Book Review : Science Peers Into Its Own Crystal Ball

NEXT: The Coming Era in Science, edited by Holcomb B. Noble(Little, Brown: $17.95, cloth; $9.95, paper; 190 pages)

If a conference had been called in 1900 to predict what influence the automobile was going to have on American life, how prescient do you think the seers of that time would have been?

Would the experts of that day have predicted suburbs, freeways, Los Angeles, drive-in movies, pollution or the sexual revolution (all of which have resulted, in whole or in part, from the car)?

Probably not. Predicting, it has been noted, is a very chancy business--particularly about the future. There are always too many factors to consider, many of which start out small and unobservable but end up having large consequences.

So a book like “NEXT: The Coming Era in Science,” which proposes to tell us what is going to happen in the 21st Century, should be approached with caution. If the same book had been published in 1888, it is hard to imagine that it would have forecast the achievements of 20th-Century science.

Fortunately, however, the nine authors whose essays make up this book spend most of their time discussing the present state of science in computers, communications, space exploration and physics. What little predicting they do involves straight-line projecting of present research in these and related fields.

A Mine Field Awaits

What’s more, most of them acknowledge the mine field that awaits those who wander into science fiction. Such prophets are likely to wind up not even wrong. They will forecast things that won’t happen, and they won’t forecast things that will.

So, despite its title, “The Coming Era in Science,” the book is more of a description of the present era in science. Anyone who regularly follows these things in newspapers and magazines will probably not find out too much that he didn’t know. Anyone who doesn’t follow these things in newspapers and magazines is probably not much interested in reading this book--or this review, for that matter.

Nonetheless, the individual essays are all very well done. The editor, Holcomb B. Noble, is deputy director of science news at the New York Times, and several of the contributors are New York Times science writers. John Noble Wilford’s article on “The Exploration of Space” shows again why he is the best space writer on any American newspaper.

Wilford’s discussion of the U.S., Soviet, European and Japanese space programs and their prospects presents the big picture and the small details. He writes about shuttles and space stations, trips to Mars and the colonization of space, all in 18 pages. Yet he is aware that “Projecting the future in any endeavor is fraught with risks, but never more so than in the realm of space exploration.”

Unification Theories

Among the non-New York Times contributors, the essay on grand unification theories in physics by Timothy Ferris is a standout. Ferris, a science writer and journalism professor at UC Berkeley, is a master at explaining things clearly, and his 12-page essay on the achievements and goals of physics draws from sources as diverse as Robert Browning, Democritus, Dr. Johnson and Plato, as well as from contemporary scientists.

Here again, the strength of Ferris’ article is in its description of the current state of knowledge. In the last 300 years--and particularly in the last 90 years--physicists have learned an enormous amount about the nature of reality. But the ultimate explanation continues to elude them.

The opening essay in the book--and the longest--is by the only working scientist among the authors--Leon M. Lederman, director of the Fermi National Laboratory near Chicago. Lederman, in addition to being a first-rate physicist, is also a first-rate popularizer of science. In person and in print, he has an infectious enthusiasm for physics.

Lederman’s article doesn’t pretend to look forward. He writes about “The Bizarre and Serendipitous History of Discovery” and traces the history of science in 40 pages. His point, which may be getting repetitive by now, is that no one can predict with accuracy what is going to happen next. Science is always a surprise.

But, he adds, “In our history, no one has yet succeeded in overestimating the impact of science on society. If the developing revolution in physics fails to have profound societal influences, it will be the first time in history.”

Most Speculative Essay

The concluding essay is by Holcomb Noble, the book’s editor, and it is by far the most speculative of the lot. He hints that scientists are perhaps being closed-minded in dismissing claims of paranormal phenomena such as ESP and UFOs.

“The truly scientific mind is the open mind,” he writes, “the one willing to explore even what cannot be perceived to be there. Who is to say that intensive exploration will not detect a world of intelligence and communication that goes far beyond the sensorily observable? Are we absolutely certain that we will not begin to make unexpected and remarkable discoveries through channels that extend into events that defy all rational explanation? The creative scientific mind does not rule it out.”

To be sure, anything is possible. But that is not the same as saying that anything is likely. An argument has to have more going for it than the truism that it is not impossible. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and so far, there is not only no extraordinary proof for paranormal activity, there is no proof whatsoever.

But Noble’s essay is properly included in a book that is really about the nature of knowledge. We know things but we don’t know them. We can never be absolutely sure. Truth has a mercurial quality. Just when we think we’ve got it nailed down, it slips away. That is one of the reasons that predicting the future is so hard.