If 500 years of science hasn’t rid the human race of irrationality I’m not confident another 1500 would have. Science is not natural. Irrationality is. Every baby born today is nearly identical, genetically, to babies born two millennia ago; equally capable of irrationality. Science must be learned, and not everyone will want to become a scientist, or even gain a cursory understanding of the importance of science. And many who do study science only learn their specialty, and are still fully irrational and uninformed in other areas. Science’s enemy isn’t religion; it’s human nature.

No, but I wonder where we'd be if the library at Alexandria wouldn't have been burned to the ground.

I'm a big fan of the 'Critical Mass' theory of history. Discoveries are made as the knowledge supporting them becomes available.

For example, Einstein would not have discovered 'e=mc^2' without the work of Lorentz and Minkowski et.al. to build on -- Science is cumulative. And I figure the discoveries would have happened and will happen regardless (to the limits of our cognitive ability of course).

But that said... There's no denying the huge detriment Religion has been to our progress.
Here is this week's 'Jesus and Mo' comic. Lol.

Edit -- Additional. I think we'd still be pretty much irrational.
Ask any gambler, climate change denier or flat earth believer. People are lazy and they'd rather go with the quick answer rather than take the time to check and validate alternatives.

The scientific method has been around since humans had sophisticated brains which goes back much further than 2000 years.

Don't underestimate the effect of superstition and irrational religious belief among the people's of Earth. We have a long way to go before rational thinking is the order of the day.

I think the scientific method in the West started within the Church. If that's true, the scientific method had to develop in tandem with Church dogma. It's curious that the Crusades introduced so much thought from Muslim scholarship into European thought but I think that means two religions contributed so much to the development of science.

which scientific method? the methods keep refining themselves.

and no. religion did not begin 2000 years ago. in fact the religion we think of as beginning 2000 years ago began a bit later than that. christianity is not the only religion in the world, you know.

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The most effective use of scientific enquiry was by Medieval Islam and their translations of the classics across many disciplines

It could be argued that the scientific method was utilised by Aristotle so no, not really.

Science methods of measuring (comparing one thing vs another), quantifying, testing, using statistics, inventing a theoryl and testing it ultimated wind up in the same place as religious thought, i.e. "We don't know."
Ask a physicist: What is an electron made of? He or she most probably will answer: It is a fundamental particle.

I’m afraid the most robust scientific methods wouldn’t have prevented people from believing in superpowers because people are by nature irrational creatures. It takes some work to start thinking rationally and not everyone is willing to do the work. It’s easier to ascribe things and phenomena to mystical powers than look for and try to understand scientific explanations. The brain is a lazy organ.

Stephen Jay Gould was wrong; religion and science are overlapping magisteria.
The religious method - fear, alpha animals, superstition, etc - came first and people protesting that method’s abuses developed the scientific method. Most if not all of us here agree that the scientific method protects us from the religious method.

Honestly yes.Science can't take away some people's desire to congregate with others and invent icons to worship.

No. Irrational religious beliefs become more bizzare with the more we know.

We might think and shit, but that doesn't mean all of us are good at it.

I was wondering something along the same lines recently. Back in the day, many religious people were what passed for well educated, used actual logic to defend their beliefs. Logic was actively valued, even before the philosophy of science was a thing.

I found myself wondering if they were actual believers, or just toed the line because that was how you earned your living with your mind back then. If they actually were believers, what would they have done with all the evidence we have that contradicts many of the bits they treated as fact? Would they have just done what religious folks do now, just changing goalposts? Would they have turned away from religion?

Anyway, my ponderings weren't on the scientific method specifically, but they run parallel to your question. Interested to follow along with the responses you get.

I think that mystical beliefs were created as a way of controlling the weak, the poor, the un-educated.....so....no...if even 2000 years ago. If people had been taught rationality, science, reading, writing, the maths,,,ect..I think religions would have less impact..

The simple answer is NO but I would like more to talk about getting everyone to appreciate scientific method NOW , not because they were forced to but because they genuinely thought it personally useful in their own lives. We have to believe this is possible no matter how long it will take. Please see my group on this website "science teachers of any age group" . NB you do not have to BE a science teacher just interested in science education to the whole population

The two come from opposite directions and can never agree. In science truth is something to be sought even if it means loosing cherished ideas. In religion truth is that which offers to give us what we want regardless of all else.

It was invented longer than 2000 years ago. Achemedes, Pythagoras, etc. Isaac Newton was an alchemist until he died... Staddled the fence re science. Muslim doctors were scientists during Euro Dark Ages. "Birth" of science in West was a rediscovery of it.

If science would have happened 2000 years ago, religion wouldn't be as big as it is. It's funny how theist use to say god did it, the science proved it was all natural.

2000 yeas ago there were no conditions for the method to be created, and religion is a shape shifter, it convinces people it was always the way it is now, but if you can find old religious books (talking on more than 100 years or even 1000) you see how it changes and adapts to its environment.

I doubt statements such as “People are irrational”.
However, there has always been enough irrational parenting to produce rebellious children and some of those children ask questions.

I'm more optimistic than some here. I think if people were taught skepticism and rationality from their childhood, instead of fables and myths, they would be much less susceptible to irrational beliefs.

We see enough cult-like behaviors based on pseudoscience, junk science, and science fiction that I would say we would still have organizations based on irrational beliefs.

Probably.

More like 15,000 years back. Christianity has hold over the insanity that religion engenders.