scientific method

Examples of scientific method in the following topics:

• Roots of the Scientific Revolution

  • Scientists realized the inadequacy of medieval experimental methods for their work and so felt the need to devise new methods (some of which we use today);
  • Under the scientific method that was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural and artificial circumstances were abandoned and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community.
  • Bacon's works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or sometimes simply the scientific method.
  • The scientific revolution laid the foundations for the Age of Enlightenment that centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy and emphasized the importance of the scientific method.
  • Robert Boyle (1627–1691), an Irish-born English scientist, was an early supporter of the scientific method and founder of modern chemistry.

• Arts and Sciences

  • The rediscovery of the works of Aristotle allowed the full development of the new Christian philosophy and the method of scholasticism.
  • Meanwhile, precursors of the modern scientific method can be seen already in Grosseteste's emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature and in the empirical approach admired by Roger Bacon.
  • He built his work on Aristotle's vision of the dual path of scientific reasoning.
  • He recorded the manner in which he conducted his experiments in precise detail so that others could reproduce and independently test his results - a cornerstone of the scientific method, and a continuation of the work of researchers like Al Battani.
  • The first half of the 14th century saw the scientific work of great thinkers.

• Introduction to the Enlightenment

  • The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy.
  • Some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution.
  • Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience, and causation) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by David Hume and Adam Smith.
  • Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development.
  • Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession.

• Physics and Mathematics

  • Under the scientific method that was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural and artificial circumstances were abandoned, and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community.
  • René Descartes, whose thought emphasized the power of reasoning but also helped establish the scientific method, distinguished between the knowledge that could be attained by reason alone (rationalist approach), which he thought was mathematics, and the knowledge that required experience of the world, which he thought was physics.
  • While the dates of the scientific revolution are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution.
  • The scientific revolution also witnessed the development of modern optics.
  • The book was the first scientific publication to be based on data from a telescope.

• Rationalism

  • He thought that only knowledge of eternal truths – including the truths of mathematics and the foundations of the sciences – could be attained by reason alone while the knowledge of physics required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method.
  • Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy as seen in the works of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza.
  • Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that, in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not possible in practice for human beings except in specific areas such as mathematics.
  • Since the Enlightenment, rationalism in politics historically emphasized a "politics of reason" centered upon rational choice, utilitarianism, and secularism (later, relationship between rationalism and religion was ameliorated by the adoption of pluralistic rationalist methods practicable regardless of religious or irreligious ideology).

• Enlightenment Ideals

  • The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy.
  • Furthermore, the sciences and academic disciplines (including social sciences and the humanities) as we know them today, based on empirical methods, also go back to the Age of Enlightenment.
  • If taken back to the mid-17th century, the Enlightenment would trace its origins to Descartes' Discourse on Method, published in 1637.
  • In Italy, the significant reduction in the Church's power led to a period of great thought and invention, including scientific discoveries.
  • In the mid-18th century, Europe witnessed an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity that challenged traditional doctrines and dogmas.

• Astronomy

  • While astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, its development during the Scientific Revolution entirely transformed the views of society about nature by moving from geocentrism to heliocentrism.
  • While astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, its development during the period of the Scientific Revolution entirely transformed the views of society about nature.
  • The publication of the seminal work in the field of astronomy, Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) published in 1543, is, in fact, often seen as marking the beginning of the time when scientific disciplines, including astronomy, began to apply modern empirical research methods and gradually transformed into the modern sciences as we know them today.
  • Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer and mathematician, who played an important role in the 17th century Scientific Revolution.

• The Medical Renaissance

  • A major effort to translate the Arabic and Greek scientific works into Latin emerged and Europeans gradually became experts not only in the ancient writings of the Romans and Greeks but also in the contemporary writings of Islamic scientists.
  • During the later centuries of the Renaissance, which overlapped with the Scientific Revolution, experimental investigation, particularly in the field of dissection and body examination, advanced the knowledge of human anatomy.
  • Bacteria and protists were first observed with a microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676, initiating the scientific field of microbiology.
  • He is widely known for writing the first complete scientific description of dentistry, Le Chirurgien Dentiste ("The Surgeon Dentist"), published in 1728. 
  • The book described basic oral anatomy and function, signs and symptoms of oral pathology, operative methods for removing decay and restoring teeth, periodontal disease (pyorrhea), orthodontics, replacement of missing teeth, and tooth transplantation.

• Classical Greek Poetry and History

  • Homer, one of the greatest Greek poets, significantly influenced classical Greek historians as their field turned increasingly towards scientific evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect.
  • He is referred to as “The Father of History” and is the first historian known to have broken from Homeric tradition in order to treat historical subjects as a method of investigation arranged into a historiographic narrative.
  • Thucydides is sometimes known as the father of “scientific history”, or an early precursor to 20th century scientific positivism, because of his strict adherence to evidence-gathering and analysis of historical cause and effect without reference to divine intervention.

• The Popularization of Science

  • Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development.
  • Scientific academies and societies grew out of the Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge in contrast to the scholasticism of the university.
  • National scientific societies were founded throughout the Enlightenment era in the urban hotbeds of scientific development across Europe.
  • More formal works included explanations of scientific theories for individuals lacking the educational background to comprehend the original scientific text.
  • Others became illustrators or translators of scientific texts.