Explaining the world around us, and the life within, is one of the most uniquely human drives, and the most celebrated activities of science. Good explanations are accurate causal accounts of the things we wonder at. We explain our children’s recalcitrance, the secrets of happiness, or the best route to health. But explanation’s earthy origins haven’t grounded it; we have used it to account for the grandest of mysteries of the natural world. Why does lightning produce a thunderclap? Why do some cancers respond better to chemotherapy? These explanations give us a sense of understanding. But thi ... More

Explaining the world around us, and the life within, is one of the most uniquely human drives, and the most celebrated activities of science. Good explanations are accurate causal accounts of the things we wonder at. We explain our children’s recalcitrance, the secrets of happiness, or the best route to health. But explanation’s earthy origins haven’t grounded it; we have used it to account for the grandest of mysteries of the natural world. Why does lightning produce a thunderclap? Why do some cancers respond better to chemotherapy? These explanations give us a sense of understanding. But this sense is not a psychological signaling system for the truth. For every true explanation, there is a false one that feels just as good. But a good theory’s explanations have a much easier path to truth. This push for good explanations elevated science from medieval alchemy to polymer or electrochemistry. A history-of-science timeline describes a steep curve of theoretical discovery that explodes around 1600, primarily in the West. So Wondrous Truths answers these two questions—why in the West and why so quickly—by touring the findings of neuroscience, psychology, history, and policy. And the answers are surprising. The central idea of this book is that modern science triumphed through an awkward assortment of accident and luck, geography and personal idiosyncrasy. Wondrous Truths provides a fresh, daring, and genuine alternative to established views of scientific progress, and recovers at once the majesty of science and the grand sweep of big ideas.