In Sid Meier’s Civilization sure, but real history is a lot more complex than that. There were people who came to that conclusion since ancient times without it leading to a scientific and industrial revolution, because there were a lot more factors at play with those than just simply the idea of it.
Did the Greeks not do experiments? They knew math. They even hypothetically knew about atoms.
The Greeks held themselves back because most of their intellectual elite considered abstract thought as more noble than hands-on experimenting.
Also Aristotle accidently killing atomic theory for over 2000 years
Same can be said of all the ancient civilizations.
But the key insight is that all of nature is predictable and behaves according to natural laws that can be deduced through experiments.
That leads to the scientific revolution which leads to the industrial revolution.
In Sid Meier’s Civilization sure, but real history is a lot more complex than that. There were people who came to that conclusion since ancient times without it leading to a scientific and industrial revolution, because there were a lot more factors at play with those than just simply the idea of it.