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The ancient Egyptians used examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to the treatment of diseases, which are all described in Egyptian medical textbooks from around c. 1600 BC.

Did the ancient Egyptians use some kind of scientific method, if not, what is the the earliest accounts of an scientific method for investigating phenomena, and acquiring new knowledge?

VicAche
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WaWaWa
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    The issue is that it is not at all define "the" scientifi method. Observation is part of it and ancient egyptians doctors used observation to acquire knowledge ... – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Nov 08 '14 at 11:41
  • Yes, but mere observation is not a defined methodology. What if I would phrase the question like this instead: What are the earliest accounts for a defined methodology for acquiring knowledge? – WaWaWa Nov 08 '14 at 11:55
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    It does not change ... for me. Francis Bacon spent his life to define "the" scientific methodology and we do not have any scientific discovery made by him, while it is quite impossible to found exactly what was Galileo's method... and he produced an impressive increase of our knowledge of the physical world. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Nov 08 '14 at 11:58
  • What is your source of information about Egyptian medical textbooks of c. 1600 BC ? – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 09 '14 at 02:33
  • Ancient Egyptian Medicine: The Papyrus Ebers by Cyril P. Bryan – WaWaWa Nov 09 '14 at 08:17

1 Answers1

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Of course, the exact definition of the scientific method is open to discussion (and the scientific method may be very different in different sciences, compare chemistry, astronomy, geology and mathematics, for example).

The earliest account that I know of an experimental discovery is physics is credited to Pythagoras. According to the legend, he once visited a blacksmith workshop and noticed that similar metal rods of various length produce sounds of various pitch when struck with a hummer. Apparently he experimented with various rods and strings, and derived the correct law relating the musical intervals with ratios of length of the strings that produce them.

Apparently this discovery impressed him so much that he concluded that "numbers rule the world", which is essentially the main paradigm of exact scienses. In modern formulation: the laws of nature are expressed in mathematical form.

This is what the legend says about the origin of ("Western European") exact science. This happened some time in VI cent. BC.

Somewhat earlier in the same century mathematical method was born: Thales of Miletus proved the first theorems.

Of course, all this information comes from much later secondary sources. So these are property called "legends". But this is the best information we apparently possess.

According to Lucio Russo, with whom I agree, this led to the full development of the scientific method which reached its culmination in II BC and was still practiced in II AD. But then there was an interruption, and all exact science, together with the method were lost almost for a millenium.

It had to be reborn, rediscovered, and this happened in 16-th century, when Francis Bacon explicitly described the newly discovered scientific method. Fortunately, some of the Hellenistic science was preserved outside of Europe.

EDIT. I was asked to add sources.

For the story with Pythagoras, see "Pythagorean hummers" on Wikipedia, it lists original sources.

On Thales, his story is told in almost every history of Greek mathematics, I used van der Waerden, Science awakening.(English tranls. Ocford Univ press 1961). He also has a book on Pythagoreans, but I do not have it besides me.

Lucio Russo's book is called Forgotten revolution (engl. transl. Springer 2004). There is a nice long review of this book in the Notices Amer. Math. Soc., which I believe is freely available. There is about a dozen other reviews online.

Francis Bacon's main work on scientific method is called New Organon (Wikipedia article "Francis Bacon" has a link to a free online version, and actually to cmplete works of Bacon).

Alexandre Eremenko
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  • Could you add some links to sources? – HDE 226868 Nov 08 '14 at 21:53
  • @HDE 226868: I will. I don't remember all sources immediately but I will check and add. – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 08 '14 at 23:37
  • Russo's speculations are interesting but I would take them with a grain of salt, "Russo finds Hellenistic interpretations everywhere, and where there is no text to back him up, he speculates that such a text is lost."http://www.maa.org/publications/maa-reviews/the-forgotten-revolution-how-science-was-born-in-300-bc-and-why-it-had-to-be-reborn. I would also add John Philoponus to the forerunners of the scientific method, "our view may be completely corroborated by actual observation more effectively than by any sort of verbal argument." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Philoponus – Conifold Nov 09 '14 at 00:37
  • You are right about the "grain of salt". He is not very objective in his speculations. However I am convinced that the general picture he gives is right. And I was convinced in this before I read Russo. The evidence is really abundant. – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 09 '14 at 00:46
  • @Conifold: I will be glad to discuss Russo's book by e-mail if you wish. My e-mail is in my profile. The questions discussed in Russo's book are of high interest for me. – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 09 '14 at 02:30
  • I was curious about dynamical theories of planetary motion that he attributes to Hipparchus. But it seems that historians do not find them credible – Conifold Nov 09 '14 at 03:10
  • Neither I believe in dynamical theories of planetary motion. Neither he says that he proved they existed. He just gives some evidence which can be interpreted this way, not very convincing. – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 09 '14 at 03:25
  • But the general picture of scientific revolution he describes is correct. – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 09 '14 at 03:26
  • Some mathematical achievements were not surpassed (or even understood!) until 19 century. The general level of science and technology was comparable to 17 century. And there are convincing proofs of this. – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 09 '14 at 03:30
  • I am reading Russo's book, as it so happens :) I had it laying around. I'd like to suggest that the first explicit statement of scientific method (Stevinus, for example, implicitly worked via what we today would call such a method), where science is the set of provable or proven (at least in the sense of all contradictory claims being falsified) claims and the accepted methods of proof are mathematical inference, experiment, and experience (which can falsify claims were no "all other things the same" clause exists), is found in Leibnitz manuscript essay on chemistry, and Wolff's 1743 book. – Gottfried William Nov 10 '14 at 05:04
  • I think Russo's account, however, is correct in the sense that there was a (published but later lost) convergence toward this method much earlier. BTW, the source for Wolff is {wolff}{christian}{1742}{vernuenfftige gedancken von den kraefften des menschlichen verstandes und ihrem richtigen gebrauche in erkaentniss der wahrheit}{halle, rengerischen buchhandlung}. The Leibnitz source is {1969}{philosophical papers and letters of g.w. leibnitz}{ed, loemker}{dordrecht, reidel} – Gottfried William Nov 10 '14 at 05:19
  • @Guido Jorg: Francis Bacon was long before Leibniz and Wolf. What do you think is missing in Bacon about definition of the scientific method? – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 10 '14 at 14:20
  • God to Leibnitz and Wolff is a sugar coating. (Hence assertion by Newton--who recognized atheism when he saw it--that Leibnitz was an atheist and the 1700's dispute.) The uniform laws of nature (a dynamical system), are the real thing. Unlike Stevinus and Galilei, L and W said so explicitly. Not all experience is "data", for we cannot get cause and effect inferences unless the experiment is well constructed, and so we must begin with theory, mathematics-logic, not, as Bacon claimed, with experiment. Or we do every experiment possible, controlling for many factors in each case. – Gottfried William Nov 10 '14 at 18:01
  • Finally, Leibnitz used the greatest diversity principle (least cost per event principle), a least action principle, to decide what is the case when theory and experiment yield multiple possible solutions. This leads to the modern physics of today, which is both experience based but also highly theoretical, borderline pure mathematics with broad selection principles (e.g., Feynman's methods, Atiyah's methods, etc). And this is precisely what is denied to be valid by Bacon, and by the Scholastics, who like Ockam defended pure contingency, no necessity. – Gottfried William Nov 10 '14 at 18:06
  • Regarding Bacon, I agree basically with the commentary of Jevons in his Principles of Science (1874) Bacon was a positivist and an instrumentalist. He recommended experience and experiment but did not insist upon controls when collecting data. To decide which controls are required itself requires mathematical theory. He also did not believe in any uniform causality in nature, only pure contingency (a medieval viewpoint). This is only be justified the claim: all is will of god. A pure contingency view minus god is belief in god too: a god shaped gap in causality. Which is religion, not science. – Gottfried William Nov 10 '14 at 18:08
  • @Guido Jorg: Thanks for the explanation. Let me only add that scientific principles were practiced before their exact statement by philosophers. For example Newton, Hooke, Boyle and even Galileo were true modern scientists from my point of view. – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 10 '14 at 20:20
  • I agree. Many individuals practised modern science long before anybody wrote an explicit epistemology. They did so in a hostile environment (given the accepted ontology was faith in absence of any uniform laws to be found), however, which probably discouraged most people from doing modern science, hence the fewness of these individuals compared to the number of scientists starting at 1630+. As Russo points out, Archimedes and other around the same time had de re dynamical theories. – Gottfried William Nov 12 '14 at 07:30