On Jan 18, 2008, at 1:38 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:
> ...a hunting and gathering tribe invents
> and passes along from generation to generation knowledge about how to
> make a sturdy fishing net. Are they doing science?
>
> My point is this: scientific knowledge is a very specific form of
> knowledge that has emerged under very special sociohistorical
> conditions. Humans in many societies throughout history have created
> and passed along knowledge. In only some of those societies has that
> knowledge been generated by formal scientific methods.
This is a dispute about words. If "science" means the formalization of the trial-and-error methods by which all sentient beings gain knowledge about their world then the above is true by definition. If "science" means the actual ways, formal or not, by which beings gain knowledge, it aint true at all.
Shane Mage
"This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30