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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7473528" data-attributes="member: 42582">Suppose someone does a series of experiments, dropping various objects various distances, and carefully measures the time they take to fall. Those resuts could be published as tables which might then be useful for various purposesThat would be an example of scientific knowledge - careful measurment use to produce a systematic body of knowledge - which was not about the discovery or explanation of a causal process.Knowing that it will get cold in winter isn't scientific knowledge, but careful measurement might produce more precise and systematic knowledge, such that - for instance - the likelihood of the temperature in any given day in some particular summer month failing to exceed 20 degrees is such-and-such. That scienitifc knowledge might then be useful for, say, horticulturalists even though it does not identify or explain any causal process that governs temperatures, nor enable the top temperature on any particular summer day to be forecast.Careful measurement, identifying which measurements can be reliablty extrapolated to future instances, and organisting such measurements systematically so that they are accessible and applicable knowledge - that is one of the things that science does, which distinguishes it from mere common sense observations such as &quot;unsupported objects fall&quot; or &quot;winter is cold&quot;.And to go back to the tangent that spawned this tangent: I don't think that the default gameworlds of fantasy RPGs assume anything about what the results of such careful measurements would be. They don't need to, as it's the nature of most fantasy RPGing that common sense tropes - &quot;unsupported objects fall&quot;, &quot;winter is cold&quot;, etc - are sufficient to permit players to sensibly declare actions for their PCs, and GMs to adjudicate the results of those action declarations.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7473528, member: 42582"] Suppose someone does a series of experiments, dropping various objects various distances, and carefully measures the time they take to fall. Those resuts could be published as tables which might then be useful for various purposes That would be an example of scientific knowledge - careful measurment use to produce a systematic body of knowledge - which was not about the discovery or explanation of a causal process. Knowing that it will get cold in winter isn't scientific knowledge, but careful measurement might produce more precise and systematic knowledge, such that - for instance - the likelihood of the temperature in any given day in some particular summer month failing to exceed 20 degrees is such-and-such. That scienitifc knowledge might then be useful for, say, horticulturalists even though it does not identify or explain any causal process that governs temperatures, nor enable the top temperature on any particular summer day to be forecast. Careful measurement, identifying which measurements can be reliablty extrapolated to future instances, and organisting such measurements systematically so that they are accessible and applicable knowledge - that is one of the things that science does, which distinguishes it from mere common sense observations such as "unsupported objects fall" or "winter is cold". And to go back to the tangent that spawned [I]this[/I] tangent: I don't think that the default gameworlds of fantasy RPGs assume anything about what the results of such careful measurements would be. They don't need to, as it's the nature of most fantasy RPGing that common sense tropes - "unsupported objects fall", "winter is cold", etc - are sufficient to permit players to sensibly declare actions for their PCs, and GMs to adjudicate the results of those action declarations. [/QUOTE]

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