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From: gallagher@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (paul gallagher)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Knowledge and the Academics
Message-ID: <2068@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 23-May-87 21:07:01 EDT
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Posted: Sat May 23 21:07:01 1987
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In article <8705220612.AA16224@brahms.Berkeley.EDU> obnoxio@brahms.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>
>Sorry to disillusion you, Richard, but compared to the *real* intellec-
>tual achievements of this century (within science) . . . the "flowering of
>the social and behavioral sciences" is going to remain one long gigan-
>tic eyesore and an embarrassing piffle of a joke.

How do you distinguish science from non-science?  Also how can the non-sciences
straighten up their act?
I've recently read some articles in historical biology (on the origin of bone),
and I don't see how the sorts of evidence and the sort of reasoning the authors
use differs from those used in the history of human society (which is not
to say there is no difference)?  How is a fact or a theory in a science like
paleontology any more certain than one in history or a social science? 

PG