History of science

Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by a global community of researchers making use of a body of techniques known as the scientific method, emphasizing the observation, experimentation and scientific explanation of real world phenomena. Given the dual status of science as objective knowledge and as a human construct, good history of science draws on the historical methods of both intellectual history and social history.

Tracing the exact origins of modern science has been difficult. This is due in large part to the scant documentary and physical evidence of ancient investigations of nature. Even the word scientist is relatively recent -- first coined by William Whewell in the 19th century. Previously, people investigating nature called themselves natural philosophers.

While empiricism has been described since Antiquity (for example, by Aristotle), and the scientific method has been employed since the Middle Ages (for example, by Ibn al-Haytham), the modern scientific method was not fully developed until the Scientific Revolution, during the 16th and early 17th centuries. The scientific method is considered to be so fundamental to modern science that some — especially philosophers of science and practicing scientists — consider earlier inquiries into nature to be pre-scientific. Traditionally, historians of science have defined science sufficiently broadly to include those inquiries.

As an academic field, history of science began with the publication of William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences (first published in 1837). A more formal study of the history of science as an independant discipline was launched by George Sarton's publications, Introduction to the History of Science (published in 1927) and the Isis journal (founded in 1912). The history of mathematics, history of technology, and history of philosophy are distinct areas of research and are covered in other articles. Mathematics is closely related to but distinct from natural science (at least in the modern conception). Technology is likewise closely related to but clearly differs from the search for empirical truth. Philosophy differs from science in its engagement in analysis and normative discourse, among other differences. In practice science, mathematics, technology, and philosophy are obviously deeply entwined, and clear lines demarcating them are not evident until the 19th century (when science first became professionalized). History of science has therefore been deeply informed by the histories of mathematics, technology, and philosophy -- even as those fields have become increasingly autonomous.