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prescientific

prescientific

1 8.6
Relating to ideas or methods used before modern science existed
  • adjective
  • /ˌprɛsɪənˈtɪfɪk/
translation icon : prescientífico
  • Educational systems in the past were often prescientific, focusing on traditional beliefs rather than empirical evidence.

Examples

  • Most prescientific conceptions of the basic elements regarded water (along with earth, fire, and air, at least in the classical Greek formulation) as one of the few fundamental principles of cosmic construction.

    Academic text (2000)
  • Buddhist psychology, like other indigenous psychologies, is prescientific, but it is so only in the narrow sense that it developed prior to and outside the context of modern Western science.

    Academic text (1990)
  • Political science must not leave things to prescientific common sense.

    Academic text (2018)
  • The second, an inheritance from the prescientific past, operates by rules of its own, having little in common with those of the matter-energy system.

    Blog text (23)
  • In Strauss's view, it was necessary to reaffirm the dignity of the political by returning to a natural, or prescientific, understanding of the political.

    Academic text (2001)
  • The foremost reason is that we cannot talk sensibly or wisely about political life if we do not grasp it in the prescientific way in which it ordinarily presents itself to us.

    Academic text (2018)
  • There is nothing "pre-scientific" about the Church's view that the human embryo is a human being; indeed, this view is confirmed by the findings of science which overturned the long-accepted prescientific views of Aristotle on reproduction.

    Blog text (28)
  • Scripts of the mid-1900s incited prescientific emotions associated in the popular mind with the childhood of our race: hysteria, fright, primitive instincts, and superstition.

    Academic text (2015)
  • Many ancient cultures relied on prescientific methods to explain natural phenomena, such as floods and droughts.

  • In the prescientific era, people often attributed illness to spiritual forces rather than seeking medical explanations.

Synonyms

premodern
vsprescientific
1 5.5

From a time before modern technology and ideas

is specific to ideas or methods from before the development of modern science
protoscientific
vsprescientific
  • Formal
9.9

Ideas and methods from before modern science that lack clear proof

is about ideas and methods that existed before modern science rather than their maturity

How Scientific

scientific
976 3.7
traditional
994 1.5
prescientific
1 8.6
mythical
52 6.0

Surface Forms

prescientific positive
prescientificer comparative
prescientificest superlative

Morphology

prescientific = scientific (transparent) = pre + science + ific

The prefix 'pre-' combines in a standard way with 'scientific' to mean 'existing before the scientific period or before modern science'.

Etymology

Prescientific combines pre- meaning 'before' and scientific, from science meaning 'study' or 'knowledge'. So prescientific describes ideas or methods that existed 'before' modern science.