Progress, Sexism, and Dogma Theme Analysis

In A Short History of Nearly Everything, author Bill Bryson shows how throughout history, scientists have let their prejudices stand in the way of scientific progress. Bryson argues that although certain practical obstructions to scientific progress (like the availability of technology) can’t be helped, social barriers unnecessarily limiting scientific progress can—and should—be eradicated. Notably, these barriers include sexism (which undermines potential contributions by women to scientific progress) and dogmatic religious views (which make scientists resist ideas that have potential for scientific advancement). Bryson also subtly alludes to cases in which scientists undervalue scientific contributions because of their prejudices against amateurs and rival scientific disciplines. By showing how such factors have slowed down scientific advancement, Bryson argues that scientists must cultivate an atmosphere of openness by resisting counterproductive prejudices in themselves and others if they are really committed to the goal of scientific progress.

Bryson shows how sexism can inhibit scientific progress by emphasizing the profound (and often superior) contributions of women to science despite their limited access to opportunity and resources, implying that much more progress could have been made if women had had the same opportunities that male scientists of their time did. Bryson notes that sexism in early 20th-century astronomy—which restricted professional opportunities for women and denied them access to telescopes—inhibited progress in that field. He compares the insightful contributions of female clerks working in observatories to the absurd and often incorrect theories of their male counterparts. Bryson argues that a clerk (or “computer”) named Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s invention of “standard candles”—an “ingenious” way to measure distances between stars—is far more astute than her supervisor William H. Pickering’s incorrect claim that “dark patches on the moon” are “caused by swarms of seasonally migrating insects,” despite the fact that Pickering could—unlike Leavitt—“peer into a first class telescope as often as he wanted.” Despite the fact that the “drudgery” of Leavitt’s work surveying blurry images was “as close as women could get to real astronomy […] in those days,” Leavitt’s invention changed the face of astronomy because it later enabled astronomer Edwin Hubble to prove that the universe contains many distant galaxies. Bryson thus implies that many more advances in astronomy could have been developed had dogmas like sexism not prohibited women from having better access to research tools. Similarly, Bryson emphasizes that Marie Curie (who was lucky enough to transcend late 19th-century barriers to women practicing science) was the only person in history to ever win Nobel Prizes in both Physics (1903) and Chemistry (1911). He suggests that Curie’s achievement is a testament to the capabilities of people who are typically excluded from scientific pursuits, and that sexism and patriarchal values have likely held back many people who might have been able to achieve great scientific advances. 

Bryson also argues that dogmas like religious conservatism slow down scientific progress when new theories are slow to be studied further because of conflicts with various religious values or because scientists fear religious persecution.  A clear case of how religious dogma can interrupt scientific progress holds for Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin formulated his theory of evolution in 1844 but locked his manuscript away for over a decade before finally publishing it in 1859 because he feared religious persecution. Darwin even alluded to his fear of persecution by referring to himself as “the Devil’s chaplain.” Bryson writes that it took until the late 1930s for evolutionary biology to become accepted as a scientific discipline, indicating that potential progress in evolutionary biology was set back by almost a century because of religious dogma. Similarly, Bryson explains that potential advances to mathematical sciences have also been lost to religious dogma, citing mathematician Richard Norwood. Norwood transformed sea navigation in 1637 with his research on Earth’s circumference, but he burned his subsequent research in trigonometry when religious hysteria took hold in his community. He feared that “his papers on trigonometry, with their arcane symbols” might be “taken as communication with the devil and that he would be treated to a dreadful execution.” A more subtle example of psychological resistance to new theories because of religious sensitivities is Einstein’s uncertainty about advancing the view that light acts like both particles and waves. He was skeptical about quantum theory (which more fully develops that same view) because it posits unknowable entities. Einstein famously said that he “cannot believe for a single moment” that God would allow a universe to exist in which some things are fundamentally unknowable. Though Einstein’s disdain for quantum theory did little to discredit it, he “wasted” many years of his life trying to unite quantum theory with his own relativity theory because of his discomfort with the idea that some aspects of science might be unknowable. Bryson’s example thus shows how religious instincts can misdirect scientists and divert their attention away from more productive research.

Bryson frequently shows that dogmatic beliefs like sexism and religious conservatism have likely set back scientific research by decades, if not centuries. Scientific progress, thus, doesn’t only depend on new theories; it also hinges on fostering openness—to ideas that question dogmatic beliefs and to people who might otherwise be denied opportunities because of patriarchal values.