History Of Natural Science

Prior to the 17th century, the objective study of nature was called as natural philosophy. Over the next two centuries, however, a philosophical interpretation of nature was gradually changed by a scientific approach using inductive methodology. The works of Sir Francis Bacon popularized this approach, thereby helping to create the scientific revolution.

By the 19th century the study of science had come into the purview of professionals and institutions, and in so doing it gradually acquired the more recent name of natural science. The term scientist was coined by William Whewell in an 1834 evaluation of Mary Somerville's On the Connexion of the Sciences. However the word did not enter general use until nearly the end of the same century.