1 The Birth of Science - MSRI

170 6. The Hellenistic Scientific Method
6.7 Hellenistic Science and Experimental Method
That Greek science knew the experimental method has often been maintained
and more often denied. As a representative of the former view, we
quote Neugebauer:
But if modern scholars had devoted as much attention to Galen or
Ptolemy as they did to Plato and his followers, they would have
come to quite different results and they would not have invented the
myth about the remarkable quality of the so-called Greek mind to
develop scientific theories without resorting to experiments or empirical
tests. 73
This opinion seems to have remained minoritarian, but if we extend our
sights beyond the imperial-era Galen and Ptolemy and consider Hellenistic
scientists such as Herophilus and Hipparchus, we reach conclusions
even stronger that Neugebauer’s.
Obviously, a verdict on whether Hellenistic science knew the experimental
method will depend on the definition of “experimental method”.
If we take the expression to mean simply the systematic collection of empirical
data obtained through the investigator’s direct intervention, the
appearance of the experimental method is discernible, despite the meagerness
of our sources, not only in the physical and mathematical sciences,
but also in anatomy, in physiology, 74 and in other empirical sciences like
zoology and botany — areas where the knowledge amassed through husbandry
and agriculture was being complemented by that derived from
experiments performed in dedicated venues, such as the Ptolemies’ zoo
and the gardens devoted to this purpose by the Pergamene dynasty. 75
If an essential characteristic of the experimental method lies in making
quantitative measurements, the systematic use of such measurements had page 218
been present for many centuries in astronomy (and if we exclude observational
astronomy from the experimental sciences, Newtonian mechanics
itself risks being denied an experimental basis). In the early Hellenistic
period quantitative measurements were extended not only to fields such
as mechanics and optics, 76 but to the medical and biological sciences, as
shown by the systematic use of water clocks in Herophilus’ studies on the
73 [Neugebauer: ESA], § 63, p. 152.
74 As we have seen, one source of scientific physiological knowledge was experimentation in vivo
on humans. These experiments, however repugnant, in themselves belie the widespread notion
that Hellenistic science was speculative and cared little for experimental checks.
75 See Chapter 9, particularly pages 217 and 219.
76 For instance, measurements of refraction (see page 56) and rate of water flow (page 91).
Revision: 1.7 Date: 2002/09/14 23:17:37