Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereid
This is yet another angle on the question "What is science?"
In this case, it concerns circumstances that cannot be replicated at will, such as the Great Vowel Shift (in linguistics, in the history of the English languages), the origins of the Great Depression (in economics), the causes of the P-T great extinction (in geology, etc), and so on.
I think the mistake you, and rcglinsk, are making is to focus on one particular theory (or set of theories) in one branch of science (cosmology) ... your questions surely concern the nature of science (not the BBT).
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I think there is a problem with your taxonomy. You include in one big group under the label "science" things I would split as follows:
Linguistics - The vowel shift
History and P/E - The great depression (at least the Europeans always lump politics and economics, good taxonomy there)
Science - The P-T extinction - geology, cosmology, (biology, chemistry, thermodynamics etc.)
I agree that science requires different treatment from linguistics and history. The key differences are that people were around for linguistics and history, and that the science is certain: people did it by making choices. Why would people decide to do something is a different sort of question entirely from scientific questions.