It's a perfect straw man: you're suggesting that nothing can be known outside that which can be known personally. It's a tempting position to take but, as out technological culture shows, it's untrue.
And it's always been untrue: biologists don't have to re-trace the voyage of the Beagle and dig ammonites out of Lyme Bay to have valid skills. Astronomers don't have to dig wells at the equator. The whole point of the scientific method is that you can reliably stand on the shoulders of giants.
That's why the scientific method has made more progress in the last 350 years than all the woo in the world before it, after all.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-02-06 08:00 am (UTC)And it's always been untrue: biologists don't have to re-trace the voyage of the Beagle and dig ammonites out of Lyme Bay to have valid skills. Astronomers don't have to dig wells at the equator. The whole point of the scientific method is that you can reliably stand on the shoulders of giants.
That's why the scientific method has made more progress in the last 350 years than all the woo in the world before it, after all.