"Riveting… Strevens promises his readers a better explanation of scientific progress than those given by his two illustrious predecessors, Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn…[He] sustains his polemical fireworks with a steady succession of examples drawn from the history of science…Worth reading for the quality of Mr. Strevens’s prose alone, his crystal-clear, unfussy sentences, the crisp metaphors(comparing, say, an electron’s complex “superposition” in quantum mechanics to a cocktail mixed from many ingredients) and many excellent quips… As a hard-nosed, wonderfully timely plea for taking science seriously, for allowing scientists to do their work without interference, The Knowledge Machine is unparalleled." ― Christoph Irmscher, Wall Street Journal "A provocative and fascinating book.... Strevens’s book contains a number of surprises, including an elegant section on quantum mechanics that coolly demonstrates why it’s such an effective theory.... Ambitious.... Strevens builds on the work of philosophers like Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn to come up with his own original hypothesis about the advent of modern science and its formidable consequences." ― Jennifer Szalai, New York Times "Strevens shows scientists exerting themselves intellectually.... [and] aims to identify that special something." ― Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker "One of the better examinations of the origins of the scientific revolution." ― Kirkus Reviews "[Strevens], an NYU philosophy professor, takes a scholarly look at how modern science arose with this erudite study. . . . For readers curious about why science works as well as it does, Strevens provides a convincing answer." ― Publishers Weekly

Chapter Page Introduction: The Knowledge Machine 1 I The Great Method Debate 1. Unearthing the Scientific Method 13 2. Human Frailty 41 3. The Essential Subjectivity of Science 66 II How Science Works 4. The Iron Rule of Explanation 89 5. Baconian Convergence 105 6. Explanatory Ore 120 7. The Drive for Objectivity 152 8. The Supremacy of Observation 173 III Why Science Took So Long 9. Science's Strategic Irrationality 201 10. The War against Beauty 209 11. The Advent of Science 239 IV Science Now 12. Building the Scientific Mind 255 13. Science and Humanism 269 14. Care and Maintenance of the Knowledge Machine 278 Acknowledgments 291 Glossary of Novel Terms 293 Notes 295 References 321 List of Illustrations 331 Index 335