Timeline of the history of scientific method

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.


 * 2000 BC — First text indexes (various cultures).
 * 320 BC — Aristotle, comprehensive documents categorising and subdividing knowledge, dividing knowledge into different areas (physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, and biology).
 * 200 BC — First Cataloged library (at Alexandria)
 * 800 AD — An early experimental method began emerging among Muslim chemists beginning with Geber who introduced controlled experiments. Other fields (early Islamic philosophy, theology, law and science of hadith) introduced the methods of citation, peer review and open inquiry leading to development of consensus.
 * 1000 - The Iraqi Muslim scientist Alhazen introduced the experimental method and combined observations, experiments and rational arguments in his Book of Optics to show that his intromission theory of vision was scientifically correct, and that the emission theory of vision supported by Ptolemy and Euclid was wrong.
 * 1327 — Ockham's razor clearly formulated (by William of Ockham)
 * 1403 — Yongle Encyclopedia, the first collaborative encyclopedia
 * 1590 — Controlled experiments by Francis Bacon
 * 1600 — First dedicated laboratory
 * 1620 — Novum Organum published, (Francis Bacon)
 * 1637 — First Scientific method (René Descartes)
 * 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)
 * 1710 — The problem of induction identified by David Hume
 * 1753 — Description of a controlled experiment using two identical populations with only one variable.
 * 1926 — Randomized design
 * 1934 — Falsifiability as a criterion for evaluating new hypotheses (Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery)
 * 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