Édouard-Alfred Martel Édouard-Alfred Martel Édouard-Alfred Martel (1 July 1859, Pontoise, Val-d'Oise – 3 June 1938, Montbrison), the 'father of modern speleology', was a world pioneer of cave exploration, study, and documentation. Martel explored thousands of caves in his native France and many other countries, popularised the pursuit of cave exploration, introduced the concept of speleology as a distinct area of scientific study, maintained an extensive archive, and in 1895 founded , the first organisation devoted to cave science in the world. Édouard-Alfred Martel was born in Pontoise, Seine-et-Oise on 1 July 1859. Born into a family of lawyers, he studied at the
History of scientific method authority of others. Knowledge must be based on experience. In the mid-19th century Claude Bernard was also influential, especially in bringing the scientific method to medicine. In his discourse on scientific method, "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine" (1865), he described what makes a scientific theory good and what makes a scientist a true discoverer. Unlike many scientific writers of his time, Bernard wrote about his own experiments and thoughts, and used the first person. William Stanley Jevons' "The Principles of Science: a treatise on logic and scientific method" (1873, 1877) Chapter XII "The Inductive or Inverse Method",