Wondrous Truths ─ The Improbable Triumph of Modern Science

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? Why is there a red shift in light coming from cosmologically remote objects? Why do some children with the same level of hearing loss respond differently to cochlear implants?

These explanations give us a sense of understanding. But this sense is not a psychological signaling system for the truth. For every true explanation ("Rapidly heated molecules caused the thunderclap"), there is a false one that feels just as good ("You got a cold because the chill you get from going outside with wet hair reduces your resistance"). 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 electro-chemistry, or a pre-Newtonian ballistic physics to the forces underlying nanoparticles. In fact, the long science timeline from pre-history to the present describes a steep curve of theoretical discovery that explodes around 1600, primarily in the West. SoWondrous 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 Western science rose above all others, because it hit upon successive theories that were approximately true through an awkward assortment of accident and luck, geography and personal idiosyncrasy.

The sensible conceptual blend of psychological fluency, historical contingency, and theoretical accuracy found inWondrous Truths provides a fresh, daring, and genuine alternative to established views of scientific progress.Wondrous Truths recovers the majesty of science, and welcomes the grand sweep of big ideas.

J.D. Trout is Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Loyola University in Chicago. He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Phi Beta Kappa Romanell Award. His previous books include Measuring the Intentional World, Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment, and The Empathy Gap. He has been interviewed inThe New York Times, on Latino USA, and Martha Stewart Radio, and has written for theChicago Tribune and Psychology Today.