Science and Bushcraft

[Kim]

When thinking about bushcraft many tend to focus on the 'natural' but I was watching Rough Science last night and the way the specialists (in various scientific fields) used their knowledge to assist in a survival situation.

They made an emergency flare from bats droppings and a water proof coating for a home made life jacket from tree sap.

It made me realise how ignorant I've been about the role science and scientific understanding has to play in our interpretation of survival situations and bushcraft.

I have for so long kept my perceptions of science and nature apart (partly due to my education which involved avoiding science subjects at all costs) that I realise now how much I've been missing out on.

So, the question is...I wondered how everybody else viewed the relationship between science and bushcraft. Is there any difference between the two?
And how much does one inform the other, even if you don't use the word 'science' to describe how you're lighting a fire, for example?

 

[Andy]

I'm a mad scientist at heart as well as a bushcrafter. I can't see how oyu can seperate anything from science. My love of science makes me understand why I'm doing something rather then just how to do it. It makes it much easier to adapt

 

[TheViking]

A firesteel for example is created from about 20 different metals.

 

[tenbears10]

I think people tend to focus on one or the other Kim. By which I mean either you concentrate on the spiritual/religous reasons for nature or the scientific reasons. There are the physics aspects of how a bow drill works or the chemistry or biology of plant usage. All the natural envoironments involve geology or hydrology.

I bet people know loads of science they just might not realise they do.

Bill

 

[2blackcat]

I think in the modern world we compartmentalise (I love that word) too much.

If you go back everything was interlinked, and still is, we just don't seem to see it that way anymore. Everyone aims to be a specialist.
Just look at Leonardo's cv

Just an opinion :?:



Steve

 

[arctic hobo]

I don't know, we always resort to science to be 100% sure about, say, the arctic and know we will not get too cold, all these sleeping bag ratings and bodt temperatures, physical activity quotas and dietary requirements. But you go there and the locals use no science at all. To my mind they're the people who really know what they're doing

 

[Tantalus]

somewhere along the path of my education i was told that common sense is not always the best and the real answers lay in science

then they started teaching me about stuff like gravity making apples fall and water filling containers

ummmm as far as i am concerned these things were common sense until someone tried to call them science?

in fact the more i learn about life the more i realise the bits my grandmother used to tell me are every bit as useful to me as they were to her

e=mc² is all very interesting but to be honest i havent started many nuclear reactions this week

i could go on giving examples but my point is this

"science" is a made up name for telling kids they dont know something

this handle sticks possibly for the rest of their lives.

the real experts tend to be the ones who can explain complex subjects in everyday terms, and more often than not they give it away for free

now that sounds more like a bushcraft philosophy to me

Tant

 

[leon-1]

I think that skills progress to be a science.

When we study things in detail and we become more exacting then something becomes scientific, we find that when using the bow drill the optimum size is this for the drill as it creates this or that amount of friction against this amount of force required to generate the motion. That is physics.

We find that specific types of wood will catch fire easier due to thier composition, this is getting onto chemistry.

I think as has been said before that there is a science in all that bushcrafters do, it just depends on the level of detail that you examine it with.

 

[RobertsonPau]

For me, bushcraft skills tell me how to do something, or what to eat etc. and science tells me why.
Not so long ago few people were well educated but they could be at the forefront of scientific research in lots of different areas, whereas now our understanding of processes has progressed to the point where a very small number of people understand the cutting edge of their area of specialism. This tends to make people, me included, feel out of touch with science. But, knowing how o make glue from bark, or light a fire with friction is science at work, even if we call it bushcraft. And just because we may now how or why something works or happens doesn't mean we can't stare in wonder when it does.

And, don't forget when wwe are out we are looking at geography and standing on geology.

 

[KIMBOKO]

So, the question is...I wondered how everybody else viewed the relationship between science and bushcraft. Is there any difference between the two?
And how much does one inform the other, even if you don't use the word 'science' to describe how you're lighting a fire, for example?

Your topic for the week 5000 words by Friday.

My ramblings.

In an academic way Science names things and expects situations to repeat in the same manner as long as the circumstances remain the same.
To this end scientist work out a method of doing and trying out the possibilities called experimenting and record the results.
Problem. My bow drill won’t work. I don’t get an ember but I do get smoke.
Question?. What do I need to do to get an ember?
In the extreme a scientist would try to look for all the variables, dampness, speed of rotation materials, physique, temperatures etc. and come up with a series of experiments each of which adding to his experience of the subject until he found out the way to make fire by bowdrill. This could then be repeated time and again. Results both positive and negative would be recorded.
The scientist could then inform you of the circumstances to make a fire with the bowdrill. But I only think this has happened to a limited extent in America.

A science trained individual may just make the jump to “increase the friction by using more pressure and greater rotational speed”.

I don’t know the Bushcraft answer perhaps something like this.

Practice, try something slightly different, ask someone else, re-read a book, watch someone else doing it, meditate for an hour on the subject, call on the ancestors for help, pray to your Gods, get your plastic out and book a course.

The Bushcraft would finish when a fire could be made regularly but all the information about how it is done would not be recorded in a way that could easily be understood by the man on the Clapham omnibus.
The scientist could publish results and repeat the performance, invent new words for aspects of the experiment give you precise details as to how to do it ( kgs/cm pressure, rotational speed m/sec, friction, temperatures, wood qualities etc.) and usually find something else out about the subject.

For certain scientists have made Goretex, nylon, polyester, polythene, cordura, aluminium, carbon fibre, fibreglass, polarloft, fibrefill, holofil, each material designed and experimented with to fulfil a specific need.

So I think that science has given greatly to our wish to be in the great outdoors and to Bushcraft.

But without science there would still be Bushcraft. We don’t need to know all the minutiae to be able to light a fire or cook our food.


People who have studied science can also be considered to have added to there awareness. If you have studied a particular science you are far more aware of the aspect you have studied. If its chemistry you are aware of the chemical make up of substances and its reactions with others, if its engineering then you are aware of the stresses in materials, if its botany you are more aware of plants species and families, etc etc. The science studied makes you look at the world slightly differently.

I look at the world with all of the experiences of all of my life so far both scientific and other. I look at the world in a Nick way.

Bushcraft experiences are generally gathered in a non scientific way or are passed on by teachers. Different ways of doing things are tried and the best ways selected for the circumstances but no controlled experiments, the goal is in the immediate present, the spoon made, the fire lit, the shelter warm enough for the night or in the longer term the bow and arrows made for the hunt the food stored for the future.



I didn’t see this week but I saw it last week. Two of them spent many hours extracting Iodine from seaweed to purify the drinking water. When they could of just boiled the water. I laughed! :rolmao:

 

[Walkabout]

I didn’t see this week but I saw it last week. Two of them spent many hours extracting Iodine from seaweed to purify the drinking water. When they could of just boiled the water. I laughed!

One thing Ive found is that academics ("clever people") dont have a lot of common sense. They tend to have a great capacity for knowledge but its all spoon fed, ie they never learn how to learn for themselves. Common sense aint so common!

 

[Squidders]

For me, science is in everything... because science is a way of my brain understanding the information it is presented with.

I don't see magic or miracle in events but that doesn't get in the way of me feeling wonder or majesty.

Even primative people use science, simple mathematics for example, I had three seal skins I gave one away - I have two remaining. Even language is a science. If a tribesman understands in what conditions a given material will ignite and has performed tests over the years, he's a scientist.

The term science can get in the way and people often confuddle high-technology with science.

We're all scientists

 

[tenbears10]

They tend to have a great capacity for knowledge but its all spoon fed, ie they never learn how to learn for themselves. Common sense aint so common!

Except that the real scientists (newton, einstein, hawkins etc) developed things that no one before had even thought possible. It can't have been spoon fed because they discovered for the first time how something worked or why.

the fact is that even if you don't call it science, like squidders says, how things work is science. Look at self taught knife makers, there is a definite skill in heat treating a blade and it depends on the science of heat and metal but you might have learnt it from the colour changes or trial and error it is still science.

 

[Tantalus]

Except that the real scientists (newton, einstein, hawkins etc) developed things that no one before had even thought possible. It can't have been spoon fed because they discovered for the first time how something worked or why.

actually i have to disagree with this

ideas are not developed in isolation despite what is taught in classrooms

knowledge evolves and is based on previously existing theories

for the record much of what "scientists" would have us believe is hardcore fact is in truth merely theory

even newtons laws have been proven not to hold true in all cases

Tant

 

[Goose]

For me, science is in everything... because science is a way of my brain understanding the information it is presented with.

I don't see magic or miracle in events but that doesn't get in the way of me feeling wonder or majesty.

Even primative people use science, simple mathematics for example, I had three seal skins I gave one away - I have two remaining. Even language is a science. If a tribesman understands in what conditions a given material will ignite and has performed tests over the years, he's a scientist.

The term science can get in the way and people often confuddle high-technology with science.

We're all scientists

My favourite example of this was the space race,NASA scientists spent lots of time and money developing a pen and ink system to use in space, Russian cosmonauts used a pencil.
Because it is complicated doesnt necesserally mean it is better, a scientist might use latin names for trees and plants but is it important?
A bushman will know which tree he wants because HE knows it because he discovered its properties or more likely his dad showed him, but if you are learning from a book it might be a similar tree so it needs a more "scientific" label to avoid confusion. This is what I think people think is "real science" because it makes a simple thing sound more complicated.

 

[greg2935]

Interesting thread, and a little perplexing to my mind as I have never seen any difference between bushcraft and science, to quote Feynman (a physicist), 'only when us apes have had our noses rubbed in the answer for some time do we understand'. Science is about understanding nature, bushcraft is about understanding nature, where is the difference?

 

[EdS]

Bushcraft is just the field appliation of very well "proven" science.

 

[R-Bowskill]

Give something a fancy name and it gets called science. Knowing to use Dock leaves on nettle stings is the science of ethnobotany, taught at postgraduate level at Kew. Knowing that flint comes from chalk beds is geology.

Here's a challenge, How long would it take / how many stages to get from a couple of raw pieces of flint to a rocket?

1)Knap a hand axe, some scrapers and so on
2)Cut down some wood
3)make a fire
4)burn the wood to produce white ash (lye is used to extract nitrates from soil), and charcoal.
5)Boil some water on the fire, make lye and extract nitrates.
6)Cut a piece of pithy cored wood for rocket
7)make a vent from clay and fit it into one end
8) Use the charcoal and nitrates to make a propellant
9)Fletch it with fins
10) light the blue touchpaper with a piece of golwing tinder and stand well back

Please note I do not reccomend you try this, it is both dangeropus and illegal but shows there are only ten steps between the stone age and the space age.

So now we know what killed the mammoths, cavemen with bazookas!!!

 

[JimH]

To answer this question, I would first divide science from technology, then assert that science is not a set of "things" in the strict sense, but an approach based on hypothesis, experimental testing (empirical in nature, ie generating observable measurable results) and a desire to generate a consistent working model of the world and not necessarily derive "truth" in any absolute sense.

As such, and as a trained scientist(once), I'm on the "indivisible from life OR bushcraft" side of the fence. A degree of scientific method informs nearly all of what I do.

Technology overlaps bushcraft, too, sometimes low tech (cordmaking, firebows, knapping) and sometimes high (firesteels, silicon-nylon tarps, LED torches)

Arguably, the lower tech, the more it's Bushcraft.

Sorry if that is a trifle arcane. Just my "working model". :shock:

Jim.

 

[C_Claycomb]

but shows there are only ten steps between the stone age and the space age.

:rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao: Say, maybe, the bottle rocket age ):

Like many words in the English language, "Science" gets used to describe rather a wide range of things, wider even than "bushcraft"

Most of the people here who don’t say that they see science as integral to everything around them have commented that science makes simple things (unnecessarily?) complicated. Knowing the mathematics that is used to describe the performance of a car engine, the fluid dynamics that are at work in the exhaust, the electro chemistry going on in a battery, or the fundamental physics of how a spark pug works are of no appreciable use in knowing how to drive the car, or even in explaining to someone else how to drive it. It doesn’t matter to the blokes that assemble the car either. But the science is there underpinning everything, if someone wants they can dig deeper and use scientific principles to understand the how and why.

It took millions of years for stone technology to progress. Bow makers of old, admittedly separated from ethnic roots, built bows out of certain woods in certain styles because that was what had always been done. Old smiths spoke of using the hammer and anvil to “Pack the steel molecules closer together”. The principles where all there, but they didn’t have the tools, the knowledge, or the inclination to dig for them. They undoubtedly produced excellent results without bothering with the science of it, but an understanding of the science would have cleared some of the mists, making things more accessible to more people.

Common knowledge might tell you to use a dock for a nettle sting, but “science” can test the active ingredients in the nettle’s sting, theorise about, then test the active ingredient in the dock, explain why that works, then put forward alternative plants, or chemicals which would have the same effect, without the need to go rubbing every plant in the forest on your arm to see if the sting would go away.

It is a shame that schools seem to plant the idea that science is a subject, a thing, a way of the boffins to sound clever, and not just a way of thinking, a tool kit to investigate the world.

Just my cheap 2p worth (Note....edited after Hoodoo reminded me of the word I wanted to use )

Veering off a little.
Stuart told me an interesting thing about the Penan in Borneo. They are masters of their environment, and don’t worry about the “science” behind what they do. However, they only have names for the trees and plants that they have uses for, in fact, they may apply the same name for several different trees if they all supply similar materials. I think Stuart said that there were about 5 or 6 “String Trees” there are a couple of poison trees etc….and “wood”. A tree that they have no particular use for is just a tree, wood, why would they bother naming it?