This timeline of the history of scientific method shows an overview of the cultural inventions that have contributed to the development of the scientific method. For a detailed account, see History of the scientific method.

BCE[edit]

• c. 2000 BC — First text indexes (various cultures).^{[citation needed]}
• c. 1600 BC — The Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian medical textbook, which applies: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to disease remedies,^[1] paralleling rudimentary empirical methodology.^[2]
• c. 400 BC — In China, Mozi and the School of Names advocate using one's senses to observe the world, and develop the "three-prong method" for testing the truth or falsehood of statements.
• c. 400 BC — Democritus advocates inductive reasoning through a process of examining the causes of sensory perceptions and drawing conclusions about the outside world.
• c. 300 BC — Plato first provides a detailed definitions for idea, matter, form and appearance as abstract concepts.
• c. 320 BC — First comprehensive documents categorising and subdividing knowledge, dividing knowledge into different areas by Aristotle,(physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, and biology). Aristotle's Posterior Analytics defends the ideal of science as necessary demonstration from axioms known with certainty.
• c. 300 BC — Euclid's Elements expound geometry as a system of theorems following logically from axioms known with certainty.
• c. 200 BC — First Cataloged library (at Alexandria)