Talk:History of scientific method/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Islamic vs. Middle Eastern

Why are the Middle eastern philosophers called "Islamic", but the European scientists aren't called "Christian"? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to call the Middle Eastern scientists "Middle Eastern", or the European Scientists "Christian", for consistency? I know that Newton, Descartes and Bacon were strong believers in some form of Christianity. So was Galileo despite his feud with the Pope. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.209.224.15 (talk) 14:29, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

The 'Islamic' in Islamic science or scientist refers to the Islamic Empire and not to the religion. This is a standard usage in the history of science the alternative is to refer to Arabic science or scientists as this was the language in which their work was written. In fact the scientists referred to are neither all Islamic nor all Arabic many being Sabian, Jewish or even Christian and ethnically from many peoples e.g. Persian, Usbek, Berber etc.etc. However they all have in common that they are residents of the Islamic Empire and therefore the terminology.

It is also common practice to refer to all mediaeval European scientists as 'Mediaeval'. It is first with the change from the universal use of Latin in science to national languages that historians start to refer to scientists as Italian, German, english etc. etc.Thony C. (talk) 18:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Thony C., thank you for the explanation. I took the liberty of putting this explanation in a note after first occurrence of 'Islamic'. Please feel free to revert if you deem fit. Upon reading further down the page, is it appropriate to replace the occurrences of 'Muslim' with 'Islamic'? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 02:24, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Descartes, Aristotle and Plato

I would like to add something in Descartes section, to the following statement:

"Despite his apparent departure from the Aristotelian system, a number of his critics felt that Descartes had done little more than replace the primary premises of Aristotle with those of his own"

The Cartesian system, though, was not Aristotelian, but Platonic, since Descartes believed in the Platonic “innate ideas”, and therefore the first causes had to be established by reasoning, and not by induction based in observations made by the senses, as these were not to be trusted.

This is well exposed by Alexandre Koyré: Introduction a la Lecture de Platon, suivi de Entretiens sur Descartes, Gallimard, p 203

So, I propose to add the following paragraph:

It is to be noted, never the less, that Aristotle proposed to arrive to the first principles by induction, whereas Descartes used only the reason to obtain them. In that sense, he was a Platonic, as he believed in the innate ideas, as opposed to Aristotle Tabula Rasa, and stated that the seeds of science are inside us (sunt in nobis semina scientiarum). Auró (talk) 16:02, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me. --ChrisSteinbach (talk) 20:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Herophilos's Experimental method, Medicine

Should Herophilosbe included into this as he is suggested to have introduced some experimental method to medicine. Faro0485 (talk) 21:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Is this change OK? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 03:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I've got no problems with itThony C. (talk) 06:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Max Plank and Kuhn

User:Bdmclean has made a modification in Popper and Kuhn paragraph. There was a quoting from Kuhn, whose attribution has changed to Max Plank. The Kuhn quoting was unsupported by reference, and the Max Plank is also unsupported. I think that both men made a similar remark concerning the subject, but at present I am not able to find the references. Can anyone help?Auró (talk) 06:11, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

User:Rjm at sleepers has aptly solved this quoting question.Auró (talk) 14:32, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Jagged

This article seems to have suffered a bad case of Jagged William M. Connolley (talk) 08:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It certainly has, with interpretations wildly overstated. This is a poor article anyway, failing on several other counts. The credit to Plato: "Plato is an important contributor to this emerging tradition" [that is, the growing components of a scientific tradition]. This is almost lunatic, for it would be hard to find another ancient philosopher whose ideas were so contrary to science, almost to the point of its being a cliché. Leaves out Hooke and Halley (who were real scientists), leaves out the question of scientific method in the 'historical' sciences... If I drop it to C-class, that's being too generous. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Reporting bias

I just discovered that the reporting bias article lists 6 red links in a list of seven; can any editor steer us toward more sources? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

experimental method

Where are Archimedes or Hero ?

Who does not know the scientific experiments of Archimedes or Hero? Example: Buoyancy, incompressibility and density of metals: as you can see that gold is real gold.

Galileo cites Archimedes as ispirator of the experimental method as opposed to Aristotle that is experiential. Galileo claims to use the method of Archimedes. The "Eureka" story about Archimedes and the bath tub was as well known in Galileo's day as it is in ours. Galileo, who was a great admirer of Archimedes and adopted many of his methods, probably read it in one of the editions of Vitruvius's The Ten Books on Architecture,which was very popular in Renaissance Europe. I remember the Leonardo edition with notes of Vitruvius's book. A bible of applied science.... with the the excellent summary of the Greek and Renaissance anatomical analysis: The Vitruvian's Man that is Logo of The Science that we use also today. A few thin stripes of text would not hurt .... --Andriolo (talk) 17:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Archimedes tried to reproduce the phenomenon in laboratory simulating the conditions as Galileo, instead Aristotle who, like many others, observed the phenomenon in nature.

--Andriolo (talk) 21:38, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Andriolo, thank you for your commentary; I personally hold Archimedes & Eratosthenes to be the Alpha & Beta of Hellenist science, and agree that the Hellenes merit more mention in the article. One of the omissions of the article is the role of the engineers and workmen in both Archimedes' and Galileo's time. For example when Archimedes was aiding the defense of Syracuse against the ships of the Roman Republic, he must have been leading workmen to direct mirrors upon the Roman ships with authority delegated to him by the king. Similarly, when Galileo was timing the motion of a bronze ball rolling down a molding, a craftsman must have created that molding, and it must have been expensive and probably adhered to the standards of Vitruvius. Both Archimedes and Galileo must have been working with teams. Perhaps they merely purchased items from a marketplace. Galileo specifically mentions his observations of workers in Two New Sciences. Does Archimedes? In any event, it took resources-- time, money, equipment, materials, processes, and the expertise of people. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 08:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Behind every artist there is a “bottega artigiana” o “scuola” the same was true for the big names of Science in Renaissance as in Antiquity. We know that existed in Rodi a school specialized on “automata” as behind Archimedes in Syracusa. In Renaissance the European scientists knew each other and knew the fragments of ancient works through the Latin translations of Greek and Arabic texts. Many Greek texts had came in Europe with the fall of Constantinople 1453 see Biblioteca Marciana (founder Bessarion). Example Copernicus knew Aristarchus from Ptolemy indeed Ptolemy to support his idea must criticize Aristarchus. Also Tycho Brahe has formulated a similar idea of Heraclides Ponticus. And the Galileo and Giordano Bruno idea of infinity universe is similar Seleuco of Seleucia on Tigris. The idea of Giordano Bruno on the infinity of inhabited worlds, we can find in Anaxagoras. After all, today with the dark energy teory we have in part taken older Ether theory indeed It seems that the theory of cosmic vacuum has several cracks. In Renaissance, often without paved Roman road, the ideas circulating at an incredible speed, a few month after the first telescope was built in Netherlands, it was used in Venice or Padua. However, very often these teams, especially in classic epoch were anonymous we know of them only from some fragment and archeology. Until the Renaissance and for some aspects until XVIII century, in Italy thought to be inferior to the Romans. A classic example is the Roman hydraulic technology, not inferior to ours. I live in Italy and I see it. Not only aqueducts, bridges (that today we across with cars) and pipelines. The Ancient Mediterreneans had the taps in the house .... public toilets, public bath ecc. also for common people. Indeed today, in Italy the public toilets, are called “Vespasiani” from the name of Vespasianus that very attentive to public hygiene ;-) put a tax on public toilets. Is it possible this tecnology without experimental method ? Sincerely I don’t know. Unfortunately, we have only fragments. We are all agree that the scientific method is born in Renaissance, but when I see roman ruins, temples, acqueducts, complex granite manufact, areas of hundreds of square miles artificially altered, the impressive statuary that we were able to copy only with Michelangelo and in some aspects only with Canova. .... I remain perplex. Surely our great revolution is the abolition of slavery and the individual rights no more based on census. About the rest, we hope that our technique makes our civilization eternal.

But soon I will have free time I'll add something about the roman-hellenistic precursors of the scientific method, help me.

--Andriolo (talk) 23:00, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Archimedes wrote a work that came us only fragments and rediscovered in 1900 entitled "Method," which seems to criticize the deduction. Especially relativized the initial axioms. The work is an analysis of Eratosthenes. For Archimedes mathematics is an essential instrument for induction. In this argument he overcomes both Plato and Aristotle. With the fall of Constantinople in 1454, arrived in western Europe a numerous number of inedit ancient greek fragments, text and especially people who were able to read greek direcly and traslate into latin. Before this date, paradoxically, what was known of Greek texts came from Arab world. A big part of Proclo Liber de Causis is traslated from Arabic. In medieval West Europe existed only texts accepted by the church, as Ptolomy and Aristotle. For example numerous Neoplatonic text (very important for modern world) arrived only in XV century. Many scientists attending Neoplatonic or Neo-Pythagorean circles as Descarts, Newton, Boyle, Galileo ecc ecc. The influence of Archimede it is possible to see also in Galileo Theoremata circa centrum gravitatis solidorum, 1638 that influenced Newton and in Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze. Into the second book Galileo say “I read Archimedes with amazement...” About Descartes « Archimède, pour tirer le globe terrestre de sa place et le transporter en un autre lieu, ne demanderait rien qu’un point qui fût fixe et assuré. Ainsi, j’aurai droit de concevoir de hautes espérances si je suis assez heureux pour trouver seulement une chose qui soit certaine et indubitable. », Méditations, 1641. For scientists of the sixteenth he was indubetely the father of experimental scientific method with mathematical base and they gave him more importance than Aristotle. To say that Archimedes was a modern scientist, I should mention Galileo or Descartes .... My difficulty is to summarize and find a simple reference and my bibliography is all in italian language. As Galileo and Descartes, we all know that they are scientists, but it is hard to find a book that says explicitly that they are scientists. The same problem is for Archimedes. --Andriolo (talk) 22:48, 17 June 2011 (UTC) I could mention Geymonat or Canfora. To many italian scholars he is considered an Scientist in the modern sense as Galileo, indeed he uses a experimental and inductive method. See Method (document discovered in 1906).

If we accept this view we must say that the scientific method was already present in the ancient world, even if limited to a branch of Pythagorean school. It is sufficienly to see also in google books (Archimedes) this view is widespread. Have you an opinion ?

Very interesting on the decline and disappearance of scientific mentality in the late antiquity. The reason defeat by faith and fundamentalism. ecc. http://books.google.it/books?id=ddzSELFsHD0C&pg=PA150&dq=archimede+e+la+scienza&hl=it&ei=tub7TZ7SEYnt-gaHpbnZAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=archimede%20&f=false --Andriolo (talk) 23:37, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

On Leonardo

Leonardo is not an isolated genius but is integrated into Renaissance knowledge but I think it isn't a true modern (as today we intend) scientist. I recall in this regard the for example contemporary Fra'Giocondo, Pacioli, Gabriele Falloppio and numerous others (true modern scientists that used scientific method) and only to make some example: the anatomy halls of University of Padua and Bologna, The Botanical Garden of Padua of 1545. I would say compared to others Leonardo is too eclectic to the detriment of quality and precision of the work. He is more similar to the hellenistic scholars. Roman hydraulic engineers excluded indeed they were armed with Abacus.... ;-)

--Andriolo (talk) 22:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Well done on the intro

I've not kept a watch on this page as often as I used to and so it is only now that I notice that the introduction has changed substantially for the better (from, let's say, one or two years ago). Well done to whoever has worked on it. --ChrisSteinbach (talk) 10:09, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Rationalism vs Empiricism

This article jumps to incorrect conclusions about what it means to be empiricist or rationalist. Neither emphasis implies a rejection of the other: Rationalists use empiricism and empiricists use rationalism. To describe some sort of conceptual battle between Descartes and Galileo is to misconstrue the fact that they jointly played a vital role in the development of the scientific method. The Descartes→Newton sections of the article are bogged down with misinterpretations; it underplays Descartes' role in favor of emphasizing Bacon and Galileo as if they were anti-rationalist. To someone not familiar with the subject, the article would be confusing as to the influences of these people. The author seems partial to empiricist emphasis and downplays the basis of the scientific method in rationalist philosophy. Boleroinferno (talk) 05:35, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

See that there is a section whose title is "Integrating deductive and inductive method", and a quotation from Öersted that makes a good synthesis. Nevertheless the article has room for improvement.--Auró (talk) 22:07, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

@Boleroinferno: I am guilty of producing some of the content in this article and I'm always interested to see how it changes. I look forward to seeing your edits. --ChrisSteinbach (talk) 07:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Popkin's contribution to history of scientific method (1979)

There is a thread on Talk:Scientific method which shows how a physician, Francisco Sanches (1551-1623) contributed to the rise of a scientific method. Following Popkin's 1979 contribution in English, Elaine Limbrick 1988 shows the influence of the method of medicine, introduced by Galen of Pergamon (129 AD - c. 200 AD). Galen was the authority for Western medicine for over 1300 years, finally peaking in 1560 (at the onset of the scientific revolution). Limbrick establishes that physicians such as Niccolò Leoniceno (late 15th c.), and Thomas Linacre, translator of Galen's Methodus Medendi (1519), and humanists such as Juan Luis Vives (16th c.) were active influences on Sanches' search for a scientific method. In fact, Popkin shows that Sanches first introduces the term, in a title Método universal de las ciencias which was extant at least til 1701. In his Quod Nihil Scitur, which is still available to us, Sanches uses the Latin 'modus sciendi'. Étienne Gilson's critical edition of Descartes' Discourse on Method uses the first 20 lines of Sanches' Quod Nihil Scitur to introduce Descartes.

Sanches was better known to Portugese scholars, as Sanches had Portugese roots before his medical and academic career in Toulouse, France. It was not until Popkin's contributions, which trace the effect of Skepticism on our civilization, that Sanches became better known in English realms.

Would it OK with the editors of this article for us to add this type of material, which transitions scientific method from the contributions from the time of Roger Bacon to the time of Rene Descartes?. I propose that we augment this article to show some contributions of Renaissance medicine and humanism to our modern scientific method. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:12, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I think adding earlier philosophical discussions of scientific methods would be a very good move. In that regard, drawing on Popkin's The History of Scepticism from Savanarola to Bayle seems appropriate. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Ancheta and Steve, here are what I humbly submit are pertinent bits of Popkin (from the 2003 edition which incorporates references to Limbrick):

..it is my contention that scepticism plays a special and different role in the period extending from the religious quarrels leading to the Reformation up to the development of modern metaphysical systems in the seventeenth century; a special and different role due to the fact that the intellectual crisis brought on by the Reformation coincided in time with the rediscovery and revival of the arguments of the ancient Greek sceptics. (p.xix-xx)

…prior to the publication of Sextus Empiricus [in 1562 and ‘69], there does not seem to be very much serious philosophical consideration of scepticism. (p.35)

Sanches is more interesting than any of the other sceptics of the sixteenth century, except Montaigne, in that his reasons for his doubts are neither the anti-intellectual ones of someone like Agrippa nor the suspicion that knowledge is unattainable just because learned men have disagreed up to now. Rather, his claim that nihil scitur is argued for on philosophical grounds, on a rejection of Aristotelianism, and an epistemological analysis of what the object of knowledge and the knower are like.

…

Since, as he had shown, nothing can be known, Sanches put forward a procedure, not to gain knowledge but to deal constructively with human experience. This procedure, for which he introduced the term (for the first time) scientific method, “Metodo universal de las ciencias,” consists in patient, careful empirical research and cautious judgment and evaluation of the data we observe. This would not lead, as his contemporary Francis Bacon thought, to a key to knowledge of the world. But it would allow us to obtain the best information available. …In advancing this limited or constructive view of science, Sanches was the first Renaissance sceptic to conceive of science in its modern form, as the fruitful activity about the study of nature that remained after one had given up the search for absolutely certain knowledge of the nature of things. (p.41)

The experimentalism advocated by Sanches has been taken by some as evidence that he was not a real sceptic but an empiricist breaking new ground and preparing the way for Francis Bacon…. However, I think that Sanches’ own analysis of knowledge casts doubt on this evaluation. Unlike both Bacon and Descartes, who thought they had a means of refuting the sceptical attack, Sanches accepted it as decisive, and then, not in answer to it but in keeping with it, he offered his positive program. This positive program was offered not as a way of obtaining true knowledge but as the only remaining substitute, because nihil scitur, somewhat like the approach Mersenne later developed in his “constructive scepticism.”

…It appears that only in the last hundred years has [Sanches] risen to being considered “one of the most keen-sighted and advanced thinkers of the seventeenth century” [footnote: Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance, p.640] or even superior to Montaigne because, it has been said, “Sanches was the only sceptic who at the same time was a positive thinker” and who, as a result, can be portrayed as a precursor of Descartes [footnote: Coralnik, “Franciscus Sanches,” pp.193 and 195]. (p.42) Pertin1x (talk) 21:59, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I recommend the BBC podcast of In Our Time this week on Scepticism (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kblc3). The contributors don't mention Sanches but do stress the impact of the 1562 publication of Sextus in Latin on the emergence of modern science. They mention the two types of response: scepticism as a difficulty to be overcome (Descartes) and as a wholly new approach (e.g. Gassendi) and say the Royal Society adopted the latter citing Boyle's The Sceptical Chymist. If being first in this line of thinking is a claim to fame then that is Sanches' significance. Even if he wasn't widely influential he predated the RS's father figure Bacon in putting scepticism at the philosophical heart of science. The article is hot on personalities but could be stronger on this epochal shift from mediaeval to modern which, sure, started back with Erasmus and Luther etc but gelled decisively with Sextus' reappearance and the response of Sanches and Montaigne.Pertin1x (talk) 07:28, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I've risked it and inserted a para to introduce skepticism in a way that reflects its impact and leads into Sanches and Bacon etc. Pertin1x (talk) 11:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your considered contribution. It's good. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 11:58, 28 November 2012 (UTC)