The hypothesis was that the correspondence of visual perception with tactile perception is learned, not innate. That's a perfectly valid scientific hypothesis,

The hypothesis was that the correspondence of visual perception with tactile perception is learned, not innate. That's a perfectly valid scientific hypothesis, and turns out to be testable and correct. Science, from Google: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. They hardly need a theory for how you gain those experiences - you gain those experiences by seeing objects and by handling them, obviously. Granted, they didn't understand Maxwell's equations and photoelectric effects and some complete model of the light-retina-nerves-brain-mind system, but they didn't need that in order to make scientific hypotheses about whether we learn to correlate sensory stimuli with the world around us or if it just automatic. We know more now (but hopefully not as much as people 200 years from now will know), but that doesn't mean they weren't doing science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment