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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 3973700" data-attributes="member: 41584">Certain branches of science would, IMO, be much advanced by the presence of magic.All those aging wizards, squinting at their spellbooks under flickering light for long decades would probably single-handedly fund great advances in optics, not just for lenses for alchemical research or telescopes to study heavenly conjunctions, but simply because they'd all end up needing spectacles in short order!Anatomy would be greatly advanced, thanks to the abundance of mostly-humanoid corpses available for morally-conscionable dissection.  (Even the most civilized of regions may well tolerate using Orcs or Goblins for this purpose, although they might frown on the idea of actually hunting down and killing humanoids for this purpose.  But who is going to ask the adventurers where those Kobold bodies came from anyway?  Surely they were troublesome raiders. slain for the common good...)  The presence of healing magics and transformation magics would seriously alter studies of biology.  When a wizard or sorcerer or druid can transform herself into a specific creature, she doesn't have to write a treatise on how exactly a bat's blindsense works, she can just say, 'And this was how it worked, and I know, because I turned into one!  Indeed, these marvelous creatures can *see* through the application of *sound!*'Given the often precise nature of spell component requirements, a standardized system of weights and measures would be in the best interest of the arcane community to develop and strictly enforce.  Best not to be standing confidently in the path of a charging Minotaur when one discovers that the '10 oz of powdered kava kava bean' is actually only 9.8 oz when the spell fizzles...Other circumstances of a supernatural world would lead to scientific missteps.  In the medieval world, gold was considered the most pure mystical metal, closest to perfection.  In a fantasy world where gold has no mystical properties, but *silver* has special properties and efficacy against lycanthropes and some forms of outsider, it's going to be silver that is considered the 'special' metal.  Silver, in a fantasy world, may well be the more valuable metal, with gold considered a lesser metal!  (Mithril and Adamant coins would likely also exist, as well as jewelry of those even more precious metals.  Nobles with any sort of money wouldn't wear gold, because it's cheap compared to mithril!  Those bourgois mechants who like to wish they were nobles might wear gold...)Similarly, the sun might be considered a gateway into the plane of positive energy, explaining it's effect on vampires and other creatures fueled by negative energy (and the life-empowering properties of sunlight on plant life).  And so, photosynthesis might not be realized for quite some time, as the orthodoxy embraces the 'obvious' connection between sunlight and life-giving positive energy.  *Of course,* plants thrive in the presence of the energy of life itself!  And humans sometimes grow heated of skin, as the energies overload their bodies and become too much for them to contain.  Like the theory of balanced humors, the 'natural philosopher' might believe that a human can only take so much of the life-giving energy of the sun, and must balance it with time spent cooling down in the shade, or by consuming quantities of water to help re-balance his internal alchemy, which has been thrown out of balance by a surfeit of fire!Divination spells would also make a huge difference.  "Hmm.  I believe that the earth has a natural magnetism that pulls things down into it.  Let's Contact Other Plane to check this theory.  EHHH.  Wrong answer."</blockquote>

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