Pseudoscience Preceded Science

Do you believe then that the sciences would ever have arisen and become great if there had not beforehand been magicians, alchemists, astrologers and wizards, who thirsted and hungered after abscondite and forbidden powers?

 Rational Potter Plots to Take Over the Magical World

Professor McGonagall undoubtedly knew every last detail of how you went about turning into a cat. But she seemed to have literally never heard of the scientific method. To her it was just Muggle magic. And she didn't even seem curious about what secrets might be hiding behind the natural language understanding of the Retrieval Charm. That left two possibilities, really. Possibility one: Magic was so incredibly opaque, convoluted, and impenetrable, that even though wizards and witches had ...