Science Forums 2

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One reason for the answer not being unique is in what is meant by the word science. Strictly it means knowledge but, today, it is used to mean an extension of what had been called natural philosophy and now also includes technology and applications. So what is meant by "Science" in the question?

One plausible textbook meaning is what's called the "modern scientific method" of which Galileo Galilei is typically considered the founder. However, back around 1600, he did not call himself a "scientist" but a philosopher. To him the word science meant knowledge and his arguments were about what considerations natural philosophers should make for regarding something as knowlegde and calling it a fact. This gradually brought on the current use of the word science and the coining of the word scientist, so these have been much asociated with Galileo.

Now philosophy made great progress in the times of acient Greek civilization and culture and natural philosophy was one branch of it. The word physics is from the Greek word for nature, which was the title of one of Aristotle's books. While other ancient civilizations made remarkable discoveries too, they could mostly be regarded as feats of engineering and practical ability whereas the Greeks very much developped the skills of argument, deductive reasoning and logic and combined these with observation. Logic was the title of another of Aristotle's books. Other Greeks were important, including Euclid who laid the grounds of geometry and Pythagoras who gave deep insight into numbers.

Now when Galileo argued against other philosophers of his time, about several topics in physics and astronomy, his opponents were holding up Aristotle's opinions. Despite this he was very much reminding them of Aristotle's recomendations. They had become "blind pupils" and considered anything Aristotle said to be incontrovertible truth, even in the face of contrary evidence (ipse dixit, because he said it) and forgetting that one of the things he had said was that we obviously must let go of an opinion when new experience shows otherwise. So the Greeks were very important too in the history of science, even though there was already some impressive knowledge (science) before them.