What if a species didn't have science?

This is a pretty vague question, so let me explain. What if a species didn't have science? How would they know things about the world if they didn't have scientists? How would they not have scientists? What is science and can you not have science? What is what is? Who is who? What am I? Why am I here? And so forth. It is a bit of a philosophy discussion, but when worldbuilding you don't really think about the philosophy of the people you're just developing an entire world for. Because of this, I'm going to go over some possible answers for this topic that occurred to me.<br><br>**1: Science is just noticing things you hadn't noticed before and writing them down.**<br><br>This is my first point. The first time a human notices something new, they figure out what the cause is using science. They make observations, test multiple explanations, test multiple theories, and when they finally figured it out, they just write it down for all of the other humans to read. If a species figured out how to do this, they could have a collective knowledge that gets passed down to each generation without any science needing to be done. This means that a species could survive without science. We call this common sense, and so hypothetically, a species could exist with just common theory.<br><br>**2: Once you notice how things work, you don't really need to write it down.**<br><br>I think a lot of people don't really think that much about why things work. An example of this is when I was in an engineering class in middle school and there was a lesson on friction. When the teacher asked the class how friction worked, everyone seemed to have their own theories, most of which were wrong. This was the first time that I had realized that people didn't have to know how things work. Most humans just know how to use a pencil, and some humans know how to make pencils. Pretty much everyone knows how to use a car, but only a minority of people know how to make one (but if you are, let me know and maybe we can work out a deal). The point is, if a species didn't have science, they could just know how to make and use things without knowing how they function. This is another possible solution to the "no science" problem. <br><br>**3: What if there was a way to just know things?**<br><br>This is another point to make. What if there was a way to learn information just by looking at an object. Like telepathy, but with a toaster. This has been explored in many different contexts, like telepathy, psychic powers, and just generally magic. But what if there existed a species that communicated through "reading brains" (I'm sure there is an actual term for this that I don't know of). If they just had a way to just know things, then they wouldn't have to do science.<br><br>**4: They could be a collector species.**<br><br>This is another concept that has been explored. What if a species just collected other species knowledge? We humans almost do this by the definition of science. We collect the knowledge of our ancestors and then just add our own to that collective knowledge base. But what if a species did that with every species they met? And what if they never tried to come up with theories for themselves? What if they were just always collectors and never actually did the science part of science? This is a possible scenario for a species that has no science.<br><br>**5: What if they just always have magic?**<br><br>Finally, and least likely, is that the species just has magic. This is easy because magic is basically when you just have to "because reasons". This is added here because if a species has magic, then the rules of the world can be bent. And with magic, everything just makes sense. And if magic just always makes sense without needing science, then you can just always use magic. And with magic, everything doesn't need to make sense.<br><br>TL;DR: This was an exploration of the possibility of a species not having science and how that would work. If you have any thoughts, please comment below and have a great day!