Citing books, with unproved facts, in the introduction part of a research paper

Question

Research community accepts a statement as fact in any domain of knowledge if and only if it has a proof. I am asking about domains for which proof is necessary.

But the same fact may present in age old books without an explicit scientific proof.

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Let us consider the following example for better understanding:

Consider the summary of a research paper, related to plants, in Biology

Plants lack eyes and ears, but they can still see, hear, smell and respond to environmental cues and dangers. They do this with the aid of hundreds of membrane proteins that sense microbes or other stresses. Researchers now have created the first network map for 200 of these proteins. The map shows how a few key proteins act as master nodes critical for network integrity, and the map also reveals unknown interactions.

Consider the (same) fact, with abstract (may be an unscientific) explanation, in an age old scripture

"Bhrigu said, 'Without doubt, though possessed of density, trees have space within them. The putting forth of flowers and fruits is always taking place in them. They have heat within them in consequence of which leaf, bark, fruit, and flower, are seen to droop. They sicken and dry up. That shows they have perception of touch. Through sound of wind and fire and thunder, their fruits and flowers drop down. Sound is perceived through the ear. Trees have, therefore, ears and do hear. A creeper winds round a tree and goes about all its sides. A blind thing cannot find its way. For this reason it is evident that trees have vision. Then again trees recover vigour and put forth flowers in consequence of odours, good and bad, of the sacred perfume of diverse kinds of dhupas. It is plain that trees have scent. They drink water by their roots. They catch diseases of diverse kinds. Those diseases again are cured by different operations. From this it is evident that trees have perceptions of taste. As one can suck up water through a bent lotus-stalk, trees also, with the aid of the wind, drink through their roots. They are susceptible of pleasure and pain, and grow when cut or lopped off. From these circumstances I see that trees have life. They are not inanimate.

Can the research paper mention, in introduction part, that the fact proved by them has been mentioned in that (old) book, but without any scientific proof?

There can be multiple similar facts like these in age old books without proofs. We cannot treat them as wild imaginations since they may say almost same numbers in many cases.

For example

#1: book and research.

#2: Statement by Carl sagan

The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.

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Is it a recommended act to mention about the presence or existence of fact (in such a book), without any proof, in the introduction part of a research paper?

If recommended then isn't it like citing a statement form an unscientific docment? If not recommended, isn't it unethical to not mention the existing fact because of only reason that proof is not given in the book?

Answer 1

You say

Research community accepts a statement as fact in any domain of knowledge if and only if it has a proof.

This is a simple statement but reality is much messier. Which kinds of explanations are and are not accepted by a given research community is culturally determined. See e.g. the demarcation problem (how do we distinguish science from non-science?) and the experimenter's regress (how do we decide if a particular experimental result is valid?)

In the research community I belong to ("Western" ecology and evolutionary biology), quoting Hindu sources (or any other religious/literary/folkloric texts, e.g. the Koran or the Old or New Testament, or the Greek Odyssey [honestly, I'm not sure how to categorize the Mahabharata]) as "flavour" in your introduction (e.g. "Interestingly, similar arguments can be found as far back as the Mahabharata [citation]") would probably be considered fine. Quoting religious or literary texts as part of the actual foundation of your scientific arguments would probably be viewed with extreme skepticism and might hurt your chances of publication.

Other research communities might be either more hostile to such citations, or more open to them as representing valid prior evidence on which to build an argument. One way to tell would be to read research works in that field and see whether citing such texts is common practice.