Ancient Science
In the philosophy of science, a protoscience is a new science trying to establish its legitimacy. Protoscience is distinguished from pseudoscience by its standard practices of good science, such as a willingness to be disproven by new evidence, or to be replaced by a more predictive theory. Compare fringe science, which is considered highly speculative or even strongly refuted. Some protosciences go on to become an accepted part of mainstream science.
All sciences would have qualified as protosciences before the Age of Enlightenment, since the scientific method still hadn't been developed, and there was no structured way to prove legitimacy. A standard example is alchemy, which from the 18th century became chemistry, or pre-modern astrology which from the 17th century became astronomy.
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Famous quotes containing the words ancient and/or science:
“Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible. Our science has always desired to monitor, measure, abstract, and castrate meaning, forgetting that life is full of noise and that death alone is silent: work noise, noise of man, and noise of beast. Noise bought, sold, or prohibited. Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.”
—Jacques Attali (b. 1943)