45
See also: Alhazen 28–29 ■ Galileo Galilei 42–43 ■ William Gilbert 44 ■
Robert Hooke 54 ■ Isaac Newton 62–69T
he English philosopher,
statesman, and scientist
Francis Bacon was not
the first to conduct experiments—
Alhazen and other Arab scientists
conducted them 600 years earlier—
but he was the first to explain the
methods of inductive reasoning and
set out the scientific method. He
also saw science as a “spring of a
progeny of inventions, which shall
overcome, to some extent, and
subdue our needs and miseries.”Evidence from experiment
According to the Greek philosopher
Plato, truth was found by authority
and argument—if enough intelligent
men discussed something for long
enough, the truth would result. His
student, Aristotle, saw no need for
experiments. Bacon parodied such
“authorities” as spiders, spinning
webs from their own substance. He
insisted on evidence from the real
world, particularly from experiment.
Two key works by Bacon laid
out the future of scientific inquiry.
In Novum Organum (1620), he sets
out his three fundamentals for thescientific method: observation,
deduction to formulate a theory
that might explain what has been
observed, and experiment to test
whether the theory is correct. In
The New Atlantis (1623), Bacon
describes a fictitious island and
its House of Salomon—a research
institution where scholars conduct
pure research centered on
experiment and make inventions.
Sharing those goals, the Royal
Society was founded in 1660 in
London, with Robert Hooke as its
first Curator of Experiments. ■SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
NOT BY ARGUING,
BUT BY TRYING
FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626)
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Experimental science
BEFORE
4th century BCE Aristotle
deduces, argues, and writes,
but does not test with
experiments—his methods
persist for the next millennium.
c.750–1250 CE Arab scientists
conduct experiments during
the Golden Age of Islam.
AFTER
1630s Galileo experiments
with falling bodies.
1637 French philosopher René
Descartes insists on rigorous
scepticism and inquiry in his
Discourse on Method.
1665 Isaac Newton uses a
prism to investigate light.
1963 In Conjectures and
Refutations, the Austrian
philosopher Karl Popper insists
that a theory may be tested
and proved false, but cannot
conclusively be proved correct.
Whether or no anything can
be known, can be settled not
by arguing, but by trying.
Francis Bacon