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Got as far as the first paragraph and all I could think was, this author doesn't know what science is. Or is just artificially restricting its definition for t

Got as far as the first paragraph and all I could think was, this author doesn't know what science is. Or is just artificially restricting its definition for the benefit of his article using weasel phrases like, "and none historically had any connection with what we think of today as science." "Some of the most important things we use every day were invented long before the adoption of the scientific method." No, just no. The scientific method has been employed by humans (and animals) for as long as we've had brains. Its formal definition is only a recent development.

WalterBright 9y ago
The scientific method in layman's terms could be written "whatever works". All the things mentioned in the article were things that worked, and were refined over time to work even better.
goatlover 9y ago
The scientific method isn't just whatever happens to work. It's subjecting what works to rigorous testing that's meant to overcome human bias and subjectivity inside various theoretical frameworks to provide us a better understanding of the world.
grondilu 9y ago
Are suggesting that trial and error, heuristics, empiricism and so on, are the basis of scientific method? You probably do, considering your mention of animals and brains. I'm not expert in epistemology, but I very much suspect it's more complex than that.
kelnos 9y ago
> The scientific method has been employed by humans (and animals) for as long as we've had brains. Its formal definition is only a recent development. Science is a discipline we've invented in fairly recent times (think on the order of a few thousand years) as a rigorous means of determining how to explain the world around us and make predictions that can be tested to be true or false. Science isn't throwing things at the wall until you find something that sticks, or randomly stumbling upon something useful. That's just simple trial-and-error development of technology. Science is not technology, and science is not required for technology, even though today's technological progress often leans heavily on science.

WalterBright 9y ago

The scientific method in layman's terms could be written "whatever works". All the things mentioned in the article were things that worked, and were refined over time to work even better.

goatlover 9y ago

The scientific method isn't just whatever happens to work. It's subjecting what works to rigorous testing that's meant to overcome human bias and subjectivity inside various theoretical frameworks to provide us a better understanding of the world.

grondilu 9y ago

Are suggesting that trial and error, heuristics, empiricism and so on, are the basis of scientific method? You probably do, considering your mention of animals and brains. I'm not expert in epistemology, but I very much suspect it's more complex than that.

kelnos 9y ago

> The scientific method has been employed by humans (and animals) for as long as we've had brains. Its formal definition is only a recent development. Science is a discipline we've invented in fairly recent times (think on the order of a few thousand years) as a rigorous means of determining how to explain the world around us and make predictions that can be tested to be true or false. Science isn't throwing things at the wall until you find something that sticks, or randomly stumbling upon something useful. That's just simple trial-and-error development of technology. Science is not technology, and science is not required for technology, even though today's technological progress often leans heavily on science.