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To: voltaires_zit

To the extent that it's true to say science is shaped by the day and culture in which [it forms], is to make an interesting but ultimately meaningless observation. No one is capable of working outside his time and place. On the other hand, if "day and culture" were able to distort science, why does science originating in, say, pre-Victorian England, still work in post-Mao China?


62 posted on 03/20/2007 4:01:28 PM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: Gumlegs

> On the other hand, if "day and culture" were able to
> distort science, why does science originating in, say,
> pre-Victorian England, still work in post-Mao China?

Because, as I also noted, the endeavor of science (alone among human undertakings) actually takes meaningful steps to minimize the effects by, for example, insisting that observations or experiments be repeatable and reproducible.

Even so, some of the assumptions underlying Newtonian physics, that space could be adequately described using Euclidean geometry and that time progressed at a uniform rate, were clearly "time and place" sorts of assumptions that have measureable, negative, impact on the accuracy of his theory.

What assumptions do we make today?


65 posted on 03/20/2007 4:09:53 PM PDT by voltaires_zit (Government is the problem, not the answer.)
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