Quote Originally Posted by mutton View Post
This is a silly statement. That's a problem with the equipment they had at the time, not the scientific method itself.
this is nearly right -- i'd say that at the time, a scientific method didn't really exist. it was observational study and guesswork, and there often wasn't a clear line between the two.

science is held to a very rigorous and historically unprecedented standard nowadays. when we claim to know something scientifically, we know it. we may learn in the future that it's more complicated than we think, or we have some details wrong, but we know it. not so even a hundred years ago.