"Considering the habitual put-downs of Egyptian science by certain Western scholars, we might well ask what they can find so 'disappointing,' 'naive,' 'empirical,' 'pathetic' or 'antiscientific' in a text like the title of the Papyrus Rhind, ["Rules for conducting research into nature, for the purpose of knowing all that exists, each mystery and each secret."] here examined word for word. The furious Western assault against ancient Egyptian science - perennially stigmatized as nothing better than a collection of mere recipes, simple, bumbling, empirical trial and error incapable of abstactions, ignorant of philosophy - is hard to understand.
The fact is that right from their origins in the civiliazations of antiquity, the mathemactical sciences were linked to the practical needs of life. In those far-off times, science had to prove itself in action. Science was an intellectual approach to reality, one that enabled humans to manipulate objects in order to achieve definite goals. In plain words, science at its birth was a type of knowledge that generated technical skills useful for social development. Good scientific methods were therefore those that helped people to understand nature so as to act upon it. From that viewpoint, understanding nature was not a matter of issuing verbal explanations for natural phenomena; it was a matter of achieving clear knowledge of realities, then using it in conscious action to reach desired goals."
Theophile Obenga, Kmtyw Philosophy: The Pharaonic Period
Greetings Akhu
Meda ase (thank you) for this informative post!
If sciences and mathematics are not applicable and relevant to social development it's meaningless for us. If learned out of context these things are just theories, and numbers to us- to be memorized (for exams) and forgotten. In context it becomes something we can utilize throughout our lifetime and beyond.
Kala