Who Invented the Scientific Method?
Martyn Shuttleworth

The question of who invented the scientific method is extremely difficult to answer, simply because it is difficult to pin down exactly where it started.

The scientific method evolved over time, with some of history's greatest and most influential minds adding to and refining the process.

Whilst many point to Aristotle and the Greek philosophers as the prime movers behind the development of the scientific method, this is too much of a leap.

Whilst the Greeks were the first Western civilization to adopt observation and measurement as part of learning about the world, there was not enough structure to call it the scientific method.

It is fair to say that Aristotle was the founder of empirical science, but the development of a scientific process resembling the modern method was developed by Muslim scholars, during the Golden age of Islam, and refined by the enlightenment scientist-philosophers.

The Muslims and the Scientific Method

Muslim scholars, between the 10th and 14th centuries, were the prime movers behind the development of the scientific method.

They were the first to use experiment and observation as the basis of science, and many historians regard science as starting during this period.


Amongst the array of great scholars, al-Haytham is regarded as the architect of the scientific method. His scientific method involved the following stages:

1.Observation of the natural world

2.Stating a definite problem

3.Formulating a robust hypothesis

4.Test the hypothesis through experimentation

5.Assess and analyze the results

6.Interpret the data and draw conclusions

7.Publish the findings

These steps are very similar to the modern scientific method and they became the basis of Western science during the Renaissance.

Al-Haytham even insisted upon repeatability and the replication of results, and other scholars added ideas such as peer review and made great leaps in understanding the natural world.

Europe and the Renaissance

The question of who invented the scientific method shifts to Europe as the Renaissance began and the wisdom of the Greeks and Arabs helped Europe out of the Dark Ages.

Roger Bacon (1214 - 1284) is credited as the first scholar to promote inductive reasoning as part of the scientific method.

Here, findings from an experiment are generalized to the wider world, a process used by almost all modern scientists. His version of the Islamic scientific method involved four major steps, which lie at the root of our modern method.


•Observation

•Hypothesis

•Experiment

•Verification

This process continued with the Enlightenment, with Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) and Descartes (1596 - 1650). Francis Bacon continued the work of his Renaissance namesake, strengthening the inductive process. His method became:
•Empirical Observations

•Systematic Experiments

•Analyzing Experimental Evidence

•Inductive Reasoning

Bacon's inductive method was a way of relating observations to the universe and natural phenomena through establishing cause and effect.

Descartes broke away from the model of induction and reasoning and again proposed that deduction was the only way to learn and understand, harking back to Plato. His method was almost the reverse of induction:
•
Establish First Principles

•
Deductive Reasoning

•
Interpretation

•
Mathematical Analysis

Descartes believed that the entire universe was a perfect machine and that, if you knew the first principles, derived from mathematical proofs.

As an example, he deduced that planets revolved around the sun because they were floating in a liquid 'ether' filling space!

Newton and the Modern Scientific Method

Any discussion about who invented the scientific method must include Isaac Newton, as the scientist who refined the process into one that we use today.

He was the first to realise that scientific discovery needed both induction and deduction, a revolution in the scientific method that took science into the modern age.

After Newton

There were many other great thinkers who refined the scientific method, including Einstein, Russell, Popper and Feyerabend, amongst a whole host of other great thinkers.

However, it may no longer be correct to talk of the 'scientific method,' rather the 'Physics Method' or the 'Psychology Method,' because each scientific discipline has started to use its own methodology and terminology.

However, it is an old quote, but Newton's statement that, 'If I see further, it is only because I stand upon the shoulder of giants', is very apt when looking at who invented the scientific method.

All of these great thinkers, and many others beside, had a great influence upon determining the course of modern science as we know it.

So, when you ask 'Who invented the Scientific Method?" the answer is no-one, as the scientific method is in a state of constant evolution and modification.

Sadly, if you were looking for a simple answer that will fit into the short answer section of a test, you will not find it here!

https://explorable.com/who-invented-the-scientific-method

so?

@tbaba1234

You ought to have continued using religion as the basis of identificiation. For example, you should have said the Pagans rather than Greeks, just as you said Muslims rather than Arabs or Turks or Iraqis.

Kay17: @tbaba1234

You ought to have continued using religion as the basis of identificiation. For example, you should have said the Pagans rather than Greeks, just as you said Muslims rather than Arabs or Turks or Iraqis.

I did not write the article.. The fact remains that the muslims living under an Islamic state were the pioneers of the scientific method as you know it today. Muslims are made up of a number of ethnicities anyway.

tbaba1234:

I did not write the article.. The fact remains that the muslims living under an Islamic state were the pioneers of the scientific method as you know it today. Muslims are made up of a number of ethnicities anyway.

The site you quote has another article just like this one that doesn't mention Al Haytham as the pioneer of scientific method. The writer even ends the article saying there is no simple answer to the question. This obviously because down through the ages men have expanded the methods of scientific inquiry seen the dawn of intelligence. 10th - 14th century scientific research improvements came on the back of what had come before.

Muslim scholars that have no name?. . .Only one name was mentioned there and the person's contribution to the scientific process was never mentioned. . .The islamic golden age is a ruse and is very much over rated. . .Muslims have contributed very little or nothing to modern science as we know it. . .Islam as it is is anti modern science that is why muslims will never prosper in that regard. . .

LordReed:
The site you quote has another article just like this one that doesn't mention Al Haytham as the pioneer of scientific method. The writer even ends the article saying there is no simple answer to the question. This obviously because down through the ages men have expanded the methods of scientific inquiry seen the dawn of intelligence. 10th - 14th century scientific research improvements came on the back of what had come before.

Every thing starts from some where, but Muslim scholars were the prime movers as clearly stated.

Muslim scholars, between the 10th and 14th centuries, were the prime movers behind the development of the scientific method.

mazaje: Muslim scholars that have no name?. . .Only one name was mentioned there and the person's contribution to the scientific process was never mentioned. . .The islamic golden age is a ruse and is very much over rated. . .Muslims have contributed very little or nothing to modern science as we know it. . .Islam as it is is anti modern science that is why muslims will never prosper in that regard. . .

The first, and possibly greatest Islamic scholar, was Ibn al-Haytham, best known for his wonderful work on light and vision, called 'The Book of Optics.' He developed a scientific method very similar to our own:

1. State an explicit problem, based upon observation and experimentation.

2. Test or criticize a hypothesis through experimentation.

3. Interpret the data and come to a conclusion, ideally using mathematics.

4. Publish the findings

Other Muslim scholars further contributed to this scientific method, refining it and preserving it. Al-Biruni understood that measuring instruments and human observers were prone to error and bias, so proposed that experiments needed replication, many times, before a 'common sense' average was possible.

Al-Rahwi (851 - 934) was the first scholar to use a recognizable peer review process.

In his book, Ethics of the Physician, he developed peer review process to ensure that physicians documented their procedures and lay them open for scrutiny. Other physicians would review the processes and make a decision in cases of suspected malpractice.

Abu Jābir, known as Geber (721 - 815), an Islamic scientist often referred to as the father of chemistry, was the first scholar to introduce controlled experiments, and dragged alchemy away from the world of superstition into one of empirical measurement.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna), one of the titans in the history of science, proposed that there were two ways of arriving at the first principles of science, through induction and experimentation. Only through these methods could the first principles needed for deduction be discovered

Other Islamic scholars contributed the idea of consensus in science as a means of filtering out fringe science and allowing open reviews. These contributions to the scientific method, and to the tools required to follow them, made this into an Islamic Golden Age of science.

However, with the decline in the Islamic Houses of Knowledge, the history of the scientific method passed into Europe and the Renaissance.

https://explorable.com/history-of-the-scientific-method

tbaba1234:

Every thing starts from some where, but Muslim scholars were the prime movers as clearly stated.

Muslim scholars, between the 10th and 14th centuries, were the prime movers behind the development of the scientific method.

Not trying to detract from that achievement but let's be clear that they aren't the originators.

LordReed:

Not trying to detract from that achievement but let's be clear that they aren't the originators.

I am not making any claim apart from what is stated in the article.

They revolutionalised the scientific method, I think, that is the point made by the article.

They were the first to use experiment and observation as the basis of science, and many historians regard science as starting during this period.

Op, you make LordReed look reasonable. Only muslim folly is that capable. Impressive...

OK, ok, so, what of the likes of Hippocrates, someone even your Avicenna directly referenced? Did he, Aristotle, Archimedes and co not exist? The others before them? Eg docs in ancient egypt?

And which historians are these abeg? Last I checked, the age of enlightenment began with Galileo et al. Certainly not with your storybooks. For instance, here's wikis take

wiki:

The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning, and improved upon by others through open review and criticism.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."[3]

Feel free to look up references

Keeping with that definition

wiki:

The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false.[4] Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of obtaining knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable to guard against mistake or confusion in any particular experimenter. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many independently derived hypotheses together in a coherent, supportive structure. Theories, in turn, may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.

Scientific inquiry is intended to be as objective as possible in order to minimize bias. Another basic expectation is the documentation, archiving and sharing of all data collected or produced and of the methodologies used so they may be available for careful scrutiny and attempts by other scientists to reproduce and verify them. This practice, known as full disclosure, also means that statistical measures of their reliability may be made.

Sooo, you guys let reality speak for itself? Really? You've not already got answers you're working towards, eg God!?!? did it?

Ok, please then tell us if humans evolved from apes, and naturally. Thank you.


.....

Difference with the current age and those before it is that the scientific method, by extension the scientific society, does not cater to anything other than reality; no agenda to satisfy, just a focus on the most objective truths that can be ascertained. So if conclusions go against a scientists beliefs, there's not a gaddam thing he do. Nothing he can contort, no baggage. Like the definition above states; it lets reality speak for itself.

There's absolutely no difference between your golden age brahs and those before them. Your golden age brahs built on work before them, just like everyone else (except us genius africans, who somehow think oral information is somehow better than written info) did. Other cultures have, and very obviously I would add, been applying aspects of the scientific method to one degree or the other since antiquity.

To imply you guys are founders is simply disingenuous. I mean, even today, you do not adhere to it. Abi, will your madrasas teach students that children evolved from apes?

Religions, all of you trying to claim the 'good', looking for credit. The bad? Shaitan did it....

wiegraf: Op, you make LordReed look reasonable. Only muslim folly is that capable. Impressive...

Pray tell where is this dubious complement coming from?

LordReed:
Pray tell where is this dubious complement coming from?

Which compliment?

^ What has your tirade, got to do with the article?

Can you at least stick to the topic??

Or is it that you do not know the definition of the scientific method??

The author went through the history of the scientific method and highlighted the contribution of muslims to the renaissance..

He is not a muslim and I did not write the piece.

I have not claimed anything outside the article..


https://explorable.com/history-of-the-scientific-method

wiegraf:

Which compliment?

Yeah wisecrack where is it coming from?

LordReed:

Pray tell where is this dubious complement coming from?

He is insulting you

Bros, what tirade do you speak of?

wiegraf:

Bros, what tirade do you speak of?

Ehmm.. your incoherent one..

The Muslim Influence On the History of the Scientific Method

The early Islamic ages were a golden age for knowledge, and the history of the scientific method must pay a great deal of respect to some of the brilliant Muslim philosophers of Baghdad and Al-Andalus.

They preserved the knowledge of the Ancient Greeks, including Aristotle, but also added to it, and were the catalyst for the formation of a scientific method recognizable to modern scientists and philosophers.


The first, and possibly greatest Islamic scholar, was Ibn al-Haytham, best known for his wonderful work on light and vision, called 'The Book of Optics.' He developed a scientific method very similar to our own:

1. State an explicit problem, based upon observation and experimentation.

2. Test or criticize a hypothesis through experimentation.

3. Interpret the data and come to a conclusion, ideally using mathematics.

4. Publish the findings

Ibn al-Haytham, brilliantly, understood that controlled and systematic experimentation and measurement were essential to discovering new knowledge, built upon existing knowledge.

His other additions were the idea that science is a quest for ultimate truth and that one of the only ways to reach that goal was through skepticism and questioning everything.

Other Muslim scholars further contributed to this scientific method, refining it and preserving it. Al-Biruni understood that measuring instruments and human observers were prone to error and bias, so proposed that experiments needed replication, many times, before a 'common sense' average was possible.

Al-Rahwi (851 - 934) was the first scholar to use a recognizable peer review process.

In his book, Ethics of the Physician, he developed peer review process to ensure that physicians documented their procedures and lay them open for scrutiny. Other physicians would review the processes and make a decision in cases of suspected malpractice.

Abu Jābir, known as Geber (721 - 815), an Islamic scientist often referred to as the father of chemistry, was the first scholar to introduce controlled experiments, and dragged alchemy away from the world of superstition into one of empirical measurement.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna), one of the titans in the history of science, proposed that there were two ways of arriving at the first principles of science, through induction and experimentation. Only through these methods could the first principles needed for deduction be discovered

Other Islamic scholars contributed the idea of consensus in science as a means of filtering out fringe science and allowing open reviews. These contributions to the scientific method, and to the tools required to follow them, made this into an Islamic Golden Age of science.

However, with the decline in the Islamic Houses of Knowledge, the history of the scientific method passed into Europe and the Renaissance.

https://explorable.com/history-of-the-scientific-method

tbaba1234:
Ehmm.. your incoherent one..

You mean my first post? If you think that a tirade and, more crucially, off topic, then your cancer is genuinely beyond help.

Please, do show how the post is off topic. And please, also do tell us, with a straight face, that you aren't implying your Arab mastahs created the scientific method, community etc..

Thanks.

Wiegraf, Knowledge builds on knowledge. And, yes, the islamic scholars built on knowledge available. That is expected..

I highlighted their contributions, I did not dismiss others.

tbaba1234:

He is insulting you

I know. Seems these days you can't make a comment without some atheist spewing some antireligious bigotry. They make fundamentalists look good.

tbaba1234: Wiegraf, Knowledge builds on knowledge. And, yes, the islamic scholars built on knowledge available. That is expected..

I highlighted their contributions, I did not dismiss others.

Good, then for starters, as alfa so eloquently put it, so?

Are you really implying you aren't here to advertise your golden age as something crucial, something unique? Else I can't see why you'd be around here wasting time stating the obvious? What am I missing?

Wiegraf, example of off topic.. Did you even read the piece??

OK, ok, so, what of the likes of Hippocrates, someone even your Avicenna directly referenced? Did he, Aristotle, Archimedes and co not exist? The others before them? Eg docs in ancient egypt?

And which historians are these abeg? Last I checked, the age of enlightenment began with Galileo et al. Certainly not with your storybooks. For instance, here's wikis take

This is nonsense. The article clearly talks about aristotle's contributions.

Galileo et al, did not start from no where...

It goes through history..

wiegraf:

Good, then for starters, as alfa so eloquently put it, so?

Are you really implying you aren't here to advertise your golden age as something crucial, something unique? Else I can't see why you'd be around here wasting time stating the obvious? What am I missing?

If the history is not of interest to you, then you can certainly comment on other topics.

I am certain that some people will read this and maybe gain some knowledge..

tbaba1234: Wiegraf, example of off topic.. Did you even read the piece??



This is nonsense. The article clearly talks about aristotle's contributions.

Galileo et al, did not start from no where...

It goes through history..

I can't see how it would be off topic when, as you just point out, your article touches on it?!

Anyways, so the bolded, you acknowledge that? Then, borrowing lordReed's phrase, pray tell, what is the point of this your article being posted here? Shebi you have your own muslim section?

tbaba1234:
If the history is not of interest to you, then you can certainly comment on other topics.

I am certain that some people will read this and maybe gain some knowledge..

Good. So, continuing with this history lesson, I now make this assertion; There is nothing special about Islam's 'golden' age. Do you agree?

^Your 'views' are noted. However, it carries little weight.

The author listed the contributions:

They preserved the knowledge of the Ancient Greeks, including Aristotle, but also added to it, and were the catalyst for the formation of a scientific method recognizable to modern scientists and philosophers.

Muslim scholars, between the 10th and 14th centuries, were the prime movers behind the development of the scientific method.

Whether you consider it 'special' is your subjective opinion and it is unimportant.

Neither is mine.

However, the importance of their contributions is undeniable. I am sure we can objectively agree on that.

tbaba1234: ^Your 'views' are noted. However, it carries little weight.
The author listed the contributions:
They preserved the knowledge of the Ancient Greeks, including Aristotle, but also added to it, and were the catalyst for the formation of a scientific method recognizable to modern scientists and philosophers.
Muslim scholars, between the 10th and 14th centuries, were the prime movers behind the development of the scientific method.
Whether you consider it 'special' is your subjective opinion and it is unimportant.
Neither is mine.
However, the importance of their contributions is undeniable. I am sure we can objectively agree on that.

Here you go, the bolded are, and objectively, FALSE

That is not my 'opinion', it is fact

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, special about Islam's 'golden' age. It was all done and said before then. History repeating itself, like you yourself allude to earlier.

I mean, did you, for starters, note my mention of Hippocrates

wiki:

Hippocrates is credited with being the first person to believe that diseases were caused naturally, not because of superstition and gods. Hippocrates was credited by the disciples of Pythagoras of allying philosophy and medicine.[17] He separated the discipline of medicine from religion, believing and arguing that disease was not a punishment inflicted by the gods but rather the product of environmental factors, diet, and living habits. Indeed there is not a single mention of a mystical illness in the entirety of the Hippocratic Corpus. However, Hippocrates did work with many convictions that were based on what is now known to be incorrect anatomy and physiology, such as Humorism.[18][19][20]

Continuing later with

wiki:

The Hippocratic School gave importance to the clinical doctrines of observation and documentation. These doctrines dictate that physicians record their findings and their medicinal methods in a very clear and objective manner, so that these records may be passed down and employed by other physicians.[13] Hippocrates made careful, regular note of many symptoms including complexion, pulse, fever, pains, movement, and excretions.[31] He is said to have measured a patient's pulse when taking a case history to discover whether the patient was lying.[36] Hippocrates extended clinical observations into family history and environment.[37] "To him medicine owes the art of clinical inspection and observation."[20] For this reason, he may more properly be termed as the "Father of Medicine".[38]

Hippocrates was way before the 'golden' age, no? Observation, objectivity, etc, all well over a thousand years before islam's age, no? Avicenna and co built upon theirs and the work of previous cultures, no? Again, Avicenna himself directly quotes Hippocrates, no? Seriously, what am I missing here?

It also looks a lot more inline with the scientific method than your scholars' work, by orders of magnitude. In fact, it looks like you held back the spirit of scientific method back by reintroducing GODIDIT into the equations. You don't think so? Then please answer the question posed before; would your madrasas teach that man evolved from apes?

Another tirade, you can not be helped can you??

This might help.. you do not seem to know the meaning of scientific method

Definition of scientific method

a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scientific+method

Ok that is defined..

Can you list the scientific method of Hippocrates??

Can you compare that to the modern method??

The first, and possibly greatest Islamic scholar, was Ibn al-Haytham, best known for his wonderful work on light and vision, called 'The Book of Optics.' He developed a scientific method very similar to our own:

1. State an explicit problem, based upon observation and experimentation.

2. Test or criticize a hypothesis through experimentation.

3. Interpret the data and come to a conclusion, ideally using mathematics.

4. Publish the findings

Ibn al-Haytham, brilliantly, understood that controlled and systematic experimentation and measurement were essential to discovering new knowledge, built upon existing knowledge.

No one is dismissing the efforts of Hippocrates and other scholars.

This is from the great Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism.

Like the great adam smith said:

The ruin of the empire of the Romans, and, along with it the subversion of all law and order, which happened a few centuries afterwards, produced the entire neglect of that study of the connecting principles of nature, to which leisure and security can alone give occasion. After the fall of those great conquerors and the civilizers of mankind, the empire of the Caliphs seems to have been the first state under which the world enjoyed that degree of tranquility which the cultivation of the sciences requires. It was under the protection of those generous and magnificent princes, that the ancient philosophy and astronomy of the Greeks were restored and established in the East; that tranquility, which their mild, just and religious government diffused over their vast empire, revived the curiosity of mankind, to inquire into the connecting principles of nature. (adam smith, The Essays of adam smith, London, 1869, p. 353)