Is there a prior to the invention of science? Humans have been testing things and using the evidence provided for as long as we existed. 'Scire' - to know as a fact. However, we can also apply science to very old data. Not sure what the relevance of this tweet is.
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Replying to @HPluckrose @ComplaintStick
It doesn't matter much whether there was a word for making a decision based on evidence - I won't eat that because it makes people sick - or based on myth - I won't eat that because God says it is unclean, truth claims are involved. The former cld be true. The latter unlikely.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
OK so there's a myth one of whose lessons is: don't eat this thing because you will become sick. Is that myth telling you something meaningful or something true?
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Replying to @ComplaintStick
We could not know if it was true without testing it. For the Hare Krishnas it is onions and garlic. For the ancient Hebrews, it was pork & shellfish. The former seems groundless. The latter can now be understood in relation to food poisoning & dealt with via refrigeration.
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Replying to @ComplaintStick
Some things people place meaning on are not true, yes. Thunder is not actually an angry god swinging a hammer about. The meaning given to it is false. People can still take pleasure in imagining it and perhaps it could even be useful but it is not true.
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Replying to @HPluckrose @ComplaintStick
People can place meaning on absolutely anything. This can be interesting and I study narratives because it is interesting. It also matters what is true and distinguishing what people find meaningful regardless of truth from what has been discovered to be true has advanced society
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Replying to @HPluckrose
I'm not arguing against truth. I'm saying that if tribe members argue about whether a plant makes you sick, and they argue in terms of that myth, they aren't arguing about whether the myth is meaningful but about whether it is true: that the right way to live is not to eat it.
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Replying to @ComplaintStick
OK? So what? Where is this going? If you mean that sometimes people can find information and data in myths, I agree and have never claimed otherwise. This is not the point of the disagreement.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
I'm saying it isn't just a question of information that may or may not be verified (scientifically), but of knowledge that may or may not be true (where truth is not just scientific). The opposition between the true and the meaningful cannot be consistently maintained.
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For something to be established as true, there will need to be evidence for it. You can call this 'scientific' or not depending on how you define science. Meaning can be attached to things that have been established to be true and things that have not.
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