The Scientific Revolution and the Emergence of Modern Science

The Renaissance ideals of logic and traditional thought influenced the growth of scientific thinking.

Crash Course

Major Concepts

Scientific Revolution
geocentric conception
heliocentric conception
world-machine
querelles des femmes
Cartesian dualism
rationalism
scientific method
empiricism

Background to the Scientific Revolution:

Read the yellow/purple section at the beginning of the chapter, although this was not a quick and bombastic revolution, how was the Scientific Revolution, indeed, revolutionary?
- The Scientific Revolution questioned and ultimately challe ged conceptions and beliefs about the nature of the external world and reality that had crystallized into a rather strict orthodoxy by the Later Middle Ages.
What role did Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen play in the medieval mind and the Renaissance? How did their influence and roles change at the outset of the Scientific Revolution?
- Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen's work were used in forming positions in physics, medicine, and astronomy. The Renaissance humanists published these works that showed that those thinkers were still contradicted by others.
What was the nature of the relationship between mathematics, technology and the Scientific Revolution?
- Mathematics was regarded as the key to understanding the nature of things. Technology enabled ideas to be widespread through Europe.

Toward a New Heaven: A Revolution in Astronomy

What is the Ptolemaic, or geocentric, view of the universe? How influential was its role in the average mind of a person living in the medieval and Renaissance eras?
- Geocentrism was the idea that Earth was the center of the universe. Since it contained religious ideas within it and because it contained "obvious" ideas, it was widely accepted as it made sense from the commoners point of view.
Who is Nicolaus Copernicus, what did he write, and what was his major contribution to the Scientific Revolution?
- Copernicus created the heliocentric theory where the sun was the center of the universe. This idea was rejected by most as it was incredibly radical.
What was the major contribution of Tycho Brahe to the Scientific Revolution?
- Brahe built observatories that disproved geocentrism.
Why was Johannes Kepler such an important figure of the Scientific Revolution?
- Kepler discovered the three laws of planetary motion that both confirmed and modified the Copernican theory which disproved geocentrism, again.
Why was Galileo such a threat to the Catholic Church? What ideas were they most threatened by? What was his most famous work entitled?
- Galileo was going against the bible. Galileo was making the idea super public as well. He wrote Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican.
In addition to his advancements in mathematics and astronomy, Galileo was concerned with mechanics. Describe his major contributions to this field.
- Galileo explained motion through three principles. Now, scientists had to explain changes in motion.
Isaac Newton may be the greatest thinker of all time. What did he invent? Why was he called the "last magician" by John Maynard Keynes?
- He discovered the law of universal gravitation. This explained all the motion in the universe.
- He was called the "last magician" because he found secrets nobody else found.
What is Principia? Why is it probably the most important book of all time?
- Principia contained mathematical proofs demonstrating his universal law of gravitation.
What was Newton's "world-machine" view? How long did it remain influential? What eventually caused its decline?
- The universe was one huge, regulated, and uniform machine that operated according to natural laws in absolute time, space, and motion.
- The Einsteinian revolution suspended his concept.

Advances in Medicine and Chemistry

Who was Galen? When did he live? Why was he so influential? What were the four humors?
- Galen was a greek physician who lived in Greece in the second century C.E.
- He was influential because he formed the basis for anatomy.
- The four humors are:
  - blood
  - yellow bile
  - phlegm
  - black bile
Who was Paracelsus? How did Paracelsus's ideas contradict the works of Aristotle, and especially Galen?
- Paracelsus was a guy who was awarded a medical degree.
- His idea was that a human aas a small replica of the larger world. He also said disease was not caused by imbalance of four humors (like Galen said), but instead by chemical imbalances.
Who was Andreas Vesalius? What was the title of his most famous publication? What was the book all about?
- Andreas Vesalius was an anatomist who studied human antomy by reading the texts of Galen and correcting him with a more hands-on approach.
- He wrote On the Fabric of the Human Body which was based on his personal direction of a body that showed the individual and general structure of the human body.
How did William Harvey's work deal a severe blow to the theories of Galen?
- Harvey stated that the heart was the starting point for blood circulation, not the liver. His theories become widespread when capillaries were discovered.
Who was Robert Boyle? What were his contributions to the scientific revolution?
- Boyle discovered that the volume of a gas varies with the pressure exerted on it. He also coined the idea of "elements".

Women in the Origins of Modern Science

How did women pursue an education in the sciences? Was it available to all? What was humanism's role? Did all men believe women should be educated?
- Women interested in science had an informal education. Nobles had easy access to the world of learning and allowed women to paprticipate in the networks of their fathers and brothers. Most men did not believe women should be educated.
Who was Margaret Cavendish and what were her contributions?
- She was the duchess of Newcastle which allowed her to learn and she wrote Grounds of Natural Philosophy which attacked other scientific knowledge which she believed were incorrect.
What did Maria Merian contribute to the scientific revolution?
- She wrote Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam whcich she used illustrations to show the reproductive cycles of Surinam's insect life.
Who was the most famous female astronomer in Germany? How did she pursue an education and what were the obstacles she, and other women, faced at this time?
- Maria Winkelmann who was educated by her father and uncle and married a prominent astronomer. As a woman with no university degree, she was denied a position as assistant astronomer because it feared it would set a precedent.
What influence, if any, did the intellectual advancements going on have on the role of women in society? What were some commonly held beliefs about women during this era?
- The querelles des femmes (or arguments about women) were mainly about women being the base, prone to vice, easily swayed, and "sexually insatiable." Hence, men needed to control them.
To what extent did the scientific revolution change the overarching theme of patriarchy, previously substantiated by the Roman Catholic Church?
- While the scientific revolution spawned a host of new women scientists, it was later used to "prove" men over women.

Toward a New Earth: Descartes, Rationalism, and a New View of Humankind

Rene Descartes, next to Newton, may be the most important thinker of his time. Who was he? What was his most famous work entitled? What is Cartesian dualism?
- Descartes used reason as his sole guide to truth. His most famous work was entitled Discourse on Method which talked about his starting point, doubt.
- Cartesian Dualism was about the mind being absolute but the body not, which can be biased.
Descartes is considered the father of modern rationalism. What is this? Why didn't Descartes care for skepticism? (hint, you may have to do some outside searches on google to answer this one…)
- Rationalism is arriving to the truth by reason rather than through senses. Descartes didn't care for skepticism because he preferred inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning.

The Scientific Method and the Spread of Scientific Knowledge

Descartes and an English philosopher named Francis Bacon are both considered to have played a role in the formulation of the Scientific Method. What is this? And what were the contributions of each?
- The scientific method is a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

Contributions from Bacon	Contributions from Descartes
He urged scientists to proceed from the particular to the general. From carefully organized observations and thorough, systematic observations, correct generalizations could be developed. He was more concerned about practical results rather than pure science. He wanted science to contribute to the “mechanical arts”. The control and domination of nature became a central proposition of modern science and technology that accompanied it.	He emphasized deduction and mathematical logic. Doubt everything. "The first of these was to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so: that is to say, carefully to avoid haste and prejudice in judgments, and to accept in them nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it. Break every problem into smaller parts. "The second was to divide up each of the difficulties which I examined into as many parts as possible, and as seemed requisite in order that it might be resolved in the best manner possible. Solve the simplest problems first. "The third was to carry on my reflections in due order, commencing with objects that were the most simple and easy to understand, in order to rise little by little, or by degrees, to knowledge of the most complex, assuming an order, even if a fictitious one, among those which do not follow a natural sequence relatively to one another. Be thorough. "The last was in all cases to make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that I should be certain of having omitted nothing.

Contributions from Bacon

Contributions from Descartes

He urged scientists to proceed from the particular to the general.
From carefully organized observations and thorough, systematic observations, correct generalizations could be developed.
He was more concerned about practical results rather than pure science.
He wanted science to contribute to the “mechanical arts”.
The control and domination of nature became a central proposition of modern science and technology that accompanied it.

He emphasized deduction and mathematical logic.
Doubt everything. "The first of these was to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so: that is to say, carefully to avoid haste and prejudice in judgments, and to accept in them nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it.
Break every problem into smaller parts. "The second was to divide up each of the difficulties which I examined into as many parts as possible, and as seemed requisite in order that it might be resolved in the best manner possible.
Solve the simplest problems first. "The third was to carry on my reflections in due order, commencing with objects that were the most simple and easy to understand, in order to rise little by little, or by degrees, to knowledge of the most complex, assuming an order, even if a fictitious one, among those which do not follow a natural sequence relatively to one another.
Be thorough. "The last was in all cases to make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that I should be certain of having omitted nothing.

Why might monarchs (like Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France) have been keen on using state funding to support the establishment of scientific communities? What were the names of these societies in England and France?
- Monarchs like Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France may have been keen on using state funding to support theestablishment of scientific communities because it kept discoveries under the control of the state. The names of thesesocieties were The French royal Academy of sciences and The English Royal Society.
In the section titled "Science and Society," Spielvogel asserts a few key reasons to the argument as to why science became so central to European thought and accepted relatively quickly. What are they and what evidence does he use to support his 3 main reasons?
- Literate mercantile and propertied elites of Europe were attracted to the new science because it offered new ways to exploit resources for profit.
- Political interests used the new scientific concepts of the natural world to bolster social stability.
- Princes and Kings provided patronage to scientists because of the military applications of the mathematical sciences. Absolute rulers also felt the need to control and manage the scientific body of knowledge in their kingdom.
Perhaps the most difficult obstacle to embracing a scientific world view was the still incredibly pervasive role of religion during the 16th and 17th centuries. How did modern philosophers of the time try to solve the problem of such fundamental differences between these two views? In other words, how did they call themselves "both scientific and religious"?
- They were bound to a religion but still studied the sciences. They believed if the two collided, it would be tragic.
How did Baruch de Spinoza, or as the book calls him "Benedict," disagree with Cartesian ideas? What were Spinoza's beliefs?
- He did not agree with the separation of mind and matter and the apparent separation of an infinite God from the finite world of matter. He believed human beings are situated in nature as a kingdom within a kingdom.
What efforts did Blaise Pascal make to keep science and religion united? Why did this ultimately fail?
- Pascal created the Pensées which tried to convert rationalists to Christianity by appealing to both their reason and their emotions. This failed because the gap between the two kept growing larger and larger.
In your own words, summarize this chapter. What major changes did the scientific revolution bring about? What conflicts were either created or solved during this era? How can the phrase "challenging authority" be applied to this time?
- The scientific revolution brought about new changes in physics, astronomy, and math. Conflicts between science and church (religion) were created during this era.
- Science "challeng[ed] authority" and some scientists were attacked by the church for their discoveries.