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Kayak and Canoe Design Bulletin Board
Re: Not Science?
Posted By: Ian Johnston In Response To: Re: Inuit rules for kayak design. (Mike Scarborough)
Date: Wednesday, 20 October 1999, at 3:11 a.m.
> The author does not present evidence that kayak builders practiced any
> sort of scientific method. Their statement that "The variations prove
> that." is false. Variations in the evolutionary process occur through
> random mutations. Darwin's finches in the Galapagos Islands displayed
> enormous variation; there was no scientific method to it--it was the
> result of random mutation and natural selection.I think that this article is being taken out of context. It appears to me that it is an excerpt from a larger more indepth article or more likely an introduction to a forum as the title would suggest.
The reason that the article is not supported with facts and evidence is that it is not about kayak building but about the process used by anyone, no matter how primative they may appear to us, to develop new technology. The use of the kayak reference was probably to give the forum, which was held in Alaska, a local context. You could substitute any culture and any new technology and have this article be valid.
Did the Innuit use science to develop the kayak? My dictionary defines science as, "knowledge aquired by careful observation, by deduction of the laws which govern changes and conditions, and by testing these deductions by experiment." So, yes they used science!
But the article neither proves nor disproves this. It simply states that this process must have taken place for kayaks to exist. Kayaks didn't happen as random mutations. However, some of their variations may have.
My two cents, Ian
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