The Milesians: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes

While it is easy to not take seriously the particular views expressed through their excerpts, these early philosophers represent the science of their time and show the transformation of knowledge through peer review. Being pupils of the one before them, they learned the views of their teacher and made changes to these beliefs according to their own observations of the natural world. Excerpts 5, 9, 21, and 24 show this progression of thought and shifting of beliefs from water to infinite apeiron to air as the substance of the world.

Additionally, there is some truth underlying these many beliefs which can be attributed to their technological inability to observe things not seen with the naked eye. These ideas of motion and air transforming different substances around them can now be explained by the interaction of atomic particles and changing temperatures. The weather patterns explained in excerpt 29 and 16 are mostly attributed to the atoms of water responding to hot and cold environments. Despite these incorrect explanations, they are also right about the physical world made of matter and the existence of the supernatural such as souls. Thus, reading these excerpts brings some level of humility to our own understanding of the world.

In a society that is dominated by science, technology, and the evidence behind it, we need not forget that our understanding of the world even 100 years from now will be drastically different from what it is today. The more we know, the more we realize that we know very little. So the next time that a scientist claims to have solved some major scientific question, take it with a level of humility. Know that there will be a different explanation with time as each scientific claim is just another part of a long continuous pursuit of the truth regarding the physical world. Can science explain everything or are there areas of study with which science has no explanation?

-BaylorBear16