Science: A Method not a Source

It's about both. That depends on what they are used for. Sorry, but what you described does not seem much like science.Science isn't the answering of isolated questions. Nor is it the acquiring of individual facts. Rather, science is a systematic study of a range of related phenomena. Well, I have argued otherwise, but I do not accept any of those three assertions. Perhaps you made a mistake in your reasoning. How about a compromise. Those histories constitute evidence - evidence of something, though perhaps not evidence of what those histories assert. But just using them does not qualify as scientific. That would depend on how they are used.Your major mistake, I think, is that you seem to be identifying science with fact finding whereas you should be identifying it with systematization.

---

Jesus was a liberal hippie

It is really the wrong question. Often a scientific theory defines its input data.To give an example, Ampere's law defines how to measure electrical current. The law, in effect, gives the operating principles for the galvanometers used to measure electrical data. Likewise, Ohm's law defines how to measure resistance, and is one of the operating principles of the modern volt-ohm meter. So the science is defining the inputs to be used.Back to your other question, where you wanted me to elaborate on systematization; it was the systematic study of electricity and magnetism that led to Ampere's law and Ohm's law, which in turn define the inputs.You get something similar if you look at Newtonian mechanics. Newton was systematically studying motion and acceleration. His laws, which emerged from that systematic study, actually defined how to measure some of the core properties.If you want yet another example, much of the data being used in biology today is as a result of the theory of evolution."Fact finding" usually refers to attempting to find specific facts, much as detectives do when trying to solve a crime case. Science, with its systematic study, provides ways of getting a wide range of data (i.e. facts), but if it is unable to resolve a particular question of fact, that is not seen as a problem for science. Rather, it is the general systematic study and the resulting broad understanding of the phenomena involved that is the primary interest of science.

---

Jesus was a liberal hippie