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The history of scientific method is inseparable from the history of science itself. The development and elaboration of rules for scientific reasoning and investigation has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and many eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for the primacy of one or another approach to establishing scientific knowledge. Some of the most important debates in the history of scientific method center on rationalism, especially as advocated by René Descartes; inductivism, which rose to particular prominence with Isaac Newton and his followers; and hypothetico-deductivism, which came to the fore in the early 19th century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a debate over realism vs. antirealism was central to discussions scientific method as powerful scientific theories extended beyond the realm of the observable, while in the mid-20th century some prominent philosophers argued against any universal rules of science at all.[1] There are few explicit discussions of scientific methodologies in surviving records from early cultures. The most we can infer about the approaches to undertaking science in this period stems from descriptions of early investigations into nature, in the surviving records. An Egyptian medical textbook, the Edwin Smith papyrus, (circa 1600 BC), applies the basic components of scientific method examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to the treatment of disease.[1] The Ebers papyrus (circa 1550 BC) also contains evidence of traditional empiricism. However, although the Babylonians and Egyptians developed much technical knowledge, crafts, and mathematics used in practical tasks of divination, as well as a knowledge of medicine (and made lists or various kinds), it is the ancient Greeks who engage in the earliest forms of what we recognize as science.[2] Even for the early Greeks, geometry was a practical skill like shoemaking, relegated to what its etymology suggests geo-metrics, or measuring the earth. That is all Xenophon claims Socrates advises one know about geometry—what is practically needed to measure the land correctly so as to inherit it, divide it, or use it (Memorabilia, VII.4.vii.2). In Plato's Theatetus, Theatetus defines science [épistémé] for Socrates as "what we can learn…geometry and the other sciences you just mentioned like shoemaking, and the techniques of other artisans all together, or considered separately," (Plato 1.146c-d).
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