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The Invention that Invented Itself

By Peter Lloyd

On the moon there’s a crater named Gassendi, one of the undersung heroes of science and creativity. Billed as one of the first philosophers to formulate and take a scientific approach to his thinking and writing, Pierre Gassendi, a keen observer, published his observations of the transit of Mercury. He argued with Descartes and named the Aurora Borealis.

However, Wikipedia’s Timeline of the Scientific Method, does not mention Gassendi. The timeline goes back to -2000* to note the appearance of the first text indexes, with no explanation of what they might be.

Roger Bacon described a step-by-step scientific method in 1265. The English monk prescribed observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and insisted on independent verification. He carefully recorded his own experiments in great detail, so that other scientists could test his results.

paintingSome argue that Francis Bacon described the modern version of the scientific method in his Novum Organum of 1620. But I think we can go back even further in time.

I have Eve in mind. While Adam was apparently satisfied with the way things were, his partner found the thirst for knowledge irresistible. So she observed, formed a hypothesis, experimented. And we’ve been independently verifying her results ever since. So the story goes.

The better half of the mythological pair of Edenites represents to me the essence of creativity. The evolutionary reality provides at least deductive proof. The earliest humans observed the skies, studied the stars, formed images, and named them. They experimented with stone and flint, harnessed fire, rounded wheels, and organized hunting parties.

How else could they have accomplished these things without employing a primitive scientific method?

When kids trial-and-error their way through video game labyrinths, learn from their failures, and formulate a plan for reaching a game’s summit, do they not instinctively employ a scientific method?

Of course, it’s worth acknowledging the importance of defining and outlining a systematic process, testing it, and improving it. An example of the process creating the process—the thing that invented itself.

*Diversity-sensitive scientists refer to calendar years as CE and BCE, the Common Era and Before the Common Era, rather than AD and BC, Anno Domini and Before Christ. Isn’t it a lot less cumbersome to use positive and negative numbers?

Peter Lloyd is known around his home as The Amazing Fix-It Dad. He and his family live in a restored Queen Anne Victorian house in the historic Mansion Hill district of Newport, Kentucky.

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