yes, evidence does not point to the contrary! my reading list is rusty, but again Leviathan and the Air Pump is a good source; Feyerabend's Against Method is a really fun classic that challenges a lot of common sense ideas about science.
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Replying to @nberlat @arthur_affect and
I think the other aspect here is a massive problem of mythos. Science as a mythos is a very specific cultural movement which is...well, bluntly, as ahistorical as any other cultural mythos. It's tied into the narrative of the Triumph of (Protestant) Rationalism over Superstition.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @nberlat and
Most ancient societies, and for that matter medieval ones, valued inquiry, discovery and education. These things were often *directly supported* by religious institutions. The narrative of Science Leading Us Out Of the Dark sells science as an alternative belief structure.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @nberlat and
Mind, this whole narrative relies on an extremely cherry-picked set of historical icons and examples, because so many even of our scientific luminaries believed in things that were transparently non-scientific superstition as a direct result of their Ethos of Reason.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @nberlat and
Alchemy, cannibal medicine, phrenology, race science, eugenics - all reliant upon applying specific cultural values of "reason" to the messiness of empirical discovery and analysis, and getting to, in many cases, pretty horrible places in the pursuit of "escaping superstition."
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Replying to @loudpenitent @nberlat and
Science, the process, is useful. But there's a big difference between trial-and-error, experimentation, logic, etc as intellectual technologies which have been practiced in various forms throughout history, and SCIENCE! the holy writ of Protestant Rationalism.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @nberlat and
And - especially in certain circles of modern New Atheism - SCIENCE! has been revealed for what it too often is, a triumphalist screed synonymous with their vision of European civilization.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @nberlat and
I hate to fall back into my old Marxist ways but it seems pretty clear that science and tech follow in the wake of material economic circumstances and not vice versa The idea of one "brilliant invention" lifting a country out of poverty is a fairy tale
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
...but that’s what Noah is saying. He’s saying indoor plumbing is responsible for increasing life expectancy.
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Replying to @TWLadyGrey @arthur_affect and
Eh, I would argue that's *infrastructure*, not science. That said I would personally contest Arthur's POV a little here. New techniques and products DO often cause improvements in prosperity... IF not heavily restricted by the arms and mechanisms of ownership.
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It's always a feedback loop - wealth drives progress which creates more wealth which drives more progress But I would argue the wealth is doing more of the pushing than the tech
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Replying to @arthur_affect @TWLadyGrey and
Idunno. Certainly NOW, but I wouldn't say axiomatically.
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