In time, during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E., a Greek physician named Hippocrates challenged this view. He is particularly well-known because of the Hippocratic oath, still generally viewed as embodying the medical code of conduct. The book Moments of Discovery​—The Origins of Science notes that Hippocrates was also “among the first to compete with the priests in finding explanation of man’s sicknesses.” Practicing medicine in the spirit of science, he sought natural causes for diseases. Reason and experience began to take the place of religious superstition and guesswork.

In separating medicine from religious dogma, Hippocrates took a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, even today we are reminded of medicine’s religious background. Its very symbol, the snake-entwined staff of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, can be traced back to the ancient temples of healing where sacred snakes were kept. According to The Encyclopedia of Religion, these snakes embodied “the capacity for renewal of life and rebirth in health.”

Hippocrates later became known as the father of medicine. But this did not prevent him from at times being scientifically incorrect. The Book of Popular Science tells us that some of his unsound notions “seem quite fantastic to us today” but cautions against medical arrogance, saying: “Some of the medical theories that are now most firmly established will probably seem just as fantastic to men of a future generation.”

Yes, Those Ever-Present Greeks

Read about the history of religion, politics, or commerce and you will find more than passing mention of the Greeks. And who has not heard of their famous philosophers, a term drawn from the Greek word phi·lo·so·phiʹa, meaning “love of wisdom”? The Greeks’ love of wisdom and thirst for knowledge was well-known in the first century when the Christian apostle Paul visited their country. He referred to Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who like “all Athenians and the foreigners sojourning there would spend their leisure time at nothing but telling something or listening to something new.”​—Acts 17:18-21.

So it is hardly surprising that of all ancient peoples, the Greeks left science the largest heritage. The New Encyclopædia Britannica elaborates: “The attempt of Greek philosophy to provide a theory of the universe to replace the cosmologies of myth eventually led to practical scientific discoveries.”

In fact, some of the Greek philosophers made significant contributions to the search for scientific truth. They strove to weed out the erroneous ideas and theories of their predecessors, while at the same time building upon the basis of what they found to be correct. (See box for examples.) Thus, the Greek philosophers of yesterday came the closest of any ancient people to thinking like the scientists of today. Incidentally, until relatively recent times, the term “natural philosophy” was used to describe the different branches of science.

In time philosophy-loving Greece was overshadowed politically by the newly founded Roman Empire. Did this have any effect upon scientific progress? Or would the coming of Christianity make a difference? Part 3 in our next issue will answer.

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Pre-Christian Greek “Scientists”

THALES of Miletus (sixth century), particularly known for his work in mathematics and for his belief that water forms the essence of all matter, had a critical approach to the cosmic framework, which The New Encyclopædia Britannica says was “crucial in the development of scientific thought.”

Socrates (fifth century) is called by The Book of Popular Science “the creator of a method of inquiry​—dialectic—​that comes close to the very heart of true scientific method.”

Democritus of Abdera (fifth to fourth century) helped lay the foundation for the atomic theory of the universe as well as the theories of the indestructibility of matter and the conservation of energy.

Plato (fifth to fourth century) founded the Academy in Athens as an institute for the systematic pursuit of philosophical and scientific research.

Aristotle (fourth century), a knowledgeable biologist, formed the Lyceum, a scientific institution that researched many fields. For over 1,500 years, his ideas dominated scientific thought, and he was considered the supreme scientific authority.

Euclid (fourth century), the most prominent mathematician of antiquity, is best known for a compilation of knowledge about “geometry,” which comes from a Greek word meaning “measurement of the land.”

Hipparchus of Nicaea (second century), outstanding astronomer and founder of trigonometry, classified stars into magnitudes according to brightness, a system basically still in use. He was a forerunner of Ptolemy, an eminent geographer and astronomer of the second century C.E., who expanded Hipparchus’ findings and taught that the earth is the center of the universe.