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> 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! N

by 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.
      - acqq 10y ago
        Then we think the same. I didn't reply to you out of the disagreement with what you wrote, but as the complement.

by acqq 10y ago

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.
    - acqq 10y ago
      Then we think the same. I didn't reply to you out of the disagreement with what you wrote, but as the complement.