On May 7, 2:01 pm, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > Logic, grammar, mathematics were developed for a long time before science. > They are > necessary for science, but what marks science as a distinct intellectual > enterprise is > skeptical observation and empirical testing. The scholastics inbred study of > logic, > grammar, etc was sterile - as theology has continued to be.
It's like saying that that apes didn't evolve as hominids did, therefore apes are inherently an evolutionary dead end. Logic and scholasticism are what science is made of. The ideas of empirical testing and skeptical observation are direct outgrowths of theology in the specific case of Western science, but in all cases and all cultures that I know of, things like astronomy and medicine arise out of things like astrology and divination. Science has never appeared out of whole cloth in a society. > > > > > Again, the science has developed in the Christian Europe. This could be > > coincidence but > > one cannot exclude that this was destiny. > > It must have had its causes, but I note that it coincided with the > reformation and the > fragmentation of the Church's power. Science developed most in England where > Henry VIII > had divorced the Church from Rome and made it much weaker. It's not as if the Reformation got rid of God. I agree the weakening of the church as a political influence was a great benefit to science, but that was about a particular monopoly on power in Europe being broken that just happened to be religious. There was nothing inherently less theological about the Anglican church that would have led to scientific progress by itself if that were the only criteria. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
