Julie
> Try talking to a scientist about technology and (in my limited
>experience) they'll say, "well that's all science anyway".
In a message to me off list, Evan Price made a similar point from the other
angle when he said that his 'physics professors liked to emphasize that
science is all empirical'. In reply my comment was -
Perhaps the best examples of science based advancement in technology comes
from the chemical industry where experiments, based on theoretical
calculation, divorced from manfacturing, i.e. in the laboratory, were used
to develop new products.
Experimentation was carried with lead/silver smelting in the Devon mines of
the late 13th / early 14th century but it was empirical in nature, not
theoretical, based on the philosophy of 'try in and see'. That, to my mind,
is not science.
Peter
______________________________________________
Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, Rosebush, Clynderwen,
Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE.
Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 07831 427599
University of Exeter - Department of History
School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.
See http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/mining-history/ for details.
Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/
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