Insight is a fascinating and complicated power. For while it enables us to make incredible leaps of understanding in everything from science to faith, from the domestic to the metaphysical, it also communicates the false impression that we are somehow special, that such leaps are, for those who experience them, an inevitable outgrowth of intelligence. Insight, in reality, is a moment as rare as it is precious, a brief glimpse of an endgame that may or may not be true. It is not a gift from god. It is an extrapolation of our understanding and experience of the world and, as such, potentially contains within it all our biases. Some scientists and thinkers have seized upon these moments to advance human understanding. Others have seized upon them to confirm their prejudices. Distinguishing one from the other is an almost impossible task, a truth laid bear in mario Livio's inventive piece of non-fiction.
From genetics to physics, from the fundamentals of our world to the underpinnings of reality, fields of human knowledge and endeavor have been advanced by geniuses, men and women who, in training their powerful minds upon difficult problems, have moved them from the unknown and uncertain to the understood and the accepted. But while these individuals have made immeasurable contributions to their fields, success also breeds arrogance, a sense of self-belief that shoulders aside modesty and humility to alter the genius' personality to such that the truth more often gives way to the truth that makes sense to the genius in question. No one has the market cornered on the right way, or the right idea. Rather, these notions come to us slowly, painstakingly and even sometimes accidentally, and, in doing so, confirm our own sense of self-image, a reality that distorts the scientific method.
Harnessing examples from Darwin to Einstein, Brilliant Blunders demonstrates this premise clearly by setting forth six scientific figures, each of whom laid claim to a revolutionary idea and whom, later, laid claim to an equally serious blunder. From the notion of blended inheritance to the triple helix, from the denial of radioactivity to the agitation over the Cosmological Constant, Mr. Livio not only deepens the reader's familiarity with the most famous ideas of our famous thinkers, he sets forth how they arrived at their most infamous errors. Arrogance certainly plays a role. For once one is celebrated for one idea, why not be celebrated for another? But Mr. Livio makes clear that most errors arise from the desire of brilliant minds to compel the world and the universe to make sense, to be reducible to mathematical equations that are as beautiful as they are fundamental. Not only is this often not the case -- the world appears to resort to klugy solutions as often as it does to elegant ones --, this also presumes that the thinker is operating from a correct premise which is rarely the case.
Though Brilliant Blunders is at its best illustrating flawed ideas that have fallen before the power of truth, it's perhaps most effective in demonstrating just how errors arise. The line between self-belief and pompousness is thin at the best of times. For geniuses, that line is microscopic, owning to the fact that they don't expect to have their intelligences fail them or their instincts mislead them. Naturally, this leads to brilliant minds holding onto their flawed notions far more stubbornly and pugnaciously than anyone else would. For they've invested too much of their sense of self and pride in being right, in being the one who comprehends before all others. Even Darwin and Einstein, who come off here as quite humble, fall prey to this nasty trick of the mind.
Brilliant Blunders is not without its own flaws. Everyone errs. Everyone has false conceptions of the world. Cherrypicking the misconceptions of giants of science and collecting them for all to see and remember seems, at times, almost cruel. But these men are dead now, their legacies enshrined in textbooks and museums. Whatever damage done to them here is inconsequential, especially considering that it allows Mr. Livio to exemplify the price of arrogance and confirmation bias.
An engaging, entertaining read... (3/5 Stars)
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