A road map to the development of modern scientific thought. Far too often, public discussion of science is carried out by journalists, voters, and politicians who have received their science secondhand. The Story of Science shows us the joy and importance of reading groundbreaking science writing for ourselves and guides us back to the masterpieces that have changed the way we think about our world, our cosmos, and ourselves. Able to be referenced individually, or read together as the narrative of Western scientific development, the book's 28 chapters lead readers from the first science texts by the Greeks through 20th-century classics in biology, physics, and cosmology. The Story of Science illuminates everything from mankind's earliest inquiries to the butterfly effect. Each chapter recommends one or more classic books and provides accounts of crucial contributions to science, sketches of the scientist-writers, and explanations of the mechanics underlying each concept. The Story of Science reveals science to be a dramatic undertaking practiced by some of history's most memorable characters. It reminds us that scientific inquiry is a human pursuit--an essential, often deeply personal, sometimes flawed, frequently brilliant way of understanding the world.--From publisher description.

Part I: The Beginnings. -- The first science texts : the first written attempt to explain the physical world in physical terms -- Beyond man : the first big-picture accounts of the universe -- Change : the first theory of evolution -- Grains of sand : the first use of mathematics to measure the universe -- The void : the first treatise on nature to dispense entirely with the divine -- The Earth-centered universe : the most influential science book in history -- The last ancient astronomer : an alternate explanation for the universe, with better mathematics, but no more proof -- Part II: The birth of the method. -- A new proposal : a challenge to Aristotle, and the earliest articulation of the scientific method -- Demonstration : the refutation of one of the greatest ancient authorities through observation and experimentation -- The death of Aristotle : the overthrow of ancient authority in favor of observations and proofs -- Instruments and helps : improving the experimental method by distorting nature and extending the senses -- Rules of reasoning : extending the experimental method across the entire universe -- Part III: Reading the Earth. -- The genesis of geology : the creation of the science of the earth -- The laws of the new science : two different theories are proposed as explanations for the Earth's present form -- A long and steady history : uniformitarianism becomes the norm -- The unanswered question : calculating the age of the Earth -- The return of the grand theory : continental drift -- Catastrophe, redux : bringing extraordinary events back into Earth's history -- Part IV: Reading Life : (with special reference to us). -- Biology : the first systematic attempt to describe the history of life -- Natural selection : the first naturalistic explanation for the origin of species -- Inheritance : the laws, and mechanisms, of heredity revealed -- Synthesis : bringing cell-level discoveries and the grand story of evolution together -- The secret of life : biochemistry tackles the mystery of inheritance -- Biology and destiny : the rise of neo-Darwinist reductionism, and the resistance to it -- Part V: Reading the Cosmos : (reality). -- Relativity : the limits of Newtonian physics -- Damn quantum jumps : the discovery of subatomic random swerves -- The triumph of the Big Bang : returning to the question of beginnings, and contemplating the end -- The butterfly effect : complex systems, and the (present) limits of our understanding.