Dumbing down the history of science. [View all]

[Lionel Mandrake]

The man who brought history of science to America, George Sarton, spent many years studying science before turning to its history. The best historians of science have always been people with deep knowledge of the science whose history they write about, such as Thomas Kuhn and Owen Gingerich.

Stanford computer scientist Donald Knuth once gave a lecture titled "Let's Not Dumb Down the History of Computer Science". What he meant by that was that computer scientists should follow the example set by mathematicians, who have taken charge of the history of their own subject, rather than leaving it in the hands of historians who not only lack significant knowledge of mathematics, but have no interest in acquiring such knowledge. The sort of histories of science written the scientifically illiterate are so bad that they have brought tears to Knuth's eyes.

Unfortunately, the history of science in general is now dominated by scientific know-nothings. Typically employed in history departments, not departments of history of science, they cater to and are judged by other academic historians with little knowledge of and little interest in the technical content of science. And what's worse, they celebrate their "externalist" views of science. Like Bart Simpson, these underachievers are "proud of it, man".