---
title: "History of scientific method"
chunk: 11/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:43:10.599999+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Investigation, or the art of inquiring into the nature of causes and their operation, is a leading characteristic of reason [...] Investigation implies three things – Observation, Hypothesis, and Experiment [...] The first step in the process, it will be perceived, is to observe...
In 1885, the words "Scientific method" appear together with a description of the method in Francis Ellingwood Abbot's 'Scientific Theism',

Now all the established truths which are formulated in the multifarious propositions of science have been won by the use of Scientific Method. This method consists in essentially three distinct steps (1) observation and experiment, (2) hypothesis, (3) verification by fresh observation and experiment.
The Eleventh Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica did not include an article on scientific method; the Thirteenth Edition listed scientific management, but not method. By the Fifteenth Edition, a 1-inch article in the Micropædia of Britannica was part of the 1975 printing, while a fuller treatment (extending across multiple articles, and accessible mostly via the index volumes of Britannica) was available in later printings.

== Current issues ==
In the past few centuries, some statistical methods have been developed, for reasoning in the face of uncertainty, as an outgrowth of methods for eliminating error. This was an echo of the program of Francis Bacon's Novum Organum of 1620. Bayesian inference acknowledges one's ability to alter one's beliefs in the face of evidence. This has been called belief revision, or defeasible reasoning: the models in play during the phases of scientific method can be reviewed, revisited and revised, in the light of further evidence. This arose from the work of Frank P. Ramsey
(1903–1930), of John Maynard Keynes
(1883–1946), and earlier, of William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) in economics.

== Science and pseudoscience ==
The question of how science operates and therefore how to distinguish genuine science from pseudoscience has importance well beyond scientific circles or the academic community. In the judicial system and in public policy controversies, for example, a study's deviation from accepted scientific practice is grounds for rejecting it as junk science or pseudoscience. However, the high public perception of science means that pseudoscience is widespread. An advertisement in which an actor wears a white coat and product ingredients are given Greek or Latin sounding names is intended to give the impression of scientific endorsement. Richard Feynman has likened pseudoscience to cargo cults in which many of the external forms are followed, but the underlying basis is missing: that is, fringe or alternative theories often present themselves with a pseudoscientific appearance to gain acceptance.

== See also ==
Timeline of the history of the scientific method

== Notes and references ==

== Sources ==
Asmis, Elizabeth (January 1984), Epicurus' Scientific method, vol. 42, Cornell University Press, p. 386, ISBN 978-0-8014-6682-3, JSTOR 10.7591/j.cttq45z9
Debus, Allen G. (1978), Man and Nature in the Renaissance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-29328-6
Morelon, Régis; Rashed, Roshdi, eds. (1996), Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, vol. 3, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415124102
Popkin, Richard H. (1979), The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-03876-2
Popkin, Richard H. (2003), The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-510768-3. Third enlarged edition.
Sanches, Francisco (1636), Opera medica. His iuncti sunt tratus quidam philosophici non insubtiles, Toulosae tectosagum  as cited by Sanches, Limbrick & Thomson 1988
Sanches, Francisco (1649), Tractatus philosophici. Quod Nihil Scitur. De divinatione per somnum, ad Aristotlem. In lib. Aristoteles Physionomicon commentarius. De longitudine et brevitate vitae., Roterodami: ex officina Arnoldi Leers  as cited by Sanches, Limbrick & Thomson 1988
Sanches, Francisco; Limbrick, Elaine. Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography; Thomson, Douglas F.S. Latin text established, annotated, and translated. (1988), That Nothing is Known, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-35077-8{{citation}}:  CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Critical edition of Sanches' Quod Nihil Scitur Latin: (1581, 1618, 1649, 1665), Portuguese: (1948, 1955, 1957), Spanish: (1944, 1972), French: (1976, 1984), German: (2007)
Vives, Ioannes Lodovicus (1531), De Disciplinis libri XX, Antwerpiae: exudebat M. Hillenius English translation: On Discipline.
Part 1: De causis corruptarum artium,
Part 2: De tradendis disciplinis
Part 3: De artibus