want to be killed).

* Money was always a problem. Not only for the research, but for everyday life. Often times the scientists had to take teaching jobs or, nonexistent heaven forbid, they married into money. The division between rich and poor existed back then, as it does now, and not only that...the dollars for research have always been a scarce commodity.

* Germ theory.

Whoa Nelly, I can just go on and on with my vague off the top of my head bullet points, but y'all get the picture. One thingy I notice about the book is that once the ball got rolling, then the discoveries kept coming at exponential rates (what is that called, I forgot). The scientist right now that are struggling to get funding for, let's say, stem cell research, are totally like bro scientist back in the day. The same religious oppression that they experienced back in the day is still happening right now.

Scientists have done tremendous good for all of society (hello, germ theory) while the believers with their bible and set in stone beliefs have held back humankind. Not only is the book The Scientists a tour de force...the endeavor of science is a tour de force.

Thanks scientific homies. Have a beer. You deserve it.