Title: Top-notch sci-tech writing
Review: Gleik's book is an engaging synthesis of top-notch sci-tech writing and biography. But it lacks the same thing another genre best-seller--Galileo's Daughter-- does, at least for me. It gives no perspective on what might be called the moral status of Newton's ideas in light of the subsequent centuries of philosophical inquiry and scientific investigation.In recognizing Newton and Galileo as giants of science we should also understand them to be figures of enormous influence in the West's positivist, mechanistic, scientistic worldview. They each had a powerful moral impact on the West. It can be seen not only in positive scientific advances, but also in the worst excesses and errors of the scientific enterprise. A book that sheds light on this aspect of Galileo's genius and that I greatly enjoyed is Wade Rowland's Galileo's Mistake.
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