Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature

Name: Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature
Author: Bacon, Francis

Bacon, Francis

Science -- Methodology

| scepticism.
                                           |
                                           | Bacon's science is more applicable to what
                                           | we call post-modern neo-hermeutics than to
                                           | Newtonian mechanics.  (Patrick Heelan is
                                           | good on post-modern neo-hermeneutics.)
                                           |
                                           | Consider: why did Bacon conclude that his
                                           | New Logic Machine would produce
                                           | scientific knowledge in the form of
                                           | aphorisms and apothegms--not linear
                                           | time-sequence predictions?
                                           |
                                           | To summarize the above:: Most
                                           | contemporary interpreters of Bacon
                                           | evaluate his science by comparison with
                                           | Newtonian mechanics.  If one interprets
                                           | Bacon on the basis of classical mechanics,
                                           | the result will not truly reflect Bacon's
                                           | science.
                                           |
                                           | A more fruitful modern model is the
                                           | Watson-Crick type of "science" illustrated
                                           | by their discovery of the double helix.  Their
                                           | process, as described carefully in Watson's
                                           | book, could have been lifted from Bacon. It
                                           | was not.  But the point is that it tells of a
                                           | highly successful, highly empiricist (in
                                           | Bacon's and Kant's meaning of
                                           | phenomenological empiricism) approach to
                                           | the "understanding" of the "unwritten
                                           | laws" of cell theory and genetics.
                                           |
                                           | NOTE: It is very instructive to study why
                                           | Linus Pauling failed to dsiscover the genetic
                                           | code. He was an expert in the physics of
                                           | biochemistry and applied quantum theory
                                           | to molecular biology. His theory of the

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Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature

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