Who was the first scientist?

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   stuff4kidsposted 9 years ago

   Who was the first scientist?
   
   How do we define when what we know today as 'science' actually began? Who is accepted as being the very first scientist?
   
   

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   chef-de-jourposted 9 years ago

   Tricky question. At schoolI was told that the first true scientist was from what is now Iraq and he worked with light, conducting experiments. His name : Ibn al Haytham or al Hassan Ibn al Haytham. He lived in the 10th centuryAD.
   Some say that the ancient Greeks were the first scientists - Euclid, Anaximander or Aristotle but they were more debaters and thinkers than experimenters. It's difficult to truly know who the first scientist was perhaps because the term scientist wasn't invented until the 1800s!! You would have to do a little up to date research because ideas are shifting around all the time! Good luck.

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      stuff4kidsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for that fascinating answer! I confess I'd never heard of Ibn al Haytham. Hm, defining when philosophy and alchemy developed into science is not easy. In the west, Aristotle invented the process of observation and deduction, of course, but ...

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   anilgaikwad2015posted 9 years ago

   the first scientist is in the world is lord gautam bhudhha.he find it sad.what is sad ? so he is the first scientist.

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      stuff4kidsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for that contribution! In the strictest linguistic sense a 'scientist' is simply a person who seeks to know, so in that broad way, Gautama would probably qualify. Although, was he a scientist in the strictest sense? Food for thought!

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   M. T. Dremerposted 9 years ago

   The first scientist was whatever animal first observed his/her environment and changed their behavior based on that information. I suppose that could be considered basic survival instincts, but I'm referring to the first being with enough conscious thought to remember what they learned beyond the simple fight or flight response. More likely than not, this was an ancient human ancestor.

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      stuff4kidsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting perspective!

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   Greensleeves Hubsposted 9 years ago

   It would be hard to identify the first scientist, if one wishes to venture back beyond the inventions of tools such as the microscope, telescope and laboratory equipment and the likes of Kepler, Galileo and Newton.
   
   Certainly ancient Greeks carried out experiments (for example to determine the circumference of the Earth with a remarkable level of accuracy), though much of their work could be better defined as philosophy - mental exercises as opposed to experimentation. Archimedes c250 BC could probably be described as one of the first scientists - not merely a great thinker and mathematician, but also an inventor and engineer who put scientific principles to great practical use.
   
   If one wants to go really far back, the real Imhotep (not to be confused with the fictional horror-Mummy character!) was political and economic advisor, medical physician, astronomer and astrologer, architect, philosopher and pretty much everything else to the Egyptian pharoah Djoser c2600 BC - so revered for his intellect and wisdom that after his death he was deemed to be a God! He is known to have researched problems to find solutions, and he was especially revered for his work and writings on medical practice, and for his construction of the first pyramid (the Step Pyramid at Saqqara). Whether he could be described as a 'scientist' in modern terms is obviously open to question, but Imhotep was probably the first named genius in history.

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      stuff4kidsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That's a superb answer, Alun!  So, it seems that either Archimedes or Imhotep are the main contenders at the moment. I suppose what defines science is the logical method of observation, hypothesis and experimental testing with objective analysis.

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      Greensleeves Hubsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Cheers! Archimedes is the Greek I respect the most - an undoubted genius. I researched Imhotep 2 years ago; he was hugely honoured in life  for his wisdom, knowledge and skills, and adulated after death, more than any other commoner. A true polymath!

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   hfortinberryposted 9 years ago

   God.  He designed everything that we experience here on earth in heavenly places first.  This is in accordance with Plato's theory of "ideal forms" which were the complete and perfect picture of every material substance here on earth and yet in a conceptual form in a realm or dimension far above where we presently reside.  But in terms of the human scientist who might be accepted as such by men, that would probably be Ptolemy...?

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      stuff4kidsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for answering! Another interesting perspective. Quite a few people still believe that, don't they? So, we now have a mythological being and a Greco-Egyptian astrologer and mathematician in the running, too. Fascinating stuff.

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