Why were ancient Greeks philosophers like Aristotle not successful as scientists?

Answer 1

Well they were successful, revolutionary in fact. Aristotle's findings would be regarded as the unquestioned canon on pretty much everything scientific or otherwise until he was slowly and painfully debunked by the likes of Galileo and Descartes.

You may question though, why it is that the philosophical works of the ancient Greeks are still considered relevant today while their scientific findings have been dismissed. There are a number of reasons, but the greatest I think is simply that it never occurred to them to mix chocolate and peanutbutter. The Greeks had the two great philosophical traditions, that of mathematics represented by Plato, and the observation of empirical evidence Alla Aristotle. Tragically, Plato's school saw little use for empirical evidence which they viewed as irrelevant compared to the perfect world of forms known through reason, and Aristotle just didn't have a thing for math.

The all powerful Reese's cup of modern science, empirical evidence measured mathematically, would not be discovered until much later during the time of enlightenment. Using mathematics, scientists were able to quantify their results, not just qualify them as did Aristotle, which gave you much harder facts less open to the fallacies of human interpretation. So while Greek philosophy was made immortal through the power of logic and dialectic, pure reason could only carry their scientific thought so far.