Francis Bacon

English philosopher and statesman — Lord Chancellor — author of Novum Organum and The Advancement of Learning — who created the inductive scientific method and argued that knowledge gives power over nature — the philosophical architect of the Scientific Revolution.

Creates the inductive scientific method — Bacon's Novum Organum's argument (that knowledge advances through systematic observation and experimentation, organized inductively, rather than through deduction from prior principles) provided the philosophical justification for the Royal Society and the scientific method that transformed Western civilization.