Timeline of the history of scientific method

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This timeline of the history of scientific method shows an overview of the cultural inventions that have contributed to the development of the scientific method. For a detailed account, see History of the scientific method.

BC

  • c. 2000 BC — First text indeces (various cultures).[citation needed]
  • c. 1600 BC — The Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian surgical textbook, which applies: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to injuries,[1] paralleling rudimentary empirical methodology.[2]
  • 624 - 548 Thales raised the study of nature from the realm of the mythical to the level of empirical study.[3]
  • 610 - 547 Anaximander extends the idea of "law" to the physical world and uses maps and models.[3]
  • c. 400 BC — In China, Mozi and the School of Names advocate using one's senses to observe the world, and develop the "three-prong method" for testing the truth or falsehood of statements.
  • c. 400 BC — Democritus advocates inductive reasoning through a process of examining the causes of sensory perceptions and drawing conclusions about the outside world.
  • c. 400 BC — Plato first provides a detailed definitions for idea, matter, form and appearance as abstract concepts.
  • c. 320 BC — First comprehensive documents categorising and subdividing knowledge, dividing knowledge into different areas by Aristotle,(physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, and biology). Aristotle's Posterior Analytics defends the ideal of science as necessary demonstration from axioms known with certainty. Aristotle believes that the world is real and that we can learn the truth by experience.[4] Latin:experimentum
  • c. 341-270 Epicurus scientific method with multiple variables.[4]
  • c. 300 BC — Euclid's Elements expound geometry as a system of theorems following logically from axioms known with certainty.
  • c. 200 BC — First Cataloged library (at Alexandria)

1st through 12th centuries

13th through 17th centuries

18th and 19th centuries

20th and 21st centuries

See also

References

  1. Edwin Smith papyrus, Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. Lloyd, G. E. R. "The development of empirical research", in his Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Development of Greek Science.
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  8. James Lind's A Treatise of the Scurvy
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  10. Plat's article is entitled Strong inference. Certain systematic methods of scientific thinking may produce much more rapid progress than others (Science, 16 October 1964, Volume 146, Number 3642, Pages 347-353.)