Hi, Professor Gonzalez, hi. Mary, how can I help you?

Well, I went to the library to read the article

you assigned on Francis bacon. The article in a critical history of western philosophy, yeah, well.
They had a copy of the book that was there, but the article itself was gone missing from the
book. Why would anybody and I can't read either of the photocopies you had on reserve because
they've been missing for two days. Well, keep checking at the reserve desk. I'm sure a lot of
people have been checking the photo copies out. That article is essential. Really. Why is that one
article so important. Well, for one, it discusses bacon in the early sixteen hundreds. a very
important time in bacon's life when he was pursuing his work in natural philosophy and rejecting
much of the traditional ways of doing science in England, didn't you say in class that in those
days, that science was mostly about following aristotle, sort of logic and. Um, what else. Oh yeah,
and that truth was derived from authority Aristotle used deductive logic, oh and good memory.
Also, that article offers several helpful insights into bacon's mindset and the challenges he faced
not only in science. But in politics as well anyway. I wanted to make sure you knew about the
article because uh I also remembered you mentioning something about a quiz on Friday. Yes, but
it shouldn't be a problem. You can still read the article on the internet. Our library has access to
the electronic version of the book. All right, i almost forgot about that. Well, it is noted in the
syllabus. Plus I reminded everyone about the electronic version in class yesterday. You know,
bacon set a kind of precedent for how we approach science by advocating the use of inductive
reasoning still used today. By the way. You did mention the scientific method in the class. Yes, yes,
I did. Can you imagine a time when the scientific study wasn't primarily the process of observing
data? Recognizing patterns and making generalizations from the observations. Um, professor,
that reminds me of all the reading I still need to do for your quiz on Friday. How, of course, I
should let you get to it. No, it's not that I think it's really interesting to discuss bacon and not just
read about him, but it's been so difficult to access the article, so let me guess you'd like me to
postpone the quiz. Am I right? It would be for the greater good and um, technically, that's why I
came over here. Well, I don't know. I think I’ve been pretty good about making this article
available. Even if it's not in the library book, there's still no reason you can't get it and read it by
Friday, plus it wouldn't be fair to the people who have done it. All right.
Let's get started.
I want to pick up where we left off last class.
Remember, we were discussing an ancient set of wall carvings found in an Egyptian temple
who can tell me what was depicted there?
Kate
weren't the drawings of ships?
They like told the story of a voyage.
Yes, they appear to depict the sea voyage undertaken by ancient Egyptians.
Scientists estimate that these carvings are about 3,500 years old.
Now, we knew the Egyptians had been using the Nile river for a long time for commerce,
but opinions vary on when they started conducting sea voyages like the one shown in the
carvings.
So what should we make of these carvings?
Do they describe actual events? Or are they exaggerations done to make the ruling pharaoh at
the time? Look good.
For the past several years? Archaeologists have been uncovering evidence that suggests they may
be accurate.
It's at a place called gausses.
Gawain says as an archaeological site in Egypt on the Red Sea,
where researchers have found the remains of an ancient sea port that's roughly 4,000 years old.
It appears that goddess was used as the starting point for sea voyages like the one depicted in the
carvings
What's the evidence for this?
They found a lot of wood that seems to have been used in several capacities, for example, as oars
or for the actual structure of a boat.
And they also discovered other items necessary for shipbuilding such as anchors and rope.
The rope they found is made from papyrus, which is a material manufactured from the papyrus
plant.
During this time, these plants were very common in the Nile river valley.
It seems very likely that part of this whole shipbuilding process took place near the Nile away
from goddess.
But you may be asking yourself, how do we know this? Would these ships were used in oceans or
seas and not just rivers?
Anyone have a guess?
Mark
The sites located right by the Red Sea. So,
okay, it's logical to think that these ships were used there. I since it's so close.
But there's something else.
Planks of the woods showed signs of being infested by a small marine animal species known as a
shipworm.
Now, ship worms are only found in salt water.
Obviously, these were ocean going ships.
And judging by how much damage the ship worms had done to the planks,
it's estimated that these ships spent several months in the water.
That's enough time to make a long journey.
So like, why did it take so long for people to find this stuff?
All these ship parts.
I it sounds like we're talking about a lot of remains not just 1 or 2 pieces of wood.
Good question.
At any archaeological site, there are certain obstacles that we have to deal with,
like rough terrain or even commercial development.
In this case, archaeologists had to dig through more than 6 meters of sand in some places to find
this ancient maritime equipment.
But it was definitely worth the effort
because they uncovered a complex of multiple caves where these ancient Egyptian workers had
stored all this equipment,
like the wood anchors and the rope from the Nile region that I mentioned earlier.
Speaking of the wood, another interesting aspect of this Discovery involves recycling.
From the evidence we found, we know the workers at this site spent a considerable amount of
time cleaning and repairing planks of wood that had been used in boats.
Now, this fact alone doesn't mean that we can say without any doubt that this wood was reused
to build new boats, but
seems like an awful waste of time to strip away the rotten wood from planks if they didn't want
to use them again