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The history of scientific method is a history of the methodology of scientific inquiry, as differentiated from a history of science in general. The development and elaboration of rules for scientific reasoning and investigation has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and many eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for the primacy of one or another approach to establishing scientific knowledge. Despite the many disagreements about primacy of one approach over another, there also have been many identifiable trends and historical markers in the several-millennia-long development of scientific method into present-day forms. Some of the most important debates in the history of scientific method center on: rationalism, especially as advocated by René Descartes ==Early methodology== There are few explicit discussions of scientific methodologies in surviving records from early cultures. The most that can be inferred about the approaches to undertaking science in this period stems from descriptions of early investigations into nature, in the surviving records. An Egyptian medical textbook, the Edwin Smith papyrus, (c. 1600 BC), applies the following components: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to the treatment of disease,〔http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9032043&query=Edwin%20Smith%20papyrus&ct=〕 which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and according to G. E. R. Lloyd〔Lloyd, G. E. R. "The development of empirical research", in his ''Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Development of Greek Science''.〕 played a significant role in the development of this methodology. The Ebers papyrus (c. 1550 BC) also contains evidence of traditional empiricism. By the middle of the 1st millennium BC in Mesopotamia, Babylonian astronomy had evolved into the earliest example of a scientific astronomy, as it was "the first and highly successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena." According to the historian Asger Aaboe, "all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West – if not indeed all subsequent endeavour in the exact sciences – depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways." The early Babylonians and Egyptians developed much technical knowledge, crafts, and mathematics〔Egypt, cradle of mathematics * "The cradle of mathematics is in Egypt." – Aristotle, ''Metaphysics'', as cited on page 1 of Olaf Pedersen (1993) ''Early physics and astronomy: a historical introduction'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, revised edition 〕 used in practical tasks of divination, as well as a knowledge of medicine,〔 "There each man is a leech skilled beyond all human kind; yea, for they are of the race of Paeeon." – Homer, ''Odyssey'' book IV, acknowledges the skill of the ancient Egyptians in medicine. 〕 and made lists of various kinds. While the Babylonians in particular had engaged in the earliest forms of an empirical mathematical science, with their early attempts at mathematically describing natural phenomena, they generally lacked underlying rational theories of nature.〔 It was the ancient Greeks who engaged in the earliest forms of what is today recognized as a rational theoretical science,〔〔Yves Gingras, Peter Keating, and Camille Limoges, ''Du scribe au savant: Les porteurs du savoir de l'antiquité à la révolution industrielle,'' Presses universitaires de France, 1998.〕 with the move towards a more rational understanding of nature which began at least since the Archaic Period (650 – 480 BC) with the Presocratic school. Thales was the first to use natural explanations, proclaiming that every event had a natural cause, even though he is known for saying "all things are full of gods" and scarified an ox when he discovered his theorem. Leucippus, went on to develop the theory of atomism – the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms. This was elaborated in great detail by Democritus. Similar atomist ideas emerged independently among ancient Indian philosophers of the Nyaya, Vaisesika and Buddhist schools.〔Oliver Leaman, ''Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy.'' Routledge, 1999 , page 269.〕 In particular,like the Nyaya, Vaisesika, and Buddhist schools, the Cārvāka epistemology was also materialist, and skeptical enough to admit only perception as the basis for unconditionally true knowledge, while cautioning that if one could only infer a truth, then one must also harbor a doubt about that truth; an inferred truth could not be unconditional.〔 Kamal, MM (1998), "The Epistemology of the Carvaka Philosophy", ''Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies'', 46(2): pp.13-16〕 Towards the middle of the 5th century BC, some of the components of a scientific tradition were already heavily established, even before Plato, who was an important contributor to this emerging tradition, thanks to the development of deductive reasoning, as propounded by his student, Aristotle. In ''Protagoras'' (318d-f), Plato mentions the teaching of arithmetic, astronomy and geometry in schools. The philosophical ideas of this time were mostly freed from the constraints of everyday phenomena and common sense. This denial of reality as we experience it reaches an extreme in Parmenides who argued that the world is one and that change and subdivision do not exist. In the 3rd and 4th centuries BC, the Greek physicians Herophilos (335–280 BC) and Erasistratus of Chios employed experiments to further their medical research; Erasistratus at one time repeatedly weighing a caged bird, and noting its weight loss between feeding times.〔Barnes, ''Hellenistic Philosophy and Science'', pp. 383–384〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of scientific method」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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