The history of science is the study of the development of science and scientific knowledge, including both the natural sciences and social sciences. (The history of the arts and humanities is termed as the history of scholarship.) Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by scientists who emphasize the observation, explanation, and prediction of real world phenomena. Historiography of science, in contrast, often draws on the historical methods of both intellectual history and social history.

The English word scientist is relatively recentfirst coined by William Whewell in the 19th century. Previously, people investigating nature called themselves natural philosophers. While empirical investigations of the natural world have been described since classical antiquity (for example, by Thales, Aristotle, and others), and scientific methods have been employed since the Middle Ages (for example, by Ibn al-Haytham, and Roger Bacon), the dawn of modern science is often traced back to the early modern period and in particular to the scientific revolution that took place in 16th- and 17th-century Europe. Scientific methods are considered to be so fundamental to modern science that some consider earlier inquiries into nature to be pre-scientific. Traditionally, historians of science have defined science sufficiently broadly to include those inquiries.

1. What scientist is relatively recent?
2. Who first coined the word scientist?
3. When?
4. What did people call themselves before scientists?
5. What did they investigate?
6. How long have empirical investigations of the natural world been described?
7. Who was one of the people who described these investigations?
8. What did Thales describe?
9. Recently?
10. Have the scientific methods only been used since 2001?
11. What has been employed since the Middle Ages?
12. Is science defined broadly?
13. What have historians of science defined science sufficiently?
1. William
2. William Whewell
3. 19th century.
4. natural philosophers
5. nature
6. unknown
7. Roger Bacon
8. natural world
9. 16th- and 17th-century
10. unknown
11. scientific methods
12. no
13. Traditionally