Francis Bacon

It’s the birthday of Francis Bacon, who was born in 1561 in London. Bacon attended Cambridge University (at the age of 12!), where his exposure to the prevailing Medieval curriculum influenced him to develop a surer path toward studying the natural world. As his career in law and government progressed, Bacon also expounded ideas on scientific inquiry, which, he contended, consist in observing nature, conducting experiments and deriving explanations. In his book the Great Instauration (1620), he wrote: “Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world.” For those and other ideas, Bacon is widely regarded as the father of the scientific method.

Date in History: 22 January 1561