The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

by Michael Strevens

Were Descartes a university, it would be a rambunctious and vibrant place, spilling into the hallways and the stairwells. Every member of the faculty would read, discuss, and argue about the work of every other. The physicists and the philosophers, the theologians and the psychologists, would participate equally in a shared discourse on the principles that rule the world. Were Newton a university, you would not hear a sound; the common room would be thick with dust. Each faculty member would be found at all times shut up in their office or lab, pursuing their own researches by their own means, reading just those books that speak directly to their own subject matter, writing only books answering to the same specification. They would meet once a year to discuss parking and the budget for coffee.

Newton was super autistic, yes.