(October 12, 2013 at 7:41 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Simple question for those that said 'yes': how did we acquire knowledge of the scientific method?
Generally by application of processes and ideas that would later coalesce into what we know as the scientific method today. The method's precursors, I suppose you could call them, were nevertheless bodies of knowledge...which were defined as "science."
I voted yes, but only because the question was obnoxiously vague, which given Vinnie is its source, well...why can't I hold all these surprises. "Only way to knowledge?" Knowledge of what? Subjective knowledge? Objective knowledge? Are we talking in concepts wherein someone experiencing a god and "knows" it to be real can say that it is knowledge? Or do we mean, knowledge as in accurately learning things about the universe in which we dwell? Do we mean knowledge as in, knowing how to play an instrument through practice? And what do you define as "science?" Do you mean the method? Or do you just mean science in all of its definitions? Because science is also used to describe a body of knowledge that can be rationally explained and/or reliably applied.
So, in which case...yes. Given that science is in and of itself the name for knowledge, it is the only way to knowledge. Picking up a guitar and strumming at the strings is you doing science; you are testing the instrument, and as you get better at it, you test it further to master your knowledge of what the instrument can do. Your knowledge of notes and pitches and frets is not something you just spontaneously know, it's something you learn, either from sheet music or through trial-and-error. Nobody just picks up an instrument and, presto, they know how to make music. They know how to make noise at first without any prior training. They know how to make noise because you test out how to make it make noise.
Anyone who voted no on this didn't think this question over. At all. And you should be ashamed of yourselves.
