> The idea has it's roots in Aristotelian philosophy Animals understand "the empirical method". Experimentation, pattern inference, cause and effect... Aristot

> The idea has it's roots in Aristotelian philosophy Animals understand "the empirical method". Experimentation, pattern inference, cause and effect... Aristotle may have described it, but like most of the rest of the interaction of philosophy and science it's a post-hoc formalisation, mostly good for convincing philosophers that scientists are doing something reasonable.