The Scientific Method/Timeline

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 more detailed account see History of Scientific Thought.

• 2000 BCE — First text indexes (various cultures).
• 320 BCE — Aristotle, comprehensive documents categorising and subdividing knowledge, dividing knowledge into different areas (physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, and biology).
• 200 BCE — First cataloged library (at Alexandria).
• 800 CE — Arguably the scientific method in many of its modern forms is developed in some aspects of early Islamic philosophy, theology, and law. In particular the methods of citation, peer review, and open inquiry leading to development of consensus.
• 1015 CE — Alhazen used experimental methods to obtain the results in his book Optics In particular, he combined observations and rational arguments 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 CE — Ockham's razor clearly formulated (by William of Ockham)
• 1403 CE — Yongle Encyclopedia, the first collaborative encyclopedia.
• 1590 CE — First controlled experiment (Francis Bacon).
• 1600 CE — First dedicated laboratory.
• 1620 CE — Novum Organum published (Francis Bacon).
• 1637 CE — First Scientific Method (René Descartes).
• 1650 CE — First formally organized society of experts (the Royal Society).
• 1650 CE — Experimental evidence established as the arbiter of truth (the Royal Society).
• 1665 CE — Repeatability established (Robert Boyle).
• 1665 CE — Scholarly journals established.
• 1675 CE — Peer review begun.
• 1687 CE — Hypothesis/prediction (Isaac Newton).
• 1710 CE — The problem of induction identified by David Hume.
• 1753 CE — Description of a controlled experiment using two identical populations with only one variable (James Lind's A Treatise of the Scurvy).
• 1926 CE — Randomized design (Ronald Fisher).
• 1934 CE — Falsifiability as a criterion for evaluating new hypotheses (Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery).
• 1937 CE — First controlled placebo trial.
• 1946 CE — First computer simulation.
• 1950 CE — First double blind experiment.
• 1962 CE — Meta study of scientific method (Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).