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.
- c. 2000 BC — First text indexes (various cultures).
- c. 320 BC — Aristotle, comprehensive documents categorising and subdividing knowledge, dividing knowledge into different areas (physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, and biology).
- c. 200 BC — First Cataloged library (at Alexandria)
- c. 800 AD — An early experimental method begins emerging among Muslim chemists beginning with Geber who introduces controlled experiments; other fields (early Islamic philosophy, theology, law and science of hadith) introduce the methods of citation, peer review and open inquiry leading to development of consensus
- 1021 — The Iraqi Muslim physicist and scientist Alhazen introduces the experimental method and combines observations, experiments and rational arguments in his Book of Optics to show that his intromission theory of vision is scientifically correct, and that the emission theory of vision supported by Ptolemy and Euclid is wrong
- c. 1025 — The Persian scientist, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, develops the earliest experimental methods for minerology and mechanics, and is one of the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena
- 1025 — In The Canon of Medicine, Avicenna describes the methods of agreement, difference and concomitant variation which are critical to inductive logic and the scientific method
- 1027 — In The Book of Healing, Avicenna criticizes the Aristotelian method of induction, arguing that "it does not lead to the absolute, universal, and certain premises that it purports to provide", and in its place, develops examination and experimentation as a means for scientific inquiry
- 1220-1235 —, Robert Grosseteste, an English scholastic philosopher, theologian and the bishop of Lincoln, published his Aristotelian commentaries, which laid out the framework for the proper methods of science.
- 1265 — Roger Bacon, an English monk, inspired by the writings of Grosseteste, described a scientific method, which he based on a repeating cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and the need for independent verification. He recorded the manner in which he conducted his experiments in precise detail so that others could reproduce and independently test his results.
- 1327 — Ockham's razor clearly formulated (by William of Ockham)
- 1403 — Yongle Encyclopedia, the first collaborative encyclopedia
- 1590 — Controlled experiments by Francis Bacon
- 1600 — First dedicated laboratory
- 1620 — Novum Organum published, (Francis Bacon)
- 1637 — First Scientific method (René Descartes)
- 1650 — Society of experts (the Royal Society)
- 1650 — Experimental evidence established as the arbiter of truth (the Royal Society)
- 1665 — Repeatability established (Robert Boyle)
- 1665 — Scholarly journals established
- 1675 — Peer review begun
- 1687 — Hypothesis/prediction (Isaac Newton)
- 1710 — The problem of induction identified by David Hume
- 1753 — Description of a controlled experiment using two identical populations with only one variable.1
- 1926 — Randomized design 2
- 1934 — Falsifiability as a criterion for evaluating new hypotheses (Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery)
- 1937 — Controlled placebo trial
- 1946 — First computer simulation
- 1950 — Double blind experiment
- 1962 — Meta study of scientific method (Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions)
- 1964 — Strong inference proposed by John R. Platt3
Notes
- ^ James Lind's A Treatise of the Scurvy
- ^ Ronald Fisher
- ^ 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.)
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