• Question: who was the first scientist?

    Asked by komalx to Aime, Akshat, Diana, Gemma, Judith on 13 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Judith McCann

      Judith McCann answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Depends on your definition of scientist, there probably was someone who thought through every method and carefully noted down results etc before anyone else did. But i think if you notice something everyday and can draw a conclusion from it. its basically science… so im sorry to tell you, by that reasoning, your probably already one!

    • Photo: Gemma Sharp

      Gemma Sharp answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      This is a difficult one, because as Judith says, you can define ‘science’ and ‘scientist’ in lots of different ways.

      I think a scientist could be defined as someone who comes up with a question they want to know the answer to, and sets out to answer the question by testing different ideas. If that’s the case then it’s probably impossible to say who the first one was! Probably the first human!

      Archimedes was a mathematician, engineer, physicist, inventor and astonomer born in 287 BC, and he’s sometimes considered to be ‘the first true scientist’. You can find out more about him at good ol’ Wikipedia 😉 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

      This is an interesting discussion about it all too: http://network.nature.com/groups/sciencewriters/forum/topics/609

    • Photo: Aimé Fournier

      Aimé Fournier answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I mostly agree with Judith & Gemma. It might be useful to distinguish science from other kinds of knowledge, in that science can be systematic (but not only and not completely, since hunches and guesses are there too). The 1st humans who noticed that the moon shape could be predicted, that certain stars (i.e., planets) predictably moved relative to others, certain rocks could be made into tools, and who somehow kept track of and communicated this information; perhaps they were the 1st scientists.

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