reinterpretation. Moreover, because nature will reveal its secrets only to those willing to spend long hours patiently and carefully observing her, observers lacking in perse- verance cannot expect to reap rich rewards. Communities of scientists working together in collaboration began to form in the mid-19th century because by then the various scientific disciplines had assumed their modern contours and collectively science was sufficiently organised at the national and international levels to engage in the activities and carry out the manifold functions we expect of it today. 0160-9327/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2004.04.008 Ritual debunking Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery by John Waller. Oxford University Press, 2002. UK £18.99 (xi þ 308 pages) ISBN 0192804049 (issued as Einstein’s Luck in the USA at $30.00, ISBN 0198607199) Aileen Fyfe Department of History, National University of Ireland, Galway, Republic of Ireland If you ever wondered whether Louis Pasteur really disproved spontaneous generation, or if Thomas Huxley really did dismiss Bishop Wilberforce with scathing wit, then Fabulous Science is the book that will dispel all doubt. John Waller claims that his goal is to show a wider audience what the latest results of historical research have been, and tries to persuade us that we should not mourn for our lost myths when we know that we are replacing them with the truth. He sets out to debunk 13 of our favourite scientific fables, and he does so with effective ruthlessness. He also hopes to show that discoveries tend not to be made by lone geniuses, but rather by groups of scientists who are collaborating, or competing, and their assistants. Along the way, although with less emphasis, another fable falls by the wayside as it becomes clear that the much-vaunted ‘scientific method’ has too often been more of an ideal than a reality. Some of Waller’s fables concern cases where the scientists involved fudged, tweaked or otherwise mis- represented their results to promote their own particular conclusions. Others concern cases where historians, bio- graphers and textbook writers have been overenthusiastic in making grand claims regarding the ingenuity, unique- ness and world-shattering impact of their heroes. The group of overexuberant writers is far larger than that of dishonest scientists, and would completely dwarf it if two social scientists (including Frederick Taylor, of time-and- motion studies) had not been drafted in to join Robert Millikan, Arthur Eddington and Pasteur. At the end of the discussion of both groups is a short concluding essay by Waller that draws out the morals to be learned from the preceding examples. To my mind, it would have been better to have these assertions presented up front as the intel- ligent reader will already have reached many of these conclusions by the time they read Waller’s comments. This would have saved me at least from wondering (as I did through the first five case studies): does he really believe this, or is he just setting up a straw man, the better for burning later? One major disappointment I experienced when reading this book is the lack of a concluding essay pondering the implications of the book as a whole, which means that the two sets of case studies remain rather disjointed. Yes, they are all about debunking scientific myths, but what is their use beyond that? One of the risks involved in debunking myths is that you almost inevitably set up new ones in their place. Waller might claim that what he is doing is replacing fable with truth, but, as an historian, he must know that even his version of the truth might only be the best so far. As our current understanding of the truth is highly complex, it is easy to see why past historians have simplified things, even if we no longer agree with the way in which they were simplified. One could argue that Waller’s account of the Huxley –Wilberforce debate on the Origin of Species as pure professional strife is just as oversimplified (but in a different direction) as the older interpretation of it as pure science – religion conflict. It is also essential, when pre- senting a history to replace the fable, that the new history is as accurate as it can be, so that, when it is later borrowed and adapted by other historians, the potential for it to be distorted is minimal. Presumably, the worryingly frequent copy-editing errors in Fabulous Science will be sufficiently obvious not to be replicated in the pages of history, and perhaps it does not matter all that much that Darwin’s captain gets a premature promotion. However, any readers who go away wanting to know more about Arnold D. White’s late 19th-century writings about science and religion are going to be deeply confused about his relationship with the rather better known Andrew Dickson White. Some of the history of medicine material included (about Joseph Lister and James Simpson) was slightly new to me, but I was already familiar with most of it and therefore felt that the debunking was a bit heavy handed and patronizing. Given that Oxford University Press (OUP) have published this in hardback with a price tag of almost £20, one could assume that many of the people Corresponding author: Aileen Fyfe (aileen.fyfe@nuigalway.ie). Available online 17 June 2004 Update Endeavour Vol.28 No.3 September 2004 89 www.sciencedirect.com