It's quite complicated, actually
But that doesn't mean I can simply let Duhem and Barfield do all the explaining. It really does require unfolding a long and intricate argument/history in order to make the final point, namely, that humans have not always seen the world in the same way - which means that humans haven't always seen the same world.
Perhaps you read in high school some of the same textbooks that I taught as a science teacher: the introductory chapter of almost every one of those texts, whether it was Physics or Biology or Earth Science, gave a history of science itself. In that history we learn that for much of human history, most humans were superstitious and incurious. There were occasional exceptions through the millenia, but it wasn't until roughly the 18th century that humans really began looking at the world and trying to understand how it really worked. It wasn't until roughly the 20th century that humans even got near the truth, and most humans started to see things as they really are.
Two instances of the incuriosity and superstition of our ancestors that were highlighted in these high school science texts were the geocentric universe, and spontaneous generation. Do you remember the gist of these two theories?
Perhaps you read in high school some of the same textbooks that I taught as a science teacher: the introductory chapter of almost every one of those texts, whether it was Physics or Biology or Earth Science, gave a history of science itself. In that history we learn that for much of human history, most humans were superstitious and incurious. There were occasional exceptions through the millenia, but it wasn't until roughly the 18th century that humans really began looking at the world and trying to understand how it really worked. It wasn't until roughly the 20th century that humans even got near the truth, and most humans started to see things as they really are.
Two instances of the incuriosity and superstition of our ancestors that were highlighted in these high school science texts were the geocentric universe, and spontaneous generation. Do you remember the gist of these two theories?
Comments