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PARTISAN REVIEW
votes himself to long and difficult labors.
Of course, the value of science lies in its accordance with truth, that
is, in its ability to explain already known phenomena and to predict fu–
ture events. Science must always be able to stand up to observations and
empirical tests. This standard is obviously not to be equated with a search
for beauty
per se,
so what does it mean to say that "the search for
beauty" can, at least in part, be substituted for "the search for truth"?
Some famous examples in the history of science address this question.
They all seem
to
make clear one point: the universe, or nature, has the
property that all truths are necessarily beautiful. Perhaps this statement
cannot be considered a well-defined scientific truth, but it can at least be
stated as an effective and workable heuristic: "The pursuit of beauty
will
inevitably lead to the discovery of truth." Throughout history, this
heuristic has achieved a series of successes, sometimes spectacular ones.
One example of how cultural concepts of beauty can exert a shap–
ing influence on scientific progress is found in the history of the theory
of a round earth. Statements about a spherical earth are first evident to
us in the writings of the ancient Greeks and encountered often in various
classical texts. This concept of the earth was later embraced by Western
astronomy. By contrast, the concept of a round earth was never clearly
formulated in ancient China, though some commentary found in specific
ancient writings could perhaps be interpreted as implying such a theory.
Three-dimensional models such as those found in Beijing's Temple of
Heaven, depicting the heavens as a sphere and the earth as a flat square,
are representative of the unvarying Chinese orthodox view.
The reason for this difference in Chinese and Western astronomy
may be attributed to different cultural concepts of beauty, rather than
differences in phenomena observed. Two thousand years ago, neither the
Chinese nor the Greeks had anything that could be considered direct
empirical evidence on which to base a round-earth conjecture. (Only
later, when Columbus discovered America and Magellan circled the
globe, was there indisputable proof of the notion.) Each had only a
small number of astronomical observations on which to base their hy–
potheses about the shape of the earth. And when confronted with the
same observed phenomenon, the Greeks and Chinese arrived at very dif–
ferent conclusions. They both observed that the sun is lower in the sky
at
noon in the north than it is in the south. To the Greeks, the model of a
round earth was satisfying and plausible, because they had already com–
pletely absorbed Pythagorean notions concerning the harmony of the
universe and because it seemed evident to them that circles and spheres
were the most perfect shapes in nature. They went even further and used
the difference in the sun's height in the north and south to estimate the
