The other day I was at my favorite book store, and purchased two books with the following titles.  Book 1: Only a Theory by Kenneth R. Miller; and Book 2: Final Theory by Mark Alpert.  I wasn’t looking for either book.  Alpert’s book was sitting on the display table as you walked into the store, the title intrigued me, and after a quick review, I decided to buy it.  Miller’s book was on a shelf in the science section, and the subtitle “evolution and the battle for America’s soul” and the fact that I had read other books by Miller caused me to buy this one.  But here on this one visit to the bookstore, I found two books with the word theory in them.  Later, I’ll tell you a bit about each book—they are very very different from each other—but first I have to tell you where my mind went when I thought about the word theory.

Many years ago I read a book by Jacob Bronowski that had a great influence on my view of science and culture, and it was entitled Science and Human Values.  In this book, Brownoski ended it with a play he had written called The Abacus and the Rose, a kind of exploration of science and art by means of a dialogue between two characters, Sir Edward and Potts.  The two books I bought last week brought me right to this play that Brownowski had written.

You see, in the play Bronowski talks about theory in science (he focuses on Rutherford’s theory of atomic structure), and compares and contrasts the imagination that the scientist uses to “discover” a theory to the painting that an artist creates.  He particularly uses Rembrant’s self protraits in his dialogue.  To Bronowski, the theory and portrait are both original and personal constructions, not the result of the eye of the camera, or a machine.  The painting is a picture and vision.  This is also true for a scientific theory.  Theories in science are constructed by people, and are flashes of vision when the scientist sees a new link between “different and apparently unrelated aspects of reality.”  The scientist’s vision is as imaginative, as much a creation, as the painter’s vision.

Bronowski elevates theory to the highest level of achievement in science.  I really recommend that you read not only his play, The Abacus and Rose, but the little book, Science and Human Values.

Now back to the two books that I purchased.  Final Theory makes use of Albert Einstein’s attempt at discovering The Theory of Everything (Unified Theory), and raises the question that maybe he did discover this ‘final’ theory, but was afraid to publically announce, but instead revealed parts of it to very close colleauges and assistants.  A Columbia University professor is murdered, another scientist is arrested by the FBI, and then is on the run as governments and organizations try and retreive Einstein’s final theory from the fleeing scientist. If you enjoy reading fiction that boarders on non-fiction, then I think you will enjoy this book.  I am.

Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul by Kenneth Miller ought be a late summer reading before you begin teaching for the fall semester.  Miller is a professor of biology at Brown University, and author of several biology textbooks, one of which is a major text used in America’s high schools.  He has also been a key witness in several court cases involving the teaching of evolution, the so called idea of Intelligent Design (ID), the famous “sticker case” brought by citizens in the county that I reside (Cobb County, Georgia).  The book is important to those of us that teach science because it helps probe deeply into the nature of science, and in particular the central idea of evolution, not only of life on the Earth, but in the Cosmos.

I’ll explore the book and Miller’s ideas in more detail later this week.  In the meantime, search inside Miller’s book and read sample pages, and look over the table of contents.