Empiricism: Was it Darwin's scientific methodology? Empiricism
is a term that has been used in class discussion for the past
couple of weeks in order to describe Darwin’s scientific method.
It is a term that I was not very familiar with before the start
of this class and I would like to explore it. Then after I have
a more solid idea of what the term “empiricism” entails, I want
to try and apply it to Darwin and his work: On the Origin of
Species. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, empiricism
is defined as a practice founded upon experiment and
observation, an ignorant and unscientific practice, and quackery
(OED). This diverse set of definition seems to have been derived
from a variety of time periods and contexts. It evidently first
began to appear in the mid 1600s as exemplified in Helmont’s
Vind. by G. Starkey to indicate that empiricism was associated
with a more negative context since it was described as being
“dangerous,” which does seem to indicate certain dubiousness
about the actual scienti