Science is not identical to physical science. The hard sciences like physics and chemistry may be physical sciences, but economics, sociology and psychology are also sciences. There's even a field of academic study called "political science". --Ed Poor Talk 17:37, 10 July 2007 (EDT)
- How many articles have links to this article, with physical science being the intended destination? Philip J. Rayment 20:31, 10 July 2007 (EDT)
Albert Einstein was not a Christian. Perhaps we should explain more about his religious ideas. Did he ever come out as a full-fledged atheist, positively denying the existence of God? --Ed Poor Talk 12:17, 12 February 2008 (EST)
- Wouldn't the Albert Einstein article be the place for that? Philip J. Rayment 01:00, 13 February 2008 (EST)
Einstein was a Jew, (BTW, why isn't there an article Judaism and Science?).
Question: why is it significant that many scientists are atheists. (It would have been just as accurate to say "many scientists are Christians/Jews/Buddhists/" etc.) DLerner 12:21, 10 March 2008 (EDT)
- The significance would be that their atheism colours their science, such as rejecting God as a possible explanation of how we came to be. And I don't think that it would be "just" as accurate to say that many scientists are Buddhists. Some religions have greater representation than others. Philip J. Rayment 18:46, 10 March 2008 (EDT)
Scientists before Christ
In regard to [1], Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's radius and Callippus calculated the length of a solar year. Drochld 19:51, 10 March 2008 (EDT)
- Does astronomy count? If so, you could use the entire Mayan civilization. Barikada 20:23, 10 March 2008 (EDT)
- It might depend to some extent on what you call "science". See for example these quotes from a review of Rodney Stark's book[2]:
India, China, Persia, Greece and Rome all had venerable traditions of scholarship but why did only Christian Europe develop science?
The Greeks pursued learning with great zeal but there remained always a gap between their speculative philosophy and their observation.
- These both indicate that science didn't exist before Christian Europe.
- So were Eratosthenes' and Callippus' works not quite what we'd refer to as "science" (e.g. simply mathematical calculations rather than use of the 'scientific method'), or were they isolated exceptions to the rule?
- Qualifying the scientists as "since Christ" seems a bit arbitrary. Perhaps we could change it to "Most of the early scientists of the modern scientific era who started many of the scientific fields...", although that seems a bit awkward to me. Or is it currently okay because "who started many of the scientific fields" is sufficient qualification?
- What do you think?
- Philip J. Rayment 20:35, 10 March 2008 (EDT)
- I don't think it's accurate to say that they started the scientific fields in the modern era, so I would qualify the statement as "in the early modern scientific era", since nowadays, scientists are less likely to be religious than the public.
- Regarding the Greeks, science has become more rigorous throughout history. See phrenology and race science, for example. I would be surprised if the beginning of any ancient scientific fields didn't start in superstition. Drochld 21:10, 10 March 2008 (EDT)