Did you know, placebo testing in science didnt exist untill the 1930s? Imagine testing the effectiveness of anything without a placebo comparison! This was a great step in the evolution of the scientific method.

Landmarks in the history of the scientific method are the invention of libraries, indexes, citations, controlled experiments, peer review, placebos, double blind experiments, randomization, and search among others.

Kevin Kelly (Founder of Wired Magazine) talks about the next 50 years of evolution of the scientific method and how important the scientific method is.... Fascinating




In the next 50 years, as the technologies of information and knowledge accelerate, the nature of the scientific process will change even more than it has in the last 400 years. We can't predict what specific inventions will arise in the next 50 years, but based on long-term trends in epistemic tools, I believe we can speculate on how the scientific method itself -- that is, how we know -- will change in the next five decades

Labels: ,