Is it possible to have a nonscientific discovery? Can you think of an example?

In 1879 a careless worker at Procter & Gamble went to lunch and left a machine turned on that kept on churning the soap mixture. The added air into the mixture caused the finished soap to float. Since it didn't appear to alter the soap in any other way and because the company didn't want to waste the resulting batch, they put it on the market. Thus was Ivory Soap born.

To the extent that the new discovery can be scientifically explained--how air enables soap to float--it may not be nonscientific. I think that I am asking whether anyone thinks that anything originates without a scientific explanation.

There have been countless discoveries - 'facts' about our world that were made by non-scientists. Science was not a human pursuit until a couple of hundred years ago. (There were rare exceptions.) The 'scientific method' was not designed and implemented until about that time, and is still being perfected (e.g. double-blind experiments in medicine).

The wheel, the plow, the saddle, agriculture, weaving, preserving food - countless useful facts about how to best utilize our environment were invented by curious and creative minds long before there was anytihng like a scientific community. During the course of these inventions, many facts about materials and forces were discovered. But if we were to compare the field of discovery to a discipline of to-day, I think it would be better to compare the inventors and discoverers to engineers - 'applied science'.

What the discipline of science has introduced is not discovery but method. Due to the powerful method os science, wrong turns and mistakes are much more quickly detected, which causes the course of research to be much faster.

Pure research leads to useful discoveries. The microscope was invented in the 17 century due to discoveries about the behavior of light; but the discovery was not applied to medicine until the 20th century, when Lister and Pasteur showed the way, through research, to germ theory.

For thousands of years, people believed that decay and maggots arose spontaneously in meat. It was common sense, everyone had seen it happen. In 1668, using scientific experimental method, Francesco Redi, an Italian 'naturalist' (that's what early scientists were called' showed that without flies there are no maggots.

For thousands of years people believed that dreams come from supernatural sources, and that sexual dreams were caused by demons. Now, due to research, we know that dreaming is normal - some animals dream, too. But it's still mysterious! (i.e. not well understood). The brain is the last great frontier to be explored - or so some believe.

babthrower: You opened up the simple discoveries of the past and the challenges awaiting us. I suspect that the answers will not always be forthcoming via the scientific method.

You also have me thinking that it is not always true that necessity is the mother of invention.

tsaeb
No, necessity is a spur all right, but people also love to play!

In Newton's day, 'Naturalists' were usually the children of parents wealthy enough to (1) give their children education and (2) provide them with the lab toys that their children's curiosity demanded. Some wealthy parents even encouraged such 'play' because it was preferable to the mischief a young man with money could get into if he didn't have such pursuits that kept him at home.)

There were no employers of scientists as we have today. (Well, some rich men were 'patrons' of certain scholars, and some kings kept pet naturalists. But no research companies or research labs in universities as we have today.)

Universities taught latin, greek, theology, philosophy, some even taught medicine. But no one taught science.