Close but maybe not quite right (because it does require observation of the night sky or at least noticing the fact that you have not been blasted to plasma) would be Olbers’ paradox.
Can you add to that? Perhaps it is worth making a separate post collecting things people intuitively wouldn’t think solvable by thought and only a small about of evidence that actually can be solved that way.
Mm. I have an old draft of an article going through quotes from the Presocratic philosophers, explaining how they logically proceeded to Atomism, which is a pretty impressive feat. But I haven’t worked on it in a long time.
It’s not like pure thought alone could have ruled out, say, Newtonian mechanics.
Close but maybe not quite right (because it does require observation of the night sky or at least noticing the fact that you have not been blasted to plasma) would be Olbers’ paradox.
Can you add to that? Perhaps it is worth making a separate post collecting things people intuitively wouldn’t think solvable by thought and only a small about of evidence that actually can be solved that way.
Mm. I have an old draft of an article going through quotes from the Presocratic philosophers, explaining how they logically proceeded to Atomism, which is a pretty impressive feat. But I haven’t worked on it in a long time.