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124-490: The first scientific investigations of güevedoces occurred in the 1970s, when Julianne Imperato-McGinley, an endocrinologist from Cornell University , traveled to the village of Las Salinas in the Dominican Republic to investigate reports of apparently female children becoming male children at the onset of puberty . The cause was determined to be 5α-Reductase deficiency , and the results were published in

248-447: A crucial experiment . If the experimental results confirm the predictions, then the hypotheses are considered more likely to be correct, but might still be wrong and continue to be subject to further testing. The experimental control is a technique for dealing with observational error. This technique uses the contrast between multiple samples, or observations, or populations, under differing conditions, to see what varies or what remains

372-465: A seismometer in 132 CE which provided instant alert to authorities in the capital Luoyang that an earthquake had occurred in a location indicated by a specific cardinal or ordinal direction . Although no tremors could be felt in the capital when Zhang told the court that an earthquake had just occurred in the northwest, a message came soon afterwards that an earthquake had indeed struck 400 to 500 km (250 to 310 mi) northwest of Luoyang (in what

496-430: A third gender " by their cultures, while the cultures "nevertheless recognize only two gender roles". Scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has been referred to while doing science since at least the 17th century. The scientific method involves careful observation coupled with rigorous scepticism , because cognitive assumptions can distort

620-410: A 1919 solar eclipse supported General Relativity rather than Newtonian gravitation . [REDACTED] Watson and Crick showed an initial (and incorrect) proposal for the structure of DNA to a team from King's College London – Rosalind Franklin , Maurice Wilkins , and Raymond Gosling . Franklin immediately spotted the flaws which concerned the water content. Later Watson saw Franklin's photo 51 ,

744-576: A case of the Mean Value theorem in his commentaries on Govindasvāmi and Bhāskara II . The Yuktibhāṣā was written by Jyeshtadeva in 1530. The first textual mention of astronomical concepts comes from the Vedas , religious literature of India. According to Sarma (2008): "One finds in the Rigveda intelligent speculations about the genesis of the universe from nonexistence, the configuration of

868-518: A controlled setting, such as a laboratory, or made on more or less inaccessible or unmanipulatable objects such as stars or human populations. The measurements often require specialized scientific instruments such as thermometers , spectroscopes , particle accelerators , or voltmeters , and the progress of a scientific field is usually intimately tied to their invention and improvement. I am not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations. The scientific definition of

992-479: A deficiency in the enzyme 5α-reductase . 5α-Reductase is responsible for the reduction of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is the hormone responsible for the majority of embryonic development of primary male sexual characteristics such as genital size. However, the oxidized form of the hormone, testosterone, promotes secondary sex characteristics . Thus, an XY child without functioning 5α-reductase cannot convert testosterone into

1116-411: A detailed X-ray diffraction image, which showed an X-shape and was able to confirm the structure was helical. Once predictions are made, they can be sought by experiments. If the test results contradict the predictions, the hypotheses which entailed them are called into question and become less tenable. Sometimes the experiments are conducted incorrectly or are not very well designed when compared to

1240-433: A drug to cure this particular disease?" This stage frequently involves finding and evaluating evidence from previous experiments, personal scientific observations or assertions, as well as the work of other scientists. If the answer is already known, a different question that builds on the evidence can be posed. When applying the scientific method to research, determining a good question can be very difficult and it will affect

1364-431: A guideline for proceeding: The iterative cycle inherent in this step-by-step method goes from point 3 to 6 and back to 3 again. While this schema outlines a typical hypothesis/testing method, many philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science, including Paul Feyerabend , claim that such descriptions of scientific method have little relation to the ways that science is actually practiced. The basic elements of

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1488-640: A period of initial urban development in the Preclassical period , the Classic Maya civilization (c. 250 CE – c. 900 CE) built on the shared heritage of the Olmecs by developing the most sophisticated systems of writing , astronomy , calendrical science , and mathematics among Mesoamerican peoples. The Maya developed a positional numeral system with a base of 20 that included the use of zero for constructing their calendars. Maya writing, which

1612-589: A person became ill, doctors prescribed magical formulas to be recited as well as medicinal treatments. The earliest medical prescriptions appear in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur ( c. 2112 BCE – c. 2004 BCE). The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū , or chief scholar, Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa , during

1736-403: A phenomenon under study. Albert Einstein once observed that "there is no logical bridge between phenomena and their theoretical principles." Charles Sanders Peirce , borrowing a page from Aristotle ( Prior Analytics , 2.25 ) described the incipient stages of inquiry , instigated by the "irritation of doubt" to venture a plausible guess, as abductive reasoning . The history of science

1860-666: A physician, nurse and patient necessary for recovery to health. An ancient Indian treatise on statecraft , economic policy and military strategy by Kautilya and Viṣhṇugupta , who are traditionally identified with Chāṇakya (c. 350–283 BCE). In this treatise, the behaviors and relationships of the people, the King, the State, the Government Superintendents, Courtiers, Enemies, Invaders, and Corporations are analyzed and documented. Roger Boesche describes

1984-434: A plane from New York to Paris is an experiment that tests the aerodynamical hypotheses used for constructing the plane. These institutions thereby reduce the research function to a cost/benefit, which is expressed as money, and the time and attention of the researchers to be expended, in exchange for a report to their constituents. Current large instruments, such as CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), or LIGO , or

2108-410: A predecessor idea, but perhaps more in its ability to stimulate the research that will illuminate ... bald suppositions and areas of vagueness. In general, scientists tend to look for theories that are " elegant " or " beautiful ". Scientists often use these terms to refer to a theory that is following the known facts but is nevertheless relatively simple and easy to handle. Occam's Razor serves as

2232-687: A refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena." According to the historian A. 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." To the Babylonians and other Near Eastern cultures, messages from

2356-408: A role, for instance. The history of scientific method considers changes in the methodology of scientific inquiry, not the history of science itself. The development of rules for scientific reasoning has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for

2480-519: A rule of thumb for choosing the most desirable amongst a group of equally explanatory hypotheses. To minimize the confirmation bias that results from entertaining a single hypothesis, strong inference emphasizes the need for entertaining multiple alternative hypotheses, and avoiding artifacts. [REDACTED] James D. Watson , Francis Crick , and others hypothesized that DNA had a helical structure. This implied that DNA's X-ray diffraction pattern would be 'x shaped'. This prediction followed from

2604-619: A set of phenomena. Normally, hypotheses have the form of a mathematical model . Sometimes, but not always, they can also be formulated as existential statements , stating that some particular instance of the phenomenon being studied has some characteristic and causal explanations, which have the general form of universal statements , stating that every instance of the phenomenon has a particular characteristic. Scientists are free to use whatever resources they have – their own creativity, ideas from other fields, inductive reasoning , Bayesian inference , and so on – to imagine possible explanations for

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2728-530: A skeptic Francisco Sanches , by idealists as well as empiricists John Locke , George Berkeley , and David Hume . C. S. Peirce formulated the hypothetico-deductive model in the 20th century, and the model has undergone significant revision since. The term "scientific method" emerged in the 19th century, as a result of significant institutional development of science, and terminologies establishing clear boundaries between science and non-science, such as "scientist" and "pseudoscience", appearing. Throughout

2852-584: A term sometimes differs substantially from its natural language usage. For example, mass and weight overlap in meaning in common discourse, but have distinct meanings in mechanics . Scientific quantities are often characterized by their units of measure which can later be described in terms of conventional physical units when communicating the work. New theories are sometimes developed after realizing certain terms have not previously been sufficiently clearly defined. For example, Albert Einstein 's first paper on relativity begins by defining simultaneity and

2976-542: A wide range of different backgrounds and cultures. Historians of science increasingly see their field as part of a global history of exchange, conflict and collaboration. The relationship between science and religion has been variously characterized in terms of "conflict", "harmony", "complexity", and "mutual independence", among others. Events in Europe such as the Galileo affair of the early-17th century – associated with

3100-560: Is a social enterprise, and scientific work tends to be accepted by the scientific community when it has been confirmed. Crucially, experimental and theoretical results must be reproduced by others within the scientific community. Researchers have given their lives for this vision; Georg Wilhelm Richmann was killed by ball lightning (1753) when attempting to replicate the 1752 kite-flying experiment of Benjamin Franklin . History of science The history of science covers

3224-399: Is essential that the outcome of testing such a prediction be currently unknown. Only in this case does a successful outcome increase the probability that the hypothesis is true. If the outcome is already known, it is called a consequence and should have already been considered while formulating the hypothesis . If the predictions are not accessible by observation or experience, the hypothesis

3348-424: Is filled with stories of scientists claiming a "flash of inspiration", or a hunch, which then motivated them to look for evidence to support or refute their idea. Michael Polanyi made such creativity the centerpiece of his discussion of methodology. William Glen observes that the success of a hypothesis, or its service to science, lies not simply in its perceived "truth", or power to displace, subsume or reduce

3472-461: Is necessary for agreement on claims about nature. In this light, the 1660 establishment of the Royal Society and its code of experiment – trustworthy because witnessed by its members – has become an important chapter in the historiography of science. Many people in modern history (typically women and persons of color) were excluded from elite scientific communities and characterized by

3596-417: Is not yet testable and so will remain to that extent unscientific in a strict sense. A new technology or theory might make the necessary experiments feasible. For example, while a hypothesis on the existence of other intelligent species may be convincing with scientifically based speculation, no known experiment can test this hypothesis. Therefore, science itself can have little to say about the possibility. In

3720-455: Is now modern Gansu ). Zhang called his device the 'instrument for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth' (Houfeng didong yi 候风地动仪), so-named because he and others thought that earthquakes were most likely caused by the enormous compression of trapped air. There are many notable contributors to early Chinese disciplines, inventions, and practices throughout the ages. One of

3844-599: Is recorded from the 4th century BCE and a sphere permanently mounted in equatorial axis from 52 BCE. In 125 CE Zhang Heng used water power to rotate the sphere in real time. This included rings for the meridian and ecliptic. By 1270 they had incorporated the principles of the Arab torquetum . In the Song Empire (960–1279) of Imperial China , Chinese scholar-officials unearthed, studied, and cataloged ancient artifacts. To better prepare for calamities, Zhang Heng invented

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3968-461: Is the process by which science is carried out. As in other areas of inquiry, science (through the scientific method) can build on previous knowledge, and unify understanding of its studied topics over time. This model can be seen to underlie the scientific revolution . The overall process involves making conjectures ( hypotheses ), predicting their logical consequences, then carrying out experiments based on those predictions to determine whether

4092-559: The Arthaśāstra as "a book of political realism, a book analyzing how the political world does work and not very often stating how it ought to work, a book that frequently discloses to a king what calculating and sometimes brutal measures he must carry out to preserve the state and the common good." The development of Indian logic dates back to the Chandahsutra of Pingala and anviksiki of Medhatithi Gautama (c. 6th century BCE);

4216-681: The Greek and the Chinese logic . The Indian tradition continued to develop through early to modern times, in the form of the Navya-Nyāya school of logic. In the 2nd century, the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna refined the Catuskoti form of logic. The Catuskoti is also often glossed Tetralemma (Greek) which is the name for a largely comparable, but not equatable, 'four corner argument' within

4340-532: The Islamic Golden Age . The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived the learning of natural philosophy in the West. Traditions of early science were also developed in ancient India and separately in ancient China , the Chinese model having influenced Vietnam , Korea and Japan before Western exploration . Among

4464-756: The Islamic world , introducing what would become Arabic numerals to the Islamic world by the 9th century. Narayana Pandita ( Sanskrit : नारायण पण्डित ) (1340–1400 ) was an Indian mathematician . Plofker writes that his texts were the most significant Sanskrit mathematics treatises after those of Bhaskara II , other than the Kerala school . He wrote the Ganita Kaumudi (lit. "Moonlight of mathematics") in 1356 about mathematical operations. The work anticipated many developments in combinatorics . During

4588-717: The National Ignition Facility (NIF), or the International Space Station (ISS), or the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), entail expected costs of billions of dollars, and timeframes extending over decades. These kinds of institutions affect public policy, on a national or even international basis, and the researchers would require shared access to such machines and their adjunct infrastructure . Scientists assume an attitude of openness and accountability on

4712-690: The Pre-Columbian peoples of Mesoamerica , the Zapotec civilization established their first known traditions of astronomy and mathematics for producing calendars , followed by other civilizations such as the Maya . Natural philosophy was transformed during the Scientific Revolution in 16th- to 17th-century Europe, as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The New Science that emerged

4836-592: The Sanskrit grammar rules of Pāṇini (c. 5th century BCE); the Vaisheshika school's analysis of atomism (c. 6th century BCE to 2nd century BCE); the analysis of inference by Gotama (c. 6th century BC to 2nd century CE), founder of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy ; and the tetralemma of Nagarjuna (c. 2nd century CE). Indian logic stands as one of the three original traditions of logic , alongside

4960-644: The Tang dynasty and solutions of equations of order higher than 3 appeared in print in 1245 CE by Ch'in Chiu-shao . Pascal's triangle for binomial coefficients was described around 1100 by Jia Xian . Although the first attempts at an axiomatization of geometry appear in the Mohist canon in 330 BCE, Liu Hui developed algebraic methods in geometry in the 3rd century CE and also calculated pi to 5 significant figures. In 480, Zu Chongzhi improved this by discovering

5084-451: The conservation of energy , age of Earth , and evolution came into focus. And in the 20th century, new discoveries in genetics and physics laid the foundations for new sub disciplines such as molecular biology and particle physics . Moreover, industrial and military concerns as well as the increasing complexity of new research endeavors ushered in the era of " big science ," particularly after World War II . The nature of

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5208-706: The fall of the Western Roman Empire , knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Latin -speaking Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages , but continued to thrive in the Greek -speaking Byzantine Empire . Aided by translations of Greek texts, the Hellenistic worldview was preserved and absorbed into the Arabic -speaking Muslim world during

5332-555: The morpheme and the root . The Tolkāppiyam text, composed in the early centuries of the common era, is a comprehensive text on Tamil grammar, which includes sutras on orthography, phonology, etymology, morphology, semantics, prosody, sentence structure and the significance of context in language. Findings from Neolithic graveyards in what is now Pakistan show evidence of proto-dentistry among an early farming culture. The ancient text Suśrutasamhitā of Suśruta describes procedures on various forms of surgery, including rhinoplasty ,

5456-420: The raised-relief map , toilet paper, the efficient harness, along with contributions in logic , astronomy , medicine , and other fields. However, cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into "modern science". According to Needham, it may have been the religious and philosophical framework of Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to accept the ideas of laws of nature: It

5580-455: The sine function in trigonometry and the number 0 [mathematics] . In 628 CE, Brahmagupta suggested that gravity was a force of attraction. He also lucidly explained the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit , along with the Hindu–Arabic numeral system now used universally throughout the world. Arabic translations of the two astronomers' texts were soon available in

5704-415: The visual system , rather than to study free will , for example. His cautionary example was the gene; the gene was much more poorly understood before Watson and Crick's pioneering discovery of the structure of DNA; it would have been counterproductive to spend much time on the definition of the gene, before them. [REDACTED] Linus Pauling proposed that DNA might be a triple helix . This hypothesis

5828-589: The "scientific method" and in doing so largely replaced the notion of science as a homogeneous and universal method with that of it being a heterogeneous and local practice. In particular, Paul Feyerabend, in the 1975 first edition of his book Against Method , argued against there being any universal rules of science ; Karl Popper , and Gauch 2003, disagree with Feyerabend's claim. Later stances include physicist Lee Smolin 's 2013 essay "There Is No Scientific Method", in which he espouses two ethical principles , and historian of science Daniel Thurs' chapter in

5952-410: The 14th–16th centuries, the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics made significant advances in astronomy and especially mathematics, including fields such as trigonometry and analysis. In particular, Madhava of Sangamagrama led advancement in analysis by providing the infinite and taylor series expansion of some trigonometric functions and pi approximation. Parameshvara (1380–1460), presents

6076-449: The 1830s and 1850s, when Baconianism was popular, naturalists like William Whewell, John Herschel and John Stuart Mill engaged in debates over "induction" and "facts" and were focused on how to generate knowledge. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a debate over realism vs. antirealism was conducted as powerful scientific theories extended beyond the realm of the observable. The term "scientific method" came into popular use in

6200-425: The 2015 book Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science , which concluded that the scientific method is a myth or, at best, an idealization. As myths are beliefs, they are subject to the narrative fallacy as Taleb points out. Philosophers Robert Nola and Howard Sankey, in their 2007 book Theories of Scientific Method , said that debates over the scientific method continue, and argued that Feyerabend, despite

6324-606: The 2500–1200 BCE, the ancient Egyptians believed that disease was mainly caused by the invasion of bodies by evil forces or spirits. Thus, in addition to using medicines , their healing therapies included prayer , incantation , and ritual. The Ebers Papyrus , written in around 1600 BCE, contains medical recipes for treating diseases related to the eyes, mouth, skin, internal organs, and extremities, as well as abscesses, wounds, burns, ulcers, swollen glands, tumors, headaches, and even bad breath. The Edwin Smith papyrus , written at about

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6448-458: The Age of Enlightenment . Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia around 3000 to 1200 BCE . These civilizations' contributions to mathematics , astronomy , and medicine influenced later Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity , wherein formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After

6572-636: The Aryabhatan model for the interior planets, Mercury, and Venus and the equation that he specified for the center of these planets was more accurate than the ones in European or Islamic astronomy until the time of Johannes Kepler in the 17th century. Jai Singh II of Jaipur constructed five observatories called Jantar Mantars in total, in New Delhi , Jaipur , Ujjain , Mathura and Varanasi ; they were completed between 1724 and 1735. Some of

6696-646: The Babylonian calendar or the ones used in Greek city-states at the time, the official Egyptian calendar was much simpler as it was fixed and did not take lunar and solar cycles into consideration. The ancient Mesopotamians had extensive knowledge about the chemical properties of clay, sand, metal ore, bitumen , stone, and other natural materials, and applied this knowledge to practical use in manufacturing pottery , faience , glass, soap, metals, lime plaster , and waterproofing. Metallurgy required knowledge about

6820-692: The Chinese used a positional decimal system on counting boards in order to calculate. To express 10, a single rod is placed in the second box from the right. The spoken language uses a similar system to English: e.g. four thousand two hundred and seven. No symbol was used for zero. By the 1st century BCE, negative numbers and decimal fractions were in use and The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art included methods for extracting higher order roots by Horner's method and solving linear equations and by Pythagoras' theorem . Cubic equations were solved in

6944-494: The Earth, while controlled experiments can be seen in the works of al-Battani (853–929 CE) and Alhazen (965–1039 CE). [REDACTED] Watson and Crick then produced their model, using this information along with the previously known information about DNA's composition, especially Chargaff's rules of base pairing. After considerable fruitless experimentation, being discouraged by their superior from continuing, and numerous false starts, Watson and Crick were able to infer

7068-446: The basic method used for scientific inquiry. The scientific community and philosophers of science generally agree on the following classification of method components. These methodological elements and organization of procedures tend to be more characteristic of experimental sciences than social sciences . Nonetheless, the cycle of formulating hypotheses, testing and analyzing the results, and formulating new hypotheses, will resemble

7192-419: The best examples would be the medieval Song Chinese Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a polymath and statesman who was the first to describe the magnetic -needle compass used for navigation , discovered the concept of true north , improved the design of the astronomical gnomon , armillary sphere , sight tube, and clepsydra , and described the use of drydocks to repair boats. After observing the natural process of

7316-515: The changing length of daylight in the course of the year, predict the appearances and disappearances of the Moon and planets, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Only a few astronomers' names are known, such as that of Kidinnu , a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Kiddinu's value for the solar year is in use for today's calendars. Babylonian astronomy was "the first and highly successful attempt at giving

7440-467: The contrary, if the astronomically massive, the feather-light, and the extremely fast are removed from Einstein's theories – all phenomena Newton could not have observed – Newton's equations are what remain. Einstein's theories are expansions and refinements of Newton's theories and, thus, increase confidence in Newton's work. An iterative, pragmatic scheme of the four points above is sometimes offered as

7564-553: The cycle described below. The scientific method is an iterative, cyclical process through which information is continually revised. It is generally recognized to develop advances in knowledge through the following elements, in varying combinations or contributions: Each element of the scientific method is subject to peer review for possible mistakes. These activities do not describe all that scientists do but apply mostly to experimental sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology). The elements above are often taught in

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7688-552: The development of science from ancient times to the present . It encompasses all three major branches of science : natural , social , and formal . Protoscience , early sciences , and natural philosophies such as alchemy and astrology during the Bronze Age , Iron Age , classical antiquity , and the Middle Ages declined during the early modern period after the establishment of formal disciplines of science in

7812-522: The domestication of maize for agriculture has been dated to about 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico , before the development of writing systems . Similarly, archaeological evidence indicates the development of astronomical knowledge in preliterate societies. The oral tradition of preliterate societies had several features, the first of which was its fluidity. New information was constantly absorbed and adjusted to new circumstances or community needs. There were no archives or reports. This fluidity

7936-467: The earliest linguistic activities can be found in Iron Age India (1st millennium BCE) with the analysis of Sanskrit for the purpose of the correct recitation and interpretation of Vedic texts. The most notable grammarian of Sanskrit was Pāṇini (c. 520–460 BCE), whose grammar formulates close to 4,000 rules for Sanskrit. Inherent in his analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme ,

8060-557: The educational system as "the scientific method". The scientific method is not a single recipe: it requires intelligence, imagination, and creativity. In this sense, it is not a mindless set of standards and procedures to follow but is rather an ongoing cycle , constantly developing more useful, accurate, and comprehensive models and methods. For example, when Einstein developed the Special and General Theories of Relativity, he did not in any way refute or discount Newton's Principia . On

8184-518: The eighteenth-century BCE, records a number of Pythagorean triplets (3,4,5) (5,12,13) ..., hinting that the ancient Mesopotamians might have been aware of the Pythagorean theorem over a millennium before Pythagoras. Mathematical achievements from Mesopotamia had some influence on the development of mathematics in India, and there were confirmed transmissions of mathematical ideas between India and China, which were bidirectional. Nevertheless,

8308-402: The essential structure of DNA by concrete modeling of the physical shapes of the nucleotides which comprise it. They were guided by the bond lengths which had been deduced by Linus Pauling and by Rosalind Franklin 's X-ray diffraction images. The scientific method is iterative. At any stage, it is possible to refine its accuracy and precision , so that some consideration will lead

8432-448: The experimental method, the hypothesis, or the definition of the subject. This manner of iteration can span decades and sometimes centuries. Published papers can be built upon. For example: By 1027, Alhazen , based on his measurements of the refraction of light, was able to deduce that outer space was less dense than air , that is: "the body of the heavens is rarer than the body of air". In 1079 Ibn Mu'adh 's Treatise On Twilight

8556-626: The extent to which philosophy and science would flourish in ancient times depended on the efficiency of a writing system (e.g., use of alphabets). The earliest roots of science can be traced to the Ancient Near East , in particular Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Starting in around 3000 BCE, the ancient Egyptians developed a numbering system that was decimal in character and had oriented their knowledge of geometry to solving practical problems such as those of surveyors and builders. Their development of geometry

8680-872: The form that develops primary sex characteristics and will have the appearance of female genitalia . At puberty, when large amounts of testosterone are produced, secondary sex characteristics (e.g., deepening voice , hair pattern changes, muscle anabolism , etc.) develop, thus producing a phenotypic male. In countries like the United States , intersex children are often operated on immediately after birth to make their genitals appear either typically male or female. In adulthood, güevedoces most commonly self-identify as men, but are not necessarily completely treated as such by society. Anne Fausto-Sterling states that güevedoces (as well as people in Papua New Guinea with 5α-reductase deficiency) "are recognised as

8804-427: The furthering of empiricism by Francis Bacon and Robert Hooke , the rationalist approach described by René Descartes and inductivism , brought to particular prominence by Isaac Newton and those who followed him. Experiments were advocated by Francis Bacon , and performed by Giambattista della Porta , Johannes Kepler , and Galileo Galilei . There was particular development aided by theoretical works by

8928-468: The future, a new technique may allow for an experimental test and the speculation would then become part of accepted science. For example, Einstein's theory of general relativity makes several specific predictions about the observable structure of spacetime , such as that light bends in a gravitational field , and that the amount of bending depends in a precise way on the strength of that gravitational field. Arthur Eddington 's observations made during

9052-468: The gods or omens were concealed in all natural phenomena that could be deciphered and interpreted by those who are adept. Hence, it was believed that the gods could speak through all terrestrial objects (e.g., animal entrails, dreams, malformed births, or even the color of a dog urinating on a person) and celestial phenomena. Moreover, Babylonian astrology was inseparable from Babylonian astronomy. The Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet Plimpton 322 , dating to

9176-571: The greater Asian region in general can be traced to the scientific activities of Jesuit missionaries who were interested in studying the region's flora and fauna during the 16th to 17th century. The earliest traces of mathematical knowledge in the Indian subcontinent appear with the Indus Valley Civilisation (c. 4th millennium BCE ~ c. 3rd millennium BCE). The people of this civilization made bricks whose dimensions were in

9300-454: The history of science is a topic of debate (as is, by implication, the definition of science itself). The history of science is often seen as a linear story of progress but historians have come to see the story as more complex. Alfred Edward Taylor has characterised lean periods in the advance of scientific discovery as "periodical bankruptcies of science". Science is a human activity, and scientific contributions have come from people from

9424-435: The hypothesis; otherwise, the hypothesis cannot be meaningfully tested. While the scientific method is often presented as a fixed sequence of steps, it actually represents a set of general principles. Not all steps take place in every scientific inquiry (nor to the same degree), and they are not always in the same order. Numerous discoveries have not followed the textbook model of the scientific method and chance has played

9548-453: The interpretation of the observation . Scientific inquiry includes creating a testable hypothesis through inductive reasoning , testing it through experiments and statistical analysis, and adjusting or discarding the hypothesis based on the results. Although procedures vary between fields , the underlying process is often similar. In more detail: the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypothetical explanations), predicting

9672-590: The inundation of silt and the find of marine fossils in the Taihang Mountains (hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean), Shen Kuo devised a theory of land formation, or geomorphology . He also adopted a theory of gradual climate change in regions over time, after observing petrified bamboo found underground at Yan'an , Shaanxi province. If not for Shen Kuo's writing, the architectural works of Yu Hao would be little known, along with

9796-508: The inventor of movable type printing , Bi Sheng (990–1051). Shen's contemporary Su Song (1020–1101) was also a brilliant polymath, an astronomer who created a celestial atlas of star maps, wrote a treatise related to botany , zoology , mineralogy , and metallurgy , and had erected a large astronomical clocktower in Kaifeng city in 1088. To operate the crowning armillary sphere , his clocktower featured an escapement mechanism and

9920-523: The journal Science in 1974. The frequency of the deficiency was found to be unusually high in Las Salinas, with occurrence ratio of 1 güevedoce to every 90 unaffected males. The transformation of a phenotypically female child into a phenotypically male adult at puberty, which is reported to be celebrated in Dominican culture, is the result of a genotypic male (with XY chromosomes ) born with

10044-548: The knowledge of this was lost during the Ming dynasty, so that the Jesuit Matteo Ricci gained much favor in 1601 by his predictions. By 635 Chinese astronomers had observed that the tails of comets always point away from the sun. From antiquity, the Chinese used an equatorial system for describing the skies and a star map from 940 was drawn using a cylindrical ( Mercator ) projection. The use of an armillary sphere

10168-425: The logical consequences of hypothesis, then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions. A hypothesis is a conjecture based on knowledge obtained while seeking answers to the question. Hypotheses can be very specific or broad but must be falsifiable , implying that it is possible to identify a possible outcome of an experiment or observation that conflicts with predictions deduced from

10292-565: The mathematical and scientific achievements in India and particularly in China occurred largely independently from those of Europe and the confirmed early influences that these two civilizations had on the development of science in Europe in the pre-modern era were indirect, with Mesopotamia and later the Islamic World acting as intermediaries. The arrival of modern science, which grew out of the Scientific Revolution , in India and China and

10416-526: The means for determining length . These ideas were skipped over by Isaac Newton with, "I do not define time , space, place and motion , as being well known to all." Einstein's paper then demonstrates that they (viz., absolute time and length independent of motion) were approximations. Francis Crick cautions us that when characterizing a subject, however, it can be premature to define something when it remains ill-understood. In Crick's study of consciousness , he actually found it easier to study awareness in

10540-535: The mechanism of storing genetic information (i.e., genes) in DNA was unclear. Researchers in Bragg's laboratory at Cambridge University made X-ray diffraction pictures of various molecules , starting with crystals of salt , and proceeding to more complicated substances. Using clues painstakingly assembled over decades, beginning with its chemical composition, it was determined that it should be possible to characterize

10664-405: The original conjecture was correct. However, there are difficulties in a formulaic statement of method. Though the scientific method is often presented as a fixed sequence of steps, these actions are more accurately general principles. Not all steps take place in every scientific inquiry (nor to the same degree), and they are not always done in the same order. There are different ways of outlining

10788-431: The outcome of the investigation. The systematic, careful collection of measurements or counts of relevant quantities is often the critical difference between pseudo-sciences , such as alchemy, and science, such as chemistry or biology. Scientific measurements are usually tabulated, graphed, or mapped, and statistical manipulations, such as correlation and regression , performed on them. The measurements might be made in

10912-403: The part of those experimenting. Detailed record-keeping is essential, to aid in recording and reporting on the experimental results, and supports the effectiveness and integrity of the procedure. They will also assist in reproducing the experimental results, likely by others. Traces of this approach can be seen in the work of Hipparchus (190–120 BCE), when determining a value for the precession of

11036-403: The pertinent properties of the subjects, careful thought may also entail some definitions and observations ; these observations often demand careful measurements and/or counting can take the form of expansive empirical research . A scientific question can refer to the explanation of a specific observation , as in "Why is the sky blue?" but can also be open-ended, as in "How can I design

11160-532: The physical structure of DNA, and the X-ray images would be the vehicle. The scientific method depends upon increasingly sophisticated characterizations of the subjects of investigation. (The subjects can also be called unsolved problems or the unknowns .) For example, Benjamin Franklin conjectured, correctly, that St. Elmo's fire was electrical in nature , but it has taken a long series of experiments and theoretical changes to establish this. While seeking

11284-464: The planets; risings and settings; the moon's crescent; conjunctions of the planets with each other; conjunctions of the planets with the fixed stars; and the patas of the sun and moon. The 13 chapters of the second part cover the nature of the sphere, as well as significant astronomical and trigonometric calculations based on it. In the Tantrasangraha treatise, Nilakantha Somayaji 's updated

11408-421: The primacy of various approaches to establishing scientific knowledge. Different early expressions of empiricism and the scientific method can be found throughout history, for instance with the ancient Stoics , Epicurus , Alhazen , Avicenna , Al-Biruni , Roger Bacon , and William of Ockham . In the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries some of the most important developments were

11532-424: The process at any stage. They might adopt the characterization and formulate their own hypothesis, or they might adopt the hypothesis and deduce their own predictions. Often the experiment is not done by the person who made the prediction, and the characterization is based on experiments done by someone else. Published results of experiments can also serve as a hypothesis predicting their own reproducibility. Science

11656-476: The properties of metals. Nonetheless, the Mesopotamians seem to have had little interest in gathering information about the natural world for the mere sake of gathering information and were far more interested in studying the manner in which the gods had ordered the universe . Biology of non-human organisms was generally only written about in the context of mainstream academic disciplines. Animal physiology

11780-833: The proportion 4:2:1, which is favorable for the stability of a brick structure. They also tried to standardize measurement of length to a high degree of accuracy. They designed a ruler—the Mohenjo-daro ruler —whose unit of length (approximately 1.32 inches or 3.4 centimeters) was divided into ten equal parts. Bricks manufactured in ancient Mohenjo-daro often had dimensions that were integral multiples of this unit of length. The Bakhshali manuscript contains problems involving arithmetic , algebra and geometry , including mensuration . The topics covered include fractions, square roots, arithmetic and geometric progressions , solutions of simple equations, simultaneous linear equations , quadratic equations and indeterminate equations of

11904-446: The ratio 355 113 {\displaystyle {\tfrac {355}{113}}} which remained the most accurate value for 1200 years. Astronomical observations from China constitute the longest continuous sequence from any civilization and include records of sunspots (112 records from 364 BCE), supernovas (1054), lunar and solar eclipses. By the 12th century, they could reasonably accurately make predictions of eclipses, but

12028-785: The reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069–1046 BCE). In East Semitic cultures, the main medicinal authority was a kind of exorcist-healer known as an āšipu . The profession was generally passed down from father to son and was held in extremely high regard. Of less frequent recourse was another kind of healer known as an asu , who corresponds more closely to a modern physician and treated physical symptoms using primarily folk remedies composed of various herbs, animal products, and minerals, as well as potions, enemas, and ointments or poultices . These physicians, who could be either male or female, also dressed wounds, set limbs, and performed simple surgeries. The ancient Mesopotamians also practiced prophylaxis and took measures to prevent

12152-399: The repair of torn ear lobes, perineal lithotomy , cataract surgery, and several other excisions and other surgical procedures. The Charaka Samhita of Charaka describes ancient theories on human body, etiology , symptomology and therapeutics for a wide range of diseases. It also includes sections on the importance of diet, hygiene, prevention, medical education, and the teamwork of

12276-459: The same time, contains a surgical manual for treating wounds, fractures, and dislocations. The Egyptians believed that the effectiveness of their medicines depended on the preparation and administration under appropriate rituals. Medical historians believe that ancient Egyptian pharmacology, for example, was largely ineffective. Both the Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri applied the following components to

12400-461: The same. We vary the conditions for the acts of measurement, to help isolate what has changed. Mill's canons can then help us figure out what the important factor is. Factor analysis is one technique for discovering the important factor in an effect. Depending on the predictions, the experiments can have different shapes. It could be a classical experiment in a laboratory setting, a double-blind study or an archaeological excavation . Even taking

12524-525: The science establishment as inferior . Historians in the 1980s and 1990s described the structural barriers to participation and began to recover the contributions of overlooked individuals. Historians have also investigated the mundane practices of science such as fieldwork and specimen collection, correspondence, drawing, record-keeping, and the use of laboratory and field equipment. In prehistoric times, knowledge and technique were passed from generation to generation in an oral tradition . For instance,

12648-422: The scientific method are illustrated by the following example (which occurred from 1944 to 1953) from the discovery of the structure of DNA (marked with [REDACTED] and indented). [REDACTED] In 1950, it was known that genetic inheritance had a mathematical description, starting with the studies of Gregor Mendel , and that DNA contained genetic information (Oswald Avery's transforming principle ). But

12772-604: The scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment – led scholars such as John William Draper to postulate ( c.  1874 ) a conflict thesis , suggesting that religion and science have been in conflict methodologically, factually and politically throughout history. The "conflict thesis" has since lost favor among the majority of contemporary scientists and historians of science. However, some contemporary philosophers and scientists, such as Richard Dawkins , still subscribe to this thesis. Historians have emphasized that trust

12896-413: The scientist to repeat an earlier part of the process. Failure to develop an interesting hypothesis may lead a scientist to re-define the subject under consideration. Failure of a hypothesis to produce interesting and testable predictions may lead to reconsideration of the hypothesis or of the definition of the subject. Failure of an experiment to produce interesting results may lead a scientist to reconsider

13020-538: The second degree. In the 3rd century BCE, Pingala presents the Pingala-sutras, the earliest known treatise on Sanskrit prosody . He also presents a numerical system by adding one to the sum of place values . Pingala's work also includes material related to the Fibonacci numbers , called mātrāmeru . Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata (476–550), in his Aryabhatiya (499) introduced

13144-411: The specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material". Any useful hypothesis will enable predictions , by reasoning including deductive reasoning . It might predict the outcome of an experiment in a laboratory setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature. The prediction can also be statistical and deal only with probabilities. It

13268-467: The spread of disease. In Babylonian astronomy , records of the motions of the stars , planets , and the moon are left on thousands of clay tablets created by scribes . Even today, astronomical periods identified by Mesopotamian proto-scientists are still widely used in Western calendars such as the solar year and the lunar month . Using this data, they developed mathematical methods to compute

13392-582: The title of Against Method , accepted certain rules of method and attempted to justify those rules with a meta methodology. Staddon (2017) argues it is a mistake to try following rules in the absence of an algorithmic scientific method; in that case, "science is best understood through examples". But algorithmic methods, such as disproof of existing theory by experiment have been used since Alhacen (1027) and his Book of Optics , and Galileo (1638) and his Two New Sciences , and The Assayer , which still stand as scientific method. The scientific method

13516-451: The tradition of Classical logic . Navya-Nyāya developed a sophisticated language and conceptual scheme that allowed it to raise, analyse, and solve problems in logic and epistemology. It systematised all the Nyāya concepts into four main categories: sense or perception (pratyakşa), inference (anumāna), comparison or similarity ( upamāna ), and testimony (sound or word; śabda). From the earliest

13640-403: The treatment of disease: examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and, according to G.E.R. Lloyd, played a significant role in the development of this methodology. The ancient Egyptians even developed an official calendar that contained twelve months, thirty days each, and five days at the end of the year. Unlike

13764-416: The twentieth century; Dewey's 1910 book , How We Think , inspired popular guidelines , appearing in dictionaries and science textbooks, although there was little consensus over its meaning. Although there was growth through the middle of the twentieth century, by the 1960s and 1970s numerous influential philosophers of science such as Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend had questioned the universality of

13888-664: The universe as they intuited it. During the Middle Formative Period (c. 900 BCE – c. 300 BCE) of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica , the Zapotec civilization , heavily influenced by the Olmec civilization , established the first known full writing system of the region (possibly predated by the Olmec Cascajal Block ), as well as the first known astronomical calendar in Mesoamerica . Following

14012-510: The universe, the spherical self-supporting earth , and the year of 360 days divided into 12 equal parts of 30 days each with a periodical intercalary month.". The first 12 chapters of the Siddhanta Shiromani , written by Bhāskara in the 12th century, cover topics such as: mean longitudes of the planets; true longitudes of the planets; the three problems of diurnal rotation; syzygies; lunar eclipses; solar eclipses; latitudes of

14136-434: The work of Cochran, Crick and Vand (and independently by Stokes). The Cochran-Crick-Vand-Stokes theorem provided a mathematical explanation for the empirical observation that diffraction from helical structures produces x-shaped patterns. In their first paper, Watson and Crick also noted that the double helix structure they proposed provided a simple mechanism for DNA replication , writing, "It has not escaped our notice that

14260-422: The world's oldest known use of an endless power-transmitting chain drive . The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries "learned to appreciate the scientific achievements of this ancient culture and made them known in Europe. Through their correspondence European scientists first learned about the Chinese science and culture." Western academic thought on the history of Chinese technology and science

14384-405: Was able to infer that Earth's atmosphere was 50 miles thick, based on atmospheric refraction of the sun's rays. This is why the scientific method is often represented as circular – new information leads to new characterisations, and the cycle of science continues. Measurements collected can be archived , passed onwards and used by others. Other scientists may start their own research and enter

14508-409: Was also considered by Francis Crick and James D. Watson but discarded. When Watson and Crick learned of Pauling's hypothesis, they understood from existing data that Pauling was wrong. and that Pauling would soon admit his difficulties with that structure. A hypothesis is a suggested explanation of a phenomenon, or alternately a reasoned proposal suggesting a possible correlation between or among

14632-450: Was an inclination to unquestioningly accept explanations that might be deemed implausible in more modern times while at the same time not being aware that such credulous behaviors could have posed problems. The development of writing enabled humans to store and communicate knowledge across generations with much greater accuracy. Its invention was a prerequisite for the development of philosophy and later science in ancient times . Moreover,

14756-567: Was closely related to the practical need to explain and justify a present state of affairs. Another feature was the tendency to describe the universe as just sky and earth, with a potential underworld . They were also prone to identify causes with beginnings, thereby providing a historical origin with an explanation. There was also a reliance on a " medicine man " or " wise woman " for healing, knowledge of divine or demonic causes of diseases, and in more extreme cases, for rituals such as exorcism , divination , songs, and incantations . Finally, there

14880-570: Was galvanized by the work of Joseph Needham and the Needham Research Institute. Among the technological accomplishments of China were, according to the British scholar Needham, the water-powered celestial globe (Zhang Heng), dry docks , sliding calipers , the double-action piston pump , the blast furnace , the multi-tube seed drill , the wheelbarrow , the suspension bridge , the winnowing machine , gunpowder ,

15004-538: Was itself a necessary development of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland , which was flooded annually by the Nile River. The 3-4-5 right triangle and other rules of geometry were used to build rectilinear structures, and the post and lintel architecture of Egypt. Egypt was also a center of alchemy research for much of the Mediterranean . Based on the medical papyri written in

15128-411: Was more mechanistic in its worldview, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open as its knowledge was based on a newly defined scientific method . More "revolutions" in subsequent centuries soon followed. The chemical revolution of the 18th century, for instance, introduced new quantitative methods and measurements for chemistry . In the 19th century , new perspectives regarding

15252-423: Was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime. The Taoists , indeed, would have scorned such an idea as being too naïve for the subtlety and complexity of

15376-529: Was studied extensively for the purpose of divination ; the anatomy of the liver , which was seen as an important organ in haruspicy , was studied in particularly intensive detail. Animal behavior was also studied for divinatory purposes. Most information about the training and domestication of animals was probably transmitted orally without being written down, but one text dealing with the training of horses has survived. The ancient Mesopotamians had no distinction between "rational science" and magic . When

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