Folk science describes ways of understanding and predicting the natural and social world, without the use of rigorous methodologies (see Scientific method). One could label all understanding of nature predating the Greeks as "folk science".
Folk science is often accepted as "common wisdom" in a given culture, and gets passed on as memes. According to some evolutionary psychologists, it may also reflect the output of evolved cognitive processes of the human mind which have been adapted in the course of human evolution.
Skeptics often investigate the influence and validity of folk science.
Read more about Folk Science: Some Examples of Folk Science
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or science:
““I have usually found that there was method in his madness.”
“Some folk might say there was madness in his method.””
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)