"In actual practice science has always made use of both induction and deduction... The contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle certainly knew from observation that the celestial bodies performed orbits in the heavens that could be identified vaguely as being circular. ...However ...the principle ...was "believed in" much more firmly than this "inductive inference" from observation would warrant. Men believed in it as "intelligible principle"; it seemed very plausible that perfect divine beings like the celestial bodies should also move in "perfect orbits," and the perfect curve is the circle. ...The difference between ancient and modern science was not the use of induction... but the criteria by which a discovered principle was recognized to be valid. The method of "verification" is different now; more weight is given to the agreement... with observed facts than to the agreement... with a world picture that has been accepted for what we called... "philosophical" reasons."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
, Philosophy of Science: The Link Between Science and Philosophy (1957) p. 298.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
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Philosophy of science
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