Doug Freyburger > wrote:

>Steve Pope wrote:

>> Doug Freyburger > wrote:

>>>Science is more than that so technically the ancients did not have
>>>science. What they had is reasoning and observation without certain
>>>important features of science. Science is a system that includes
>>>publishing and getting credit that ensures it builds on itself.
>>
>> That's a pretty local view of science. Lots of science
>> does not involve publication.
>
>It's a technicality in this discussion. Agreed.
>
>> Plus, the ancients had their own peer-review mechanisms.
>
>One of the problems with material advancement in the ages before science
>is discoveries and methods were kept secret and eventually lost. Long
>term progress was limited to what was leaked to the public. Technology
>was limited by secrecy. One feature of science was the conversion to
>credit by publication that turned discovery into a competition.
>
>So while peer reviewing mechanisms existed they generally trended
>towards stifling advancement not towards opening advancement.

The secrecy problem has not exactly entirely gone away. This is
particularly true in areas like digital signal processing and
cryptology, where important discoveries have been kept secret
for decades. Also, materials technology. This is how the U.S.
government managed to lose the recipe for FOGBANK.

A more historic example of materials technology secrecy going
awry is Damascus steel, the process for which has also become lost
and is to the best of anyone's knowledge, unrecoverable.

Steve