ABSTRACT
The term 'science' or 'scientific' is often used in the press and the professional literature and seems to imply that what is stated is especially meritorious or reliable. Two people were principally responsible for the development of modern science. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) introduced the inductive method to gaining new knowledge based on experiments. Rene Descartes (1596-1659) rejected Bacon's notion and postulated the deductive method to establishing the truth based on first principles/laws. Karl Popper (1902-1994) in his famous paper Science: conjectures and refutations examined three basic assumptions underpinning scientific enterprise – the nature of hypothesis generation, the status of observations, and the notion that falsifiability is the ultimate test of any good theory. Don Mikulecky, a physiologist at the Medical College of Virginia Commonwealth University, analysed the mental mechanism underpinning science. At most medical schools the undergraduate curriculum is divided into 'basic sciences' and 'clinical sciences'.
