I wonder if the presence of arguments between separate groups who disagreed about absolute truth (in the religious sense) eventually led to arguments about the natural order, and the presentation of experiments to resolve them. Given the presence of religious figures (monks like Mendel, friars like Bacon, etc) in the early sciences, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s evidence for this, though I don’t have any.
‘my god says the cannonball hits before the feather, mine says they hit at the same time, screw you I’ve got a cannonball, a feather, and a tower, let’s settle this’
If the argument happens in an environment where ‘you made the higher status person look silly, so now you have to be punished’, this does nothing, if it happens in an environment where the crowd can theoretically embrace one or the other on the spot, and it is an actual contest, then that might lead somewhere interesting.
If the Chinese language permits the statement, ‘what I said can be read as disagreeing with you o higher status one, but what I intended was the read that exactly supports your beliefs which is totally consistent with the beautiful grammar’, then this sort of disputation cannot happen.
I offer the example of Puritanism and Judaism as well.
Puritans believed that salvation was not assured and constantly engaged in introspection to answer the ‘am I right with god’ question, which required a great deal of ‘examination’ in a sense that may be relevant to science—see Scott Alexander’s post on Puritans for examples of prominent ones.
As I understand it, ‘argument’ is also core to the practice of Talmudic studies in Judaism, which I suppose could lead to experiments like the above, or at least the development of formal logic. To use von Neumann as an example, if he had not been a scientist in an era where the Jews of Hungary were integrating into wider society (see Scott Alexander’s post on the contribution of this group to modernity), he would have (maybe he was? I don’t know) made an amazing scholar of the Talmud—he could repeat verbatim everything he had ever read and was an absolute master of reasoning.
Could the insanity of European religious conflict have led directly to the development of modern science? I don’t have an answer, or sources, but maybe the idea is interesting.
Was there anything similar to this in ancient China: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputation#Inter-faith_disputations
I wonder if the presence of arguments between separate groups who disagreed about absolute truth (in the religious sense) eventually led to arguments about the natural order, and the presentation of experiments to resolve them. Given the presence of religious figures (monks like Mendel, friars like Bacon, etc) in the early sciences, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s evidence for this, though I don’t have any.
‘my god says the cannonball hits before the feather, mine says they hit at the same time, screw you I’ve got a cannonball, a feather, and a tower, let’s settle this’
If the argument happens in an environment where ‘you made the higher status person look silly, so now you have to be punished’, this does nothing, if it happens in an environment where the crowd can theoretically embrace one or the other on the spot, and it is an actual contest, then that might lead somewhere interesting.
If the Chinese language permits the statement, ‘what I said can be read as disagreeing with you o higher status one, but what I intended was the read that exactly supports your beliefs which is totally consistent with the beautiful grammar’, then this sort of disputation cannot happen.
I offer the example of Puritanism and Judaism as well.
Puritans believed that salvation was not assured and constantly engaged in introspection to answer the ‘am I right with god’ question, which required a great deal of ‘examination’ in a sense that may be relevant to science—see Scott Alexander’s post on Puritans for examples of prominent ones.
As I understand it, ‘argument’ is also core to the practice of Talmudic studies in Judaism, which I suppose could lead to experiments like the above, or at least the development of formal logic. To use von Neumann as an example, if he had not been a scientist in an era where the Jews of Hungary were integrating into wider society (see Scott Alexander’s post on the contribution of this group to modernity), he would have (maybe he was? I don’t know) made an amazing scholar of the Talmud—he could repeat verbatim everything he had ever read and was an absolute master of reasoning.
Could the insanity of European religious conflict have led directly to the development of modern science? I don’t have an answer, or sources, but maybe the idea is interesting.