I mean, you could argue that wise women doing traditional medicine isn’t based on the scientific method, while most of modern pharmacology (by men or women) arguably is.
Doesn’t mean that one works and the other doesn’t, it just means they’re getting their results with different methods.
You could also argue that men doing “medicine” in history is also not based on much of a scientific method. Seriously, particularly old medical texts are completely bonkers and there’s no way to argue that those dudes had any better of an idea about what they were doing. Some of the newer ones(couple hundred years old, say) are a bit better but were still pretty fucked.
And then there’s all the dudes who refused to use any kind of scientific method to change their ideas. Like, it’s amazing how long it took to learn about hand-washing or that maybe we shouldn’t have open sewers in crowded cities.
The “witches” in many cases were probably also doing trial-and-error just as much as the men were. And yes, I would be stupid to say they weren’t also doing crazy things but I’d have to be pretty goofy to act like men weren’t getting praise where women would get punishment.
I mean, you could argue that wise women doing traditional medicine isn’t based on the scientific method, while most of modern pharmacology (by men or women) arguably is.
Doesn’t mean that one works and the other doesn’t, it just means they’re getting their results with different methods.
You could also argue that men doing “medicine” in history is also not based on much of a scientific method. Seriously, particularly old medical texts are completely bonkers and there’s no way to argue that those dudes had any better of an idea about what they were doing. Some of the newer ones(couple hundred years old, say) are a bit better but were still pretty fucked.
And then there’s all the dudes who refused to use any kind of scientific method to change their ideas. Like, it’s amazing how long it took to learn about hand-washing or that maybe we shouldn’t have open sewers in crowded cities.
The “witches” in many cases were probably also doing trial-and-error just as much as the men were. And yes, I would be stupid to say they weren’t also doing crazy things but I’d have to be pretty goofy to act like men weren’t getting praise where women would get punishment.