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The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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Interbane

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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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The Scientific Method used by Aristotle was not valid by our standards. He used induction not experimentation so I stand by my post.
I mentioned that Aristotle contributed by philosophy on induction, verbatim. You repeated my point in a vacuum. The method we know today didn't "pop" into existence. It was a cumulative effort across thousands of years. If you want to go back to the first experiments, go back to ancient Egypt.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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With respect to the Bacons, are you referring to Roger Bacon, the Franciscan Friar?
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Interbane

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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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Yes, or Francis Bacon who came later.

While the scientific method didn't "originate" anywhere, but sort of formed over time, the modern form can be attributed to one of the Bacons(I always forget which). I know one or both were Christian.

The point I was trying to get at is that to say something erudite originated with Christians is like saying it originated with Oxygen breathing humans. In that environment, there really was no alternative if you wanted to be a scholar. To make my point, list all atheist scholars of that time.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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I think Kevin Bacon was largely responsible.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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Interbane wrote: While the scientific method didn't "originate" anywhere, but sort of formed over time.
Interbane is right of course. Haffner's reinvention of history is mere Creationist propaganda meant for True Believers only.

Sir James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, delves into the beginnings of science. He suggests that magical thinking preceded religion. But that religion and science are actually grafted from the same tree. From the beginnings of time, as Interbane says, early humans pondered the world and tried to figure out how it all worked. That's human nature. The beginnings of the scientific method go far back in our lineage.

This is a long quote, but it's some pretty good stuff:
The slow, the never-ending approach to truth consists in perpetually forming and testing hypotheses , accepting those which at the time seem to fit the facts and rejecting the others. The views of natural causation embraced by the savage magician no doubt appear to us manifestly false and absurd; yet in their day they were legitimate hypotheses, though they have not stood the test of experience. Ridicule and blame are the just meed, not of those who devised these crude theories, but of those who obstinately adhered to them after better had been propounded. Certainly no men ever had stronger incentives in the pursuit of truth than these savage sorcerers. To maintain at least a show of knowledge was absolutely necessary; a single mistake detected might cost them their life. This no doubt led them to practise imposture for the purpose of concealing their ignorance; but it also supplied them with the most powerful motive for substituting a real for a sham knowledge, since, if you would appear to know anything, by far the best way is actually to know it. Thus, however justly we may reject the extravagant pretensions of magicians and condemn the deceptions which they have practised on mankind, the original institution of this class of men has, take it all in all, been productive of incalculable good to humanity. They were the direct predecessors , not merely of our physicians and surgeons, but of our investigators and discoverers in every branch of natural science. They began the work which has since been carried to such glorious and beneficent issues by their successors in after ages; and if the beginning was poor and feeble, this is to be imputed to the inevitable difficulties which beset the path of knowledge rather than to the natural incapacity or wilful fraud of the men themselves.
Frazer, James (2012-06-06). The Golden Bough (Illustrated Edition) (pp. 53-54). Dead Dodo Vintage. Kindle Edition.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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Haffner/Jaki/Duhem are indeed revisionists since the history, as taught before them, was wrong, possibly deliberately so. So, what do you do if history is proved to be wrong, you correct the record.

Frazer is irrelevant to the discussion.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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You continue to miss the point. It is not whether there were Christians or atheists, it is that the culture changed under Christians and created an environment where science could develop.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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You continue to miss the point. It is not whether there were Christians or atheists, it is that the culture changed under Christians and created an environment where science could develop.
I've paid lip service to the contributions of Christianity, but I think it was overlooked. Either in this thread or in your other one. I understand your point. But what it seems you're doing is painting an overly lenient view of Christianity's role in the progress of science. In order to get an objective understanding, you would need to compare how science progressed under Christianity as compared to how it would have otherwise progressed. Meaning, if colleges throughout the middle ages were secular instead of Christian, what would have been different? That's almost an impossible comparison to make, as I mentioned before. What it boils down to is the opinion we each have.

An alternative comparison could be the progress of science under Christianity, and the progress of science under another religion or institution. When you make this comparison with say, Islam, the environment under Christianity doesn't compare well.
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