2008-02-15 Thought provoking views on Leonardo

The central thesis of Fritjof Capra's 'The science of Leonardo' is that Leonardo was the founder of the scientific method rather than Galileo a century later. He has a point, but since Leonardo's notebooks were only recently indexed in full, it is hardly relevant for the actual history of science.

More thought provoking is mr. Capra's assertion that Leonardo was a holistic thinker, much like mr. Capra himself. Leonardo's engineering drawings, for instance, he states, have been viewed too much through Newtonian eyes. However, Leonardo did not think in terms of action and reaction, but viewed machines as he did bodies in his anatomical studies, as complex systems with intertwined parts.

As with 'The tao of physics', the book that earned him the label 'notorious', mr. Capra succeeds in balancing on the edge of science. Even if he succumbs to speculation now and then, and gets carried away by his own enthousiasm regularly, this still makes an interesting book. Not everybody will agree with his views, but almost everybody will find them imaginative enough to be provoked into thinking about the fundamental issues of science.