The History of the Scientific Method

The Scientific Method, as it is called, has existed for quite some time. Throughout human history scientists and mathematicians have followed the basic rudiments of the Method, although they were seldom documented and rarely followed the Method exactly. The term 'Scientific Method' was first coined by italian doctor Francesco Redi in the late 17th century, following his experiment which disproved the spontaneous generation of maggots on decomposing trash. He first observed that maggots seemed to 'magically' form on decomposing meat, and hypothesised that this was not true. In his experiments, he had three pieces of meat, one in an open container, one in a container with a webbed lid, and one in a sealed container. He observed that the maggots formed on the meat in the first container, on the webbing in the second container, and not at all in the third container. Furthermore, flies were observed laying eggs where the maggots formed. Thus, he concluded that maggots are the result of flies, not spontaneous generation. He then called the principles behind his experiment "Metodo Scientifico" or The Scientific Method.

The first cases of what would be considered properly using the Scientific Method can be found earlier, though, back in the studies of Galileo, early in the 17th century. He first observed that heavy objects gain speed as they fall. He then proposed, or hypothesized, that the rate of falling of massive objects was porportional to the distance that the object has fallen. Following the Scientific Method, he tested his hypothesis and found it to be false, since objects falling unequal distances do not fall in the same amount of time, as his hypothesis led to. Since his hypothesis failed, he made a new one, which proposed that the rate at which an object falls is directly porportional to the time the object has spent falling. This was tested by rolling balls down an inclined plane and calculating the speed and time values from those observations. Later, these experiments led to the discovery of the gravitational constant g, and a better understanding of the Scientific Method.

The Method has been used many times since Galileo conducted his experiments, and it has been considered a valid way of conducting experiments since then. Other examples of the Method being followed closely go back to Gregor Mendel's work in the field of geneology in the early 20th century. He first observed that many pea plants had the traits of the parent plants. His hypothesis was that

Today, the Scientific Method is taught to students throughout their education, and is firmly planted in text books and corresponding teacher lesson plans. One must question why though.

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