| 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
| molecular bond won a Nobel Laureate.