The birth of scientific reading

There is a persistent myth about the origin of science. It goes like this: the Scientific Revolution happened when men such as Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton freed themselves from the medieval fixation with words and instead looked directly at things. It is a simple and powerful story that has been much repeated. But it is also quite wrong. Far from emerging from a rejection of words, in fact science originated partly from a need to master as many of them as possible.