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Let's look at the humours model you're referring to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism Can such a model arise

Let's look at the humours model you're referring to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism Can such a model arise from a combination of the scientific method (observation, experimentation, etc...) and lack of adequate tooling to study the body?

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
Well, can it arise or did it arise? For all I know, little is known about how it arose, though there is some speculation that it was maybe based on how blood clots/separates, so I guess that at least suggests that it can arise through empirical observation? But how is that relevant to the question at hand? Especially given that I just chose humors and demons (concepts that were actually somewhat in conflict) as examples, and specifically as examples of hilariously wrong ideas--medical knowledge was not limited to those two ideas, and it's not like all of it was terrible. Some of the knowledge of how certain plants helped against certain symptoms, for example, was actually pretty decent. Which is maybe the right moment to answer your other question: > How do you think we acquired knowledge before the scientific method was devised? How do you think we spoke to each other before grammar was devised? The scientific method was not "devised", that is simply the name we give today to the (so far only) methodology that we have discovered to result in reliable knowledge about the world, and that we are formalizing and refining over the centuries to be more and more reliable by countering more and more weaknesses as they are being discovered. People simply applied the method, without any explicit intention of "applying the scientific method", and without following any explicit strategy. People observed reality, people tried out ideas they had and observed the results, and repeated and refined ideas that worked, discarding ideas that didn't. The same people also used other strategies to form beliefs about the world, so their overall approach to gaining knowledge about the world was not particularly scientific. But the point is that you don't have to have a concious concept of the scientific method in order to use it to gain knowledge about the world, it's just that it helps a lot if you do, as that allows you to not waste time on other approaches, and maybe more importantly, to work on improving the method('s implementation). Now, you could argue that modern scientific methodology is quite a bit advanced from crude try and error in past times, and that certainly is true. However, the original point of contention in this thread was the idea (that you suggested was not controversial) that culture could stand on its own as a reliable source of knowledge without scientific validation, so the question was not whether basic try and error is just as good as a double-blind medical study (which it obviously isn't), but whether something that is not even the result of try and error is just as good as something that is the result of modern scientific methodology. Now, so far you have mostly tried to argue that there are areas where you know that scientific inquiry won't make progress, and your arguments for that so far have not been particularly convincing. While I agree that sociology probably in many ways is still at the "try and error" stage, and that the complexity seems overwhelming, and even that it is one of the likelier candidates to never achieve any sort of unified theory, I don't see any justification for you assertion that it's actually impossible. But maybe more importantly: Even if I were to grant you that real progress in the scientific inquiry of sociology is impossible (which might be the case, after all--I just don't see any justification so far to actually accept that proposition), how would that be relevant to the original point of contention? Even if scientific progress is impossible, what is your justification that any other source of knowledge (such as culture) would be reliable?
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  >"Even if scientific progress is impossible, what is your justification that any other source of knowledge (such as culture) would be reliable?" We'll get to that later. Over the course of this debate we've been flitting around from idea to idea, I'd like to restore some focus. Going back to the question I asked previously about the humours, my question was not "did the theory arise from the application of the scientific method?", but rather "could the theory have arisen from the application of the scientific method?". In other words, take what you know about the humours, could this have arisen through application of the scientific method (observation, testing of hypotheses, etc...)? Now that I've hopefully clarified the question, what is your answer?
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    I think I did actually answer that? It possibly did, so it can? Really, that isn't so much a question about the model of humors as it is about the definition of "the scientific method" that you happen to be using. If you define it to align with the modern understanding of the philosophy of science, then no, I don't see how it could possibly arise from that. But if you define it more broadly to encompass the ancient roots of today's philosophy of science, as might be appropriate when discussing past times, then it well might have. Even if the methodology isn't exactly up to modern standards, it is still useful to distinguish the predecessors of modern science from fundamentally different contemporary approaches (some of which have their own modern day forms). The core idea that was extended into modern science is empiricism, and it seems that the model of humors might very well have been at least inspired by an empirical observation of how blood separates into four distinguishable "fluids", which might be enough to say that it could have arisen from the (proto-?)scientific method? Really, it's just another case where you have to be careful to not fall victim to essentialism. Whether the model of humors could have arisen from the scientific method depends on the definition of "scientific method" you are using. For some definitions, it could, for some it clearly could not. You just have to be careful to not mix up the different definitions in the same context.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago

Well, can it arise or did it arise? For all I know, little is known about how it arose, though there is some speculation that it was maybe based on how blood clots/separates, so I guess that at least suggests that it can arise through empirical observation? But how is that relevant to the question at hand? Especially given that I just chose humors and demons (concepts that were actually somewhat in conflict) as examples, and specifically as examples of hilariously wrong ideas--medical knowledge was not limited to those two ideas, and it's not like all of it was terrible. Some of the knowledge of how certain plants helped against certain symptoms, for example, was actually pretty decent. Which is maybe the right moment to answer your other question: > How do you think we acquired knowledge before the scientific method was devised? How do you think we spoke to each other before grammar was devised? The scientific method was not "devised", that is simply the name we give today to the (so far only) methodology that we have discovered to result in reliable knowledge about the world, and that we are formalizing and refining over the centuries to be more and more reliable by countering more and more weaknesses as they are being discovered. People simply applied the method, without any explicit intention of "applying the scientific method", and without following any explicit strategy. People observed reality, people tried out ideas they had and observed the results, and repeated and refined ideas that worked, discarding ideas that didn't. The same people also used other strategies to form beliefs about the world, so their overall approach to gaining knowledge about the world was not particularly scientific. But the point is that you don't have to have a concious concept of the scientific method in order to use it to gain knowledge about the world, it's just that it helps a lot if you do, as that allows you to not waste time on other approaches, and maybe more importantly, to work on improving the method('s implementation). Now, you could argue that modern scientific methodology is quite a bit advanced from crude try and error in past times, and that certainly is true. However, the original point of contention in this thread was the idea (that you suggested was not controversial) that culture could stand on its own as a reliable source of knowledge without scientific validation, so the question was not whether basic try and error is just as good as a double-blind medical study (which it obviously isn't), but whether something that is not even the result of try and error is just as good as something that is the result of modern scientific methodology. Now, so far you have mostly tried to argue that there are areas where you know that scientific inquiry won't make progress, and your arguments for that so far have not been particularly convincing. While I agree that sociology probably in many ways is still at the "try and error" stage, and that the complexity seems overwhelming, and even that it is one of the likelier candidates to never achieve any sort of unified theory, I don't see any justification for you assertion that it's actually impossible. But maybe more importantly: Even if I were to grant you that real progress in the scientific inquiry of sociology is impossible (which might be the case, after all--I just don't see any justification so far to actually accept that proposition), how would that be relevant to the original point of contention? Even if scientific progress is impossible, what is your justification that any other source of knowledge (such as culture) would be reliable?

ZenoArrow 9y ago
>"Even if scientific progress is impossible, what is your justification that any other source of knowledge (such as culture) would be reliable?" We'll get to that later. Over the course of this debate we've been flitting around from idea to idea, I'd like to restore some focus. Going back to the question I asked previously about the humours, my question was not "did the theory arise from the application of the scientific method?", but rather "could the theory have arisen from the application of the scientific method?". In other words, take what you know about the humours, could this have arisen through application of the scientific method (observation, testing of hypotheses, etc...)? Now that I've hopefully clarified the question, what is your answer?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  I think I did actually answer that? It possibly did, so it can? Really, that isn't so much a question about the model of humors as it is about the definition of "the scientific method" that you happen to be using. If you define it to align with the modern understanding of the philosophy of science, then no, I don't see how it could possibly arise from that. But if you define it more broadly to encompass the ancient roots of today's philosophy of science, as might be appropriate when discussing past times, then it well might have. Even if the methodology isn't exactly up to modern standards, it is still useful to distinguish the predecessors of modern science from fundamentally different contemporary approaches (some of which have their own modern day forms). The core idea that was extended into modern science is empiricism, and it seems that the model of humors might very well have been at least inspired by an empirical observation of how blood separates into four distinguishable "fluids", which might be enough to say that it could have arisen from the (proto-?)scientific method? Really, it's just another case where you have to be careful to not fall victim to essentialism. Whether the model of humors could have arisen from the scientific method depends on the definition of "scientific method" you are using. For some definitions, it could, for some it clearly could not. You just have to be careful to not mix up the different definitions in the same context.