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.

[edit] BC

• c. 2000 BC ' First text indexes (various cultures).
• c. 1600 BC ' An Egyptian medical textbook, the Edwin Smith papyrus, (circa 1600 BC), applies the following components: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to the treatment of disease,^[1] which display parallels to basic empirical methodology.^[2]
• c. Between 600-500 BC the biblical Daniel carried out probably the first recorded experiment in history with a control group. He wanted to follow God's ideal diet, a vegetarian diet. But, his Babylonian supervisor thought it would be unhealthy. So, Daniel proposed a 10 day experiment with Daniel and his friends eating a vegetarian diet with simple water and the control group (the other students) eating the royal diet (which was heavily meat based and included wine). Daniel and his friends were found to be healthier than the control group after the 10 days. They continued following this diet for the next 3 years while studying diligently all the wisdom of Babylon. Upon examination at the end of the course, Daniel and his friends impressed the king far more than any others. ^[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. 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.
• 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)

[edit] 1st through 12th centuries

• c. 800 AD ' An early experimental method begins emerging among Muslim chemists beginning with Jä�bir ibn Hayyä�n who introduces controlled experiments^[4]; 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, AbÅ« Rayhä�n al-Bä«rÅ«nä«, 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

[edit] 13th through 17th centuries

• 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
• 1595 ' Microscope invented in Holland
• 1600 ' First dedicated laboratory
• 1608 ' Telescope invented in Holland
• 1620 ' Novum Organum published, (Francis Bacon)
• 1637 ' First Scientific method (René Descartes)
• 1638 ' Galileo's Two New Sciences published, containing two thought experiments, namely Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment and Galileo's ship, which are intended to disprove existing physical theories by showing that they have contradictory consequences.
• 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)

[edit] 18th and 19th centuries

• 1739 ' David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature argues that the problem of induction is unsolvable.
• 1753 ' First description of a controlled experiment using two identical populations with only one variable. James Lind's research into Scurvy among naval ratings contains the ^[5]
• 1812 ' The formulation by Hans Christian Ørsted of the Latin-German mixed term Gedankenexperiment (lit. experiment conducted in the thoughts , or thought experiment). Although the method had been in use by philosophers since antiquity.
• 1815 ' An optimal design for polynomial regression is published by Joseph Diaz Gergonne.
• 1877-1878 ' Charles Sanders Peirce publishes "Illustrations of the Logic of Science", popularizing his trichotomy of Abduction, Deduction and Induction. Peirce explains randomization as a basis for statistical inference.
• 1885 ' C. S. Peirce with Joseph Jastrow invents blinded, randomized experiments, which become established in psychology.^[6]
• 1897 ' Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin proposes the use of multiple hypotheses to assist in the design of experiments.

[edit] 20th and 21st centuries

• 1926 ' Randomized design popularized and analyzed by Ronald Fisher (following Peirce)
• 1934 ' Falsifiability as a criterion for evaluating new hypotheses is popularized by Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery (following Peirce)
• 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. Platt^[7]
• 2009 ' Adam - First working prototype of a "robot scientist" able to perform independent experiments to test hypotheses and interpret findings without human guidance.

[edit] Notes