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Science did not begin at Bacon. Saying crop rotation or glasses or fire were not science is a bit like saying ancient geometric constructions are not algorithm

Science did not begin at Bacon. Saying crop rotation or glasses or fire were not science is a bit like saying ancient geometric constructions are not algorithms.

goatlover 9y ago
Technology isn't science. Science is a systematic discipline meant to understand the world in naturalistic terms. Technology has come to heavily rely on science, because it gives good, reliable results. Better than the hit/miss tinkering from before.
- srtjstjsj 9y ago
  You think that crop rotation was just lucky guessing, and not learned from experience?
  - goatlover 9y ago
    Learning from experience isn't science. Trial and error isn't science. There's more to it than that. Of course humans have been learning from trial and error since before we were homo sapiens. But we also explained things in terms of ancestral spirits, angry gods who needed to be appeased, creation stories, etc. Along with all that learning came a lot of crazy beliefs and practices. It wasn't until science was an actual practice that we began to have systematic naturalistic explanations we could fit controlled experimental results into.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      > Learning from experience isn't science. Trial and error isn't science. There's more to it than that. Alhazen's Book of Optics is "not science" in exactly the same sense that constructions in Euclid's Elements are "not algorithms". Both claims are drawing, IMO, indefensible post-hoc epistemic lines in the sand. > Along with all that learning came a lot of crazy beliefs and practices I don't see why this matters. 1. Scientists, following a scientific process (perhaps not particularly well, but that's just a Scotsman argument), found themselves believing all types of crazy shit. Read about the 1950's. Science certainly dispels a lot of superstition, but it's not a bulwark against bad or lazy thinking. 2. Just because there existed supernatural explanations for e.g., crop rotation or glasses doesn't mean that the people who discovered those things weren't following a fundamentally scientific process. > But we also explained things in terms of ancestral spirits, angry gods who needed to be appeased, creation stories, etc. And? Hell, there are still people who believe lightening and eclipses are supernatural events. It does not follow that we don't have a science that explains these phenomenon.

Science did not begin at Bacon. Saying crop rotation or glasses or fire were not science is a bit like saying ancient geometric constructions are not algorithms.

goatlover 9y ago

Technology isn't science. Science is a systematic discipline meant to understand the world in naturalistic terms. Technology has come to heavily rely on science, because it gives good, reliable results. Better than the hit/miss tinkering from before.

srtjstjsj 9y ago
You think that crop rotation was just lucky guessing, and not learned from experience?
- goatlover 9y ago
  Learning from experience isn't science. Trial and error isn't science. There's more to it than that. Of course humans have been learning from trial and error since before we were homo sapiens. But we also explained things in terms of ancestral spirits, angry gods who needed to be appeased, creation stories, etc. Along with all that learning came a lot of crazy beliefs and practices. It wasn't until science was an actual practice that we began to have systematic naturalistic explanations we could fit controlled experimental results into.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    > Learning from experience isn't science. Trial and error isn't science. There's more to it than that. Alhazen's Book of Optics is "not science" in exactly the same sense that constructions in Euclid's Elements are "not algorithms". Both claims are drawing, IMO, indefensible post-hoc epistemic lines in the sand. > Along with all that learning came a lot of crazy beliefs and practices I don't see why this matters. 1. Scientists, following a scientific process (perhaps not particularly well, but that's just a Scotsman argument), found themselves believing all types of crazy shit. Read about the 1950's. Science certainly dispels a lot of superstition, but it's not a bulwark against bad or lazy thinking. 2. Just because there existed supernatural explanations for e.g., crop rotation or glasses doesn't mean that the people who discovered those things weren't following a fundamentally scientific process. > But we also explained things in terms of ancestral spirits, angry gods who needed to be appeased, creation stories, etc. And? Hell, there are still people who believe lightening and eclipses are supernatural events. It does not follow that we don't have a science that explains these phenomenon.