excavated artifacts. yet paleontology and archeology are both universally recognized as sciences, while considerable debate rages over the status of history per se, which is also concerned with the past. Some scholars regard it as one of the social sciences; others classify it as one of the humanities. what seems to set it apart from the other two subjects is the nature of the evidence on which it is based. Archeology and paleontology are built at irsthand on artifacts and bones unearthed from the ground and preserved for re-examination. history, by contrast, is built largely at secondhand on the testimony of writers, some of whom may have been liars. Even among subjects unanimously acknowledged as scientiic, some are considered less “scientific” than others. In the pecking order that prevails, a “descriptive” science, one in which the scientist describes, classiies and organizes the data he has collected and examined, is outranked by a “theoretical” science, in which he not only describes his data but works out theories to explain them. A theoretical science, in turn, is outranked by an “exact” science, in which the theories are couched in mathematical terms. The sbentist is thereby able to foretell future occurrences, so that his science becomes “predictive” to boot.
AN ADJUSTABLE PECKING ORDER like most pecking orders, this one is subject to challenge and change. Archeology and paleontology are usually labeled descriptive sciences. So are geology, oceanography, biology, meteorology, anatomy, pathology, psychology and sociology. yet in all these sciences some areas are becoming almost as theoretical as the exact sciences of physics, chemistry and astronomy. biologists and meteorologists, while dealing in data far less mathematical than their brethren in such branches of physics as optics and thermodynamics, do not steer clear of prediction. The diference is one of degree. A biologist, given present facts, can only speculate as to future evolution on earth. A meteorologist can tell what the weather will be like a few days hence, but only in terms of probabilities, hedged about by “ifs” and “buts.” A physicist, on the other hand, can often foretell the precise outcome of a nuclear reaction even before testing it in a bevatron. An astronomer can calculate to the second the next dozen or more eclipses of the sun. The power to predict accurately hinges on the extent to which the factual raw materials - the protocols discussed in the previous chapter - can be measured and related to one another in terms of mathematics. most of the “ologies” of today are merely new subdivisions in provinces of thought more ancient than Gaul. The four mainstreams of scientiic interest were in evidence as long ago as the Stone Age. when man learned to count, to know the signs of the seasons, to distinguish nourishing from poisonous plants, and to prescribe a code of conduct for his tribe, he was already engaged in mathematics, physical science, biological science and social science. what has been added to the practice of science is precision and depth of detail. by using the scientiic method, the scientist has carved out his special holdings so that they have come to difer from the surrounding terrain: archeology as distinct from antiquarianism, ballistics from marksmanship, botany from gardening.
THE SCIENTIST
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