Consider the following texts. All of them deal with nature. Which ones may be described as scientific? and which ones are not? and why not? Our explanatory comments in brackets.

1. Amos: "I gave you cleanness of teeth [famine]in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me," says the LORD."And I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain upon one city, and send no rain upon another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered; [8] so two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you did not return to me," says the LORD. "I smote you with blight and mildew; I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards; your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me," says the LORD. "I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I slew your young men with the sword; I carried away your horses; and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me," says the LORD. "I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomor'rah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me," says the LORD. "Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!"
2. Recorded Events (from various Mesopotamian sources).
1. on Earthquakes. "When the earth quakes in (the month of) Nisan, the king's land will revolt from him. When the earth quakes during the night, harm will come to the land, or devastation to the land."
2. onThunder "When it thunders on the day of the Moon's disappearance, the crops will prosper and the market will be steady. When it rains on the day of the Moon's disappearance, it will bring on the crops and the market will be steady."
3. "After two hours of the night had passed, a great star shone from north to south. Its omens are propitious for the king's desire. The King of Akkad (in Mesopotamia) will accomplish his mission".
4. If his illness keeps attacking him in the middle of the night, he has had sexual intercourse with another man's wife; the hand of the god Ninurta.
5. If the 'ashipu' ('doctor / witch-doctor) sees a black pig [on his way], that patient will die; he he sees a white pig, that patient will recover.
3. Passage from two early Greek 'cosmologist' (before 400 BC): Consider here the method of investigation, the assumptions about natural processes, the use of concrete and abstract notions, the use of analogy, the use of critical test, etc.:
   1. Herodotus: II 19-31. "On the Nile River..Concerning the nature of the river, I was not able to gain any information either from the priests or from others. I was particularly anxious to learn from them why the Nile, at the commencement of the summer solstice, begins to rise, and continues to increase for a hundred days- and why, as soon as that number is past, it forthwith retires and contracts its stream, continuing low during the whole of the winter until the summer solstice comes round again. On none of these points could I obtain any explanation from the inhabitants, though I made every inquiry, wishing to know what was commonly reported- they could neither tell me what special virtue the Nile has which makes it so opposite in its nature to all other streams. Some of the Greeks, however, wishing to get a reputation for cleverness, have offered explanations of the phenomena of the river, for which they have accounted in three different ways. Two of these I do not think it worth while to speak of, further than simply to mention what they are. One pretends that the Etesian winds cause the rise of the river by preventing the Nile-water from running off into the sea. But in the first place it has often happened, when the Etesian winds did not blow, that the Nile has risen according to its usual wont; and further, if the Etesian winds produced the effect, the other rivers which flow in a direction opposite to those winds ought to present the same phenomena as the Nile, and the more so as they are all smaller streams, and have a weaker current. But these rivers, of which there are many both in Syria and Libya, are entirely unlike the Nile in this respect. The second opinion is even more unscientific than the one just mentioned, and also, if I may so say, more marvelous. It is that the Nile acts so strangely, because it flows from the ocean, and that the ocean flows all round the earth. The third explanation, which is very much more plausible than either of the others, is positively the furthest from the truth; for there is really nothing in what it says, any more than in the other theories. It is, that the inundation of the Nile is caused by the melting of snows. Now, as the Nile flows out of Libya, through Ethiopia, into Egypt, how is it possible that it can be formed of melted snow, running, as it does, from the hottest regions of the world into cooler countries? Many are the proofs whereby any one capable of reasoning on the subject may be convinced that it is most unlikely this should be the case. The first and strongest argument is furnished by the winds, which always blow hot from these regions. The second is that rain and frost are unknown there. Now whenever snow falls, it must of necessity rain within five days;.so that, if there were snow, there must be rain also in those parts. Thirdly, it is certain that the natives of the country are black with the heat, that the kites and the swallows remain there the whole year, and that the cranes, when they fly from the rigors of a Scythian winter, flock thither to pass the cold season. If then, in the country whence the Nile has its source, or in that through which it flows, there fell ever so little snow, it is absolutely impossible that any of these circumstances could take place. Perhaps, after censuring all the opinions that have been put forward on this obscure subject, one ought to propose some theory of one's own. I will therefore proceed to explain what I think to be the reason of the Nile's swelling in the summer time. During the winter, the sun is driven out of his usual course by the storms, and removes to the upper parts of Libya. This is the whole secret in the fewest possible words; for it stands to reason that the country to which the sun approaches the nearest, and which it passes most directly over, will be scantiest of water, and that there the streams which feed the rivers will shrink the most. To explain, however, more at length, the case is this. The sun, in his passage across the upper parts of Libya, affects them in the following way. As the air in those regions is constantly clear, and the country warm through the absence of cold winds, the sun in his passage across them acts upon them exactly as he wont to act elsewhere in summer, when his path is in the middle of heaven- that is, he attracts the water. After attracting it, he again repels it into the upper regions, where the winds lay hold of it, scatter it, and reduce it to a vapor, whence it naturally enough comes to pass that the winds which blow from this quarter- the south and south-west- are of all winds the most rainy. The sun, therefore, I regard as the sole cause of the phenomenon".
   2. Hippocratic School: "The urine is best when the sediment is white, smooth, and consistent during the whole time, until the disease come to a crisis, for it indicates freedom from danger, and an illness of short duration; but if deficient, and if it be sometimes passed clear, and sometimes with a white and smooth sediment, the disease will be more protracted, and not so void of danger. But if the urine be reddish, and the sediment consistent and smooth, the affliction, in this case, will be more protracted than the former, but still not fatal. But farinaceous ["mealy"; "flour-like"] sediments in the urine are bad, and still worse are the leafy; the white and thin are very bad, but the furfuraceous ["bran-like"] are still worse than these. Clouds carried about in the urine are good when white, but bad if black. When the urine is yellow and thin, it indicates that the disease is unconcocted; and if it (the disease) should be protracted, there maybe danger lest the patient should not hold out until the urine be concocted. But the most deadly of all kinds of urine are the fetid ["having and offensive smell", watery, black, and thick; in adult men and women the black is of all kinds of urine the worst, but in children, the watery.
   3. Material medica: "But we have shown that the most effective protection against snakes is the spittle of a fasting person; and actual daily experience confirms other effective uses of it. ... For broken bones a remedy is the ashes of the jawbone of a boar; likewise boiled lard, tied around the broken bone, knits it with marvellous rapidty. For fractures of the rib, goat's dug applied in old wine es expecially extolled; it has aperient extractive and healing properties. For moderate feversthe liver of a cat killed uring the waing moon, preserved in solt, to be taken just before attacks...for four day fever, cat's dung together with the toe of an owl to be attached to the body, and to prevent a relapse, not to be reomved until the seventh spasm." from Pliny the Elder.
4. Bonus points: scientific? "The Full Moon in Libra tonight emphasizes the need to integrate tact and diplomacy into our relationships with others. At this time you may want to follow your own path without restraint, but the energy you put into negotiating middle ground now will pay off in the future. Financially April should prove to be an amazingly strong month. That's got to be good news, for Mars has brought you monster expenses since it entered your 2nd house of income in late September. Rarely have you had to spend so much in such a short period of time. While some of the spending may have been for things you needed, as well as for gifts, it also appears you have had a number of large unexpected expenses to cover and that too that added a great deal of stress in past weeks."