The book of Sergei Bagotsky “History of Science”

The book of Sergei Vladimirovich Bagotsky “History of Science” was published.

This is a comprehensive fundamental work of great volume and classical persuasion.

The author successfully combines meticulous encyclopedia and figurative metaphor. Age marking 18+, in our opinion, does not correspond to reality. We did not see any serious age restrictions. The text is presented in such an accessible language that it may well serve as an extended textbook for high school in several disciplines at once, not only in natural science.

The reason why the History of Science may be of interest to teenagers, Sergei Bagotsky himself quite accurately explained: “In our society, it is widely believed that modern teenagers are not interested in anything other than sex, rock music and drugs. My own observations do not agree with this view. I see a lot of smart and inquisitive teenagers, intensely reflecting on the acute problems of life around us. I dare to hope that some of these boys and girls will read my book with interest.

The author is right, and the situation in general is not very good, modern education and modern popular science literature do not satisfy the scientific curiosity of both adolescents and the population as a whole.

Bagotsky’s “History of Science” can fill the gap.

Sergei Bagotsky’s book is much broader than the title “History of Science”. It seems to contain everything related to science. There is, of course, a description of the subject and essence of science, scientific discussion and the formation of scientific ideas. Scientific schools and directions from antiquity to the present day are described. The similarities and differences between humanitarian and natural sciences, as well as philosophy and religion are reflected.

Questions are given after each chapter, which makes the book a quality scientific guide.

For example, “Sciences develop faster, more accurately and better, the less they deal with practice,” said the outstanding biologist Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky (1900–1981). Based on this statement, the author formulated a question, the answer to which requires not so much knowledge as ingenuity, experience, logic and fantasy: “Give arguments for and against the opinion expressed by N. V. Timofeev-Resovsky. Do you agree with this opinion?

As far as we know, Timofeev-Resovsky launched a revolution in science with the transition of all science to an exact natural science format. At some point, he managed to draw the attention of the international scientific community to the achievements of domestic evolutionary genetics and thereby gave a powerful impetus to its development. This man was a great polemicist, a master, above all, of the oral dialogue genre. It is impossible to take his words out of context.

The own studies of Timofeev-Ressovsky and his wife on Drosophila were indeed freed from the burden of direct practical application, but they were of such significant fundamental importance that their applied aspect turned out to be no less than theoretical and much wider than pure genetics – the principle of amplification, penetrance and expressivity, the combination of oligogenes , genetic and external environment in the formation of a trait.

As for the studies of Timofeev-Resovsky in the South Urals on radioecology, they were dictated by practical problems. Most of the phenomena of the evolution of society have analogues in the wild. The formation of a real eukaryotic chromosome was analogous to the future Internet, when many sequences that had no direct use for the organism that sheltered them received the right to life. The possibilities of evolution through gene duplications have been greatly expanded.

Timofeev-Resovsky’s statements have a similar fate – about science, about liberals, that pigs cannot breed pigs, a pig breeder should do it. Of particular value to Bagotsky’s “History of Science” are insertions of examples from fiction, which significantly increase the comprehensibility of the author’s ideas.

Absolutely contrasting descriptions of, so to speak, unscientific life are given, for example, the realistic stories of Liliana Rozanova coexist with Dudintsev’s “White Clothes”, a work more fantastic than scientific.

In our unpredictably changing world, no serious author can claim the final picture. Modern science attracts more criticism than understanding.

Nevertheless, Bagotsky’s “History of Science” is a certain result that can be formulated right now. In our understanding, Bagotsky, like Munchausen, literally pulled himself out of the swamp into which the abundant description of sciences in the public information field was turned. The result is a well-balanced description of the classical picture of science, leaving the reader space for reflection and the opportunity for personal participation in the development of science. Sergei Bagotsky diplomatically avoids controversial issues that cause particularly acute indignation in the restless scientific community. At best, declarations are replaced by questions.

“History of Science” as a textbook gives a representative set of knowledge for a solid five. Apologists for non-trivial theories will not be able to argue with the established classical picture.

In the context of the globalization of science in the Anglo-Saxon version, not a single sane scientist without the risk of losing his status will argue with the central role of “Darwin’s Theory” and the conciliatory eclectic concept of the “Synthetic Theory of Evolution”.

Nevertheless, the most prominent representatives of Russian anti-Darwinism are listed in the book.

Sergey Bagotsky’s breakthrough was that he returns the central role in the history of science to Russian scientists. Now the very mention of the names of Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky, Konstantin Merezhkovsky, Lev Berg, Sergey Chetverikov, Ivan Shmalgauzen, Vladimir Efroimson, Vigen Geodakyan, Alexei Olovnikov, Yuri Tchaikovsky, Lev Zhivotovsky and others requires a certain courage.

At the same time, the book contains a description of the experiment of Edward Lorentz, the author of the strange attractor model and the theory of the structure of dynamic chaos. The North American Lorenz provided a physical basis for the phenomenon of life waves described half a century earlier by Chetverikov. Under various names, the waves of life have become one of the factors of both micro- and macroevolution.

The founder* Timofeev-Resovsky preferred the term waves of life without variations.

The book contains non-trivial facts that do not fit well with well-known stereotypes. For example, the people’s academician Trofim Lysenko, having become the president of VASKhNIL, was never a member of the CPSU.

Of particular interest is the case of Nobel laureate James Watson, tortured by North American political correctness to the point of losing his personality. The scheme of pressure on geneticists is generally universal. But even in this case, the author avoids personal assessments.

The special value of the book “History of Science” as a textbook is presented by the format of presentation through the presentation of irrefutable facts.

Future doctors are taught to write a medical history for the prosecutor. Perhaps it would be right to teach scientists to express their ideas, taking into account the reality of a possible Auto-da-Fe. If Giordano Bruno had been properly taught, the history of science would have preserved a valuable scientific frame. And what about “And yet it is spinning!”, then in order to promote any obvious truth, it is not at all necessary to go to the stake. Those who have appropriated the right to judge the temporary workers will sink into oblivion, others will come in their place with some other, equally aggressive vocabulary.

Truth is invariant, like beauty, except that the words can be different. Sergey Bagotsky managed to combine the maximum possible under a common cover.

We cannot agree with some theses in Bagotsky’s view of science, but we also do not consider ourselves entitled to criticize, because criticism would come out to the wrong address. Here it must be repeated that the “History of Science” is a classic positive picture of science. A dispute with the author would mean a declaration of war against the current paradigm.

By no means in reproach to the author, but solely for the sake of the purity of the picture, we note what we did not find in the book. Pavel Simonov and Vyacheslav Dubynin, researchers of the needs of the brain, were not found. In a sea of ​​waste literature about brains, this is a bright ray of adequate matching of needs to neural networks. They did not find the authors of mobile elements in the genome – Evgeny Ananiev and Vladimir Gvozdev, also the author of the monograph “Genome Impermanence” by Roman Khesin-Lurie. They did not find a non-trivial idea of ​​the origin of life on Earth, set out in Stanislav Lem’s science fiction novel “Voice of the Sky” (in Polish “Glos Pana”) They did not find Natalia Bekhtereva’s error detector, which should control what was canceled earlier.

At this stage, these points have fallen out of the canon.

Well, if the author takes our remarks into account, then there is an incentive to work on reprinting the History of Science.

The real picture of science is capable of shocking readers over eighteen. One case of James Watson brought to the point of absurdity would be enough. Fortunately for them, most people in our brave new world do not perceive the truth, and science in the future can correct the situation.

Lev MOSKOVKIN, Natalia VAKUROVA.

Photo by Moskovskaya Pravda