The Evolution of Scientific Method

Abstract

The term “evolutionary epistemology” refers to the phenomenon of pre-scientific common-sense knowledge as well as to the phenomenon of science itself. Both evolutionary views emerged independently in the course of our century. Both had forerunners in the nineteenth century, reaching back before the time of Darwin. Moreover, both forms of evolutionary epistemology are closely related to other evolutionary views that deal not only with human knowledge but also with certain human activities as well, whether in an ethical-moralistic, social, or cultural sense. The framework for these evolutionary views is made up partly by general cosmological evolutionary philosophical systems which, from a historical point of view, though rendering the formulation of the theory of evolution possible, have nevertheless been disproved by it.¹ At least, this holds true for Darwin’s theory of evolution, which removed any kind of teleology that dominated not only earlier evolutionary philosophical systems, but also the theory of Lamarck. Nevertheless, even Darwin himself did not exclude the possibility of such a comprehensive and universal theory of evolution for the time to come; he hoped that “the principle of life will be recognized as part or sequel of a universal law”.² In the course of this century a considerable number of biologists and philosophers have adopted this idea.