I am surprised that the philosophy quarter has not said anything yet.
May I suggest that the origins of the scientific method had their foundations
in epistemology. Historically, I think Francis Bacon was at least one of the
earliest to criticize the wrong headedness of using the Aristotelian approach
to shape ones reasoning about nature. Although perhaps not as strongly so, I
seem to recall reading essays by Rene Descartes which also contributed
to the scientific approach. Both these folk where first and foremost
philosophers
although Rene Desecartes was also known as a mathematician.
In fact, before roughly 1850, there were no physics departments. "Physics"
was
a subfield that grew out of the department of "natural philosophy". So
physics
is foundational, but all the subfields of science have grown and adapted from
an
eclectic collection of methodologies of scientific inquiry that proved
promising.
by Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
PS. For those of you who read "physics hubris", I stand corrected:
Crick was a "Doctor of Science".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 06 2001 - 20:08:01 EDT