Science historian shares expertise in class, on roof

Let’s create some business cards for David Lindberg, with a tip of the hat to a classic TV show:

Have history of science, will share.

Have shingles, will roof.

Have wood, will saw.

Lindberg, you see, is a many-sided man, gracefully mixing medieval Latin texts and cherrywood shavings in his life. And he does it all with an altruistic bent.

We’re not approaching even the outskirts of hyperbole when we say that Lindberg, who holds a Hilldale professorship, is world-famous among historians of science. He wrote the standard text on ancient and medieval science: “The Beginnings of Western Science,” which has sold 40,000 copies and has been translated into Greek, Dutch and German, with Chinese and Japanese on the way.

Not only that, he’s given 200 guest lectures around the world, served as president of the History of Science Society, was awarded the Sarton Medal for lifetime scholarly achievement and has chaired the history of science program at UW–Madison, the oldest and largest in North America.

Though he’s carved out a career based on the work of scientists, he’s glad he isn’t one. “Scientists deal in the highest level of certainty,” says Lindberg, “but historians of science revel in ambiguity. When I write, I have to adjudicate unresolved issues and, of course, even speculate.”

More than anything, Lindberg has to tell a story – and a good one, at that – to keep his readers and students with him. A well-told story demands a coherent narrative thread, which in the history of science requires a Sherlockian ability to make sense of evidence that sometimes comes only in the form of scraps.

In fact, Holmes and Lindberg have a common passion: critical thinking. “I think every university course should be a course in critical thinking and expression,” says Lindberg, who incorporates material on elementary logic into his classes.

“Information isn’t permanent property, but the ability to make judgments for a productive life is,” he says. “I want to equip students to detect nonsense in all areas of public and private life. The ability to make inferences from data is a fundamental skill, and I want my students to have it.”

But it’s not all work-no play in the course he’s taught for 30 years, “Origins of Scientific Thought,” which draws about 350 students. Lindberg, winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award, gives students what he calls “brain breaks” after an intense line of argument.

For example, after guiding his students through Kepler’s discovery of elliptical orbits, Lindberg will shift into a few minutes of joketelling.

“I explain to my students that I tell no jokes that are political, sexual or scatological,” he says. “That leaves me about 15 for the semester.”

Even today Lindberg continues to refine his lectures. “They should be lean,” he says, “and I keep discovering material that can be omitted without weakening the point I’m trying to make.”

His sifting and winnowing of lectures is just one sign of how much teaching means to him. “You know,” he says, “I’ve published a lot of books, but I’m a teacher at heart.”

Despite – or because of – the cerebral cast to his career, Lindberg loves to work with his hands. And he has the talent to do that at any height.

When his then-13-year-old son needed to earn money for downhill ski racing, they forged a business venture that lasted eight years: Lindberg and Son Roofing. Once his son got the hang of it, Lindberg came down off the roof and became the front man, ringing doorbells on houses with dubious roofs and signing up their owners.

But his everlasting love – roofing gets old as you get older, after all – is cabinetmaking. Lindberg and his wife, Greta, enjoy his handcrafted furniture in their home, and so do their adult children, Erik and Christin. He favors Shaker-style designs made from cherry.

“It’s immediate gratification,” he says with a smile.

In fact, he wants to carry his talent for carpentry into retirement from UW–Madison next summer, helping build and renovate homes for Habitat for Humanity. “I have grown up with a powerful need for altruistic activity,” he says.

That’s no wonder, considering the example set by his two grandfathers, both Baptist clergy. One of them, Ole Lindberg, emigrated from Sweden and helped establish churches as the railroad pushed west of Minneapolis in the 19th century. Ole, who started out as a carpenter, would be pleased that his grandson has done so well with his hands and his head.

All will be fully employed in his retirement, Lindberg says. His head will be busy with a major editing project he and professor Ronald Numbers have going: the eight-volume Cambridge History of Science. But he also will be hammering for Habitat for Humanity, and he plans on apprenticing himself to a Windsor chairmaker in New Hampshire.

“Some professors just do more of what they did before, when they retire,” says Lindberg as he gazes out his office window.

“But not me,” he adds with a smile.