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The article made me think of a recent book "The Invention of Science" almost immediately - turns out the book is mentioned as one of the references - which is w

The article made me think of a recent book "The Invention of Science" almost immediately - turns out the book is mentioned as one of the references - which is well worth reading if you found the article interesting. It discussed the story of the Earth in a lot more detail. It is fascinating to read how amazing conclusions people inferred by following perfectly sensible reasoning from basic assumptions they believed. It makes you think about the perfectly sensible reasoning we are using today and what our current ideas will seem completely silly in a few hundreds years!

legodt 10y ago
That book reminds me of the deep ties between the mythology of science and the mythology of Christianity. It is argued that thr truest way to be a Christian in the classic sense is to experience atheism as Christ did when he was on the cross doubting god and his purpose. I'm absolutely butchering this, but essentially, it is through that absolute test of faith that Christ is able to renew and solidify his faith. There can be no true connection with god without first fully doubting him. (I'm not Christian, so I apologize if I messed this up too bad, please correct me if I did). So with western science tradition, and through the scientific method, we are supposed to go through the same thing. Scienctific hypotheses and results are only validated through absolute doubt, and we only accept theories if they, despite exhaustive efforts, can not be disproved. Hopefully, through this method, there are things from today that seem completely silly, because that means some serious science kept happening!
acqq 10y ago
> It makes you think about the perfectly sensible reasoning we are using today and what our current ideas will seem completely silly in a few hundreds years! No, not in a way it was in the old times, at least not for the natural sciences, and the book you mention very specifically argues why: the "completely wrong" beliefs were possible before the "real" science, the later always just limited by our measurements. Therefore, Newton formulas aren't "completely wrong" even after Einstein, only not precise enough for the measurements that were achieved shortly before Einstein. The book in fact spends more chapters explaining exactly the difference between the really modern science and the status before.
- wtbob 10y ago
  But Ptolemy's formula's aren't completely wrong, either: they're actually very effective at predicting the movements of the planets and stars — just not good enough, it turns out, and rather more complex than they need to be.
  - riffraff 10y ago
    This is an interesting thought. Not everything pre-scientific method is completely wrong, but many things look like they were, e.g. : * the idea that everything is made of (one of, or all) 4 elements * humorist theory of disease * belief in perpetual motion machines * spontaneous generation AFAICT all of these can be construed to be considered "good enough theories" but they generally fail to make accurate predictions, which "good science" doesn't.
    - acqq 10y ago
      I'd argue that even before the "good science" really established itself broadly (that is, before the last few hundred years in Europe) there were the results that have all the rights to be called "good science" and Ptolemy's formulas actually have all the right to be recognized as "good science." Note, the formulas, not the models that people believed, the "firm spheres and stuff": They made good prediction for where the planets are going to be. They covered all the known planets. They produced accurate results for all the observations of their time. It took the lifetime work of Brahe and his development of his own observatories to even collect enough data for Kepler to be able to recognize differences between the approximate circle paths of the planets. In short, just like Newton's, Ptolemy's formulas are a "good enough" approximation when knowing their limits. I've even read one scientist, and I tend to believe him, claiming that Ptolemy himself, during the development of his formulas, must have used the Sun-centric model, and then he produced the "projected" result which was more acceptable for everybody who just wanted to calculate where the planets are on the sky, as seen from the Earth.
      - riffraff 10y ago
        you misunderstood me, I'd consider the Ptolemaic model "good science" (i.e. it makes appropriate predictions, and can be improved and falsified, which it was). It's just that before the scientific method become common place a lot of theories weren't.

legodt 10y ago

That book reminds me of the deep ties between the mythology of science and the mythology of Christianity. It is argued that thr truest way to be a Christian in the classic sense is to experience atheism as Christ did when he was on the cross doubting god and his purpose. I'm absolutely butchering this, but essentially, it is through that absolute test of faith that Christ is able to renew and solidify his faith. There can be no true connection with god without first fully doubting him. (I'm not Christian, so I apologize if I messed this up too bad, please correct me if I did). So with western science tradition, and through the scientific method, we are supposed to go through the same thing. Scienctific hypotheses and results are only validated through absolute doubt, and we only accept theories if they, despite exhaustive efforts, can not be disproved. Hopefully, through this method, there are things from today that seem completely silly, because that means some serious science kept happening!

acqq 10y ago

> It makes you think about the perfectly sensible reasoning we are using today and what our current ideas will seem completely silly in a few hundreds years! No, not in a way it was in the old times, at least not for the natural sciences, and the book you mention very specifically argues why: the "completely wrong" beliefs were possible before the "real" science, the later always just limited by our measurements. Therefore, Newton formulas aren't "completely wrong" even after Einstein, only not precise enough for the measurements that were achieved shortly before Einstein. The book in fact spends more chapters explaining exactly the difference between the really modern science and the status before.

wtbob 10y ago
But Ptolemy's formula's aren't completely wrong, either: they're actually very effective at predicting the movements of the planets and stars — just not good enough, it turns out, and rather more complex than they need to be.
- riffraff 10y ago
  This is an interesting thought. Not everything pre-scientific method is completely wrong, but many things look like they were, e.g. : * the idea that everything is made of (one of, or all) 4 elements * humorist theory of disease * belief in perpetual motion machines * spontaneous generation AFAICT all of these can be construed to be considered "good enough theories" but they generally fail to make accurate predictions, which "good science" doesn't.
  - acqq 10y ago
    I'd argue that even before the "good science" really established itself broadly (that is, before the last few hundred years in Europe) there were the results that have all the rights to be called "good science" and Ptolemy's formulas actually have all the right to be recognized as "good science." Note, the formulas, not the models that people believed, the "firm spheres and stuff": They made good prediction for where the planets are going to be. They covered all the known planets. They produced accurate results for all the observations of their time. It took the lifetime work of Brahe and his development of his own observatories to even collect enough data for Kepler to be able to recognize differences between the approximate circle paths of the planets. In short, just like Newton's, Ptolemy's formulas are a "good enough" approximation when knowing their limits. I've even read one scientist, and I tend to believe him, claiming that Ptolemy himself, during the development of his formulas, must have used the Sun-centric model, and then he produced the "projected" result which was more acceptable for everybody who just wanted to calculate where the planets are on the sky, as seen from the Earth.
    - riffraff 10y ago
      you misunderstood me, I'd consider the Ptolemaic model "good science" (i.e. it makes appropriate predictions, and can be improved and falsified, which it was). It's just that before the scientific method become common place a lot of theories weren't.