>This only seems a 'simple empirical observation' to people who have had
>the benefit of a 20th century education. It wasn't made by philosophers
>in our world until the 17th century.
In part this was due to the _technology_ of making things airtight not being available before then. Vaccuum pumps etc. simply weren't around.
>It's not just in some GM's Gloranthas that conducting experiments could get
>you lynched. Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen (though he didn't know what
>he'd found and called it dephlogisticated air) had his house, including his
>laboratory, burned down by a mob.
To be fair, his house was burnt down because a cartoon was published of him calling for the "k___'s head on a plate" (Priestly was a political radical althought whether this was due to an excess of free radicals in his bloodstream is unknown). Antoin Lavoiser who gave the name oxygen to Priestly's discovery (although Priestly refused to give up his belief in phlogiston) was himself executed in the French Terror because he had been a Tax Farmer.
But a large part of scientific theories in the old days did come about because of loopy beliefs. Newton apparently believed the observable effects of gravity was caused by mystical body of Christ interacting with the Cosmos. He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut when publishing although he may have thought it to be an occult secret that shouldn't be burted about. Pasteur was a right-wing extremist who thought that mobs and socialism was caused by some sort of bacillus...
Thus I don't think there's any such thing as pure science in glorantha. It's all contaminated with mythology and agendas.
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