Peter Dear

Have ambiguous feelings about this one: by all means it is written for high school teenagers and it is an encouraging invitation into the captivating world of scientific research. But level of details makes it an adult read and evidently overwhelming for teenagers. Thus I'm confused to what audience did the author address it. Those factoids were sometimes curious to me (a grown up), but the overall narrative was of course far too familiar to keep me (and other adults I'm sure) engrossed.

This is a good introduction to the history of science in the era known as the "scientific revolution." The author provides both background on the state of science in the Renaissance and middle ages while surveying the changes in our understanding of scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment.

Too many familiar examples. The idea is good: there can be tension between intelligibility and truthfulness in science.