> 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

> 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.