Peculiarities of the Scientific Revolution - Essay Example

The Scientific Revolution The Scientific Revolution is one of the most notable periods in history, having a tremendous impact on the West as well as world history overall. Although it is seen as a great advancement of society, it has also brought back certain aspects of antiquarianism best left in the past. For good or evil, science stands at the center of every dimension of modern life. It has shaped the ways in which we think and in the process has frequently subverted humanistic concepts that furnished the sinews of our civilization. Revolutionary tools and ideas such as the telescope, the dissection and the new conception of the universe will be used to discuss the causes of the Scientific Revolution as well as illustrate how the Scientific Revolution influenced society then and now. Before the mid-1500s, when the Scientific Revolution is generally agreed to have had its start, ideas regarding medicine, the body and the universe were not based on the same sorts of observations that are available to us today. For those who considered the placement of the earth in relation to the universe, it was understood that the earth was at the center with concentric bands of water, air and fire surrounding it. Surrounding these were further bands of the stellar spheres with Jesus and the saints existing even beyond the outermost stellar sphere. Another conception of the universe, the Ptolemaic Universe, was described as consisting of two spheres, the inner one was the earth and the outer one, the remainder of the universe, revolved around this inner core. These images originating in scientific books on the subject produced in this period help to illustrate the depth to which these ideas, born of Biblical interpretations, were believed. However, touching off the debate that would eventually change the world, Copernicus wrote to Pope Paul III regarding his soon-to-be published and revolutionary idea that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around (Copernicus 1543 cited in Levick, 2004: 524). Fearful of the backlash his observations might have on a public firmly entrenched in the idea of being central to the universe, Copernicus was working to gain the support of the Pope by pointing out the purely mathematical means by which he came to his conclusions as well as the support he found for this idea in ancient texts. In this letter, he informs the Pope that it is only by assuming a motion of the earth in addition to the observed motions of the other planets can the universe possibly retain its apparent stability. Although Copernicus knowingly introduced the idea to an unreceptive public, it was Galileo who would make the idea of an earth revolving around the sun a more well-known, if not any more popular, idea. With the invention of the telescope, Galileo was able to see the craters of the moon and the orbits of four of the moons circling Jupiter. “The latter led him to challenge the long accepted geocentric view of the world system (the universe revolves around the Earth) and accept the heliocentric (the solar system revolves around the Sun) proposed some fifty years earlier by Copernicus. Galileo had proof!” (“A Very Short History”, 2007). The concept of the sun-centered universe that was proposed by Copernicus and supported by Galileo held that the Sun existed in the center and was surrounded by the planets which followed in perfectly circular orbits. In this view, the furthest circular orbit was that of the stars. However, other ideas were circulating, starting with Kepler and advanced by Andreas Cellarius, that the planets didn’t travel in circular orbits at all, but instead moved in giant ellipses, oval orbits, which was their only explanation for the strange backwards motions of some of the planets that had been observed (Levick, 2004: 156). This sparked a debate in the scientific circles that would continue investigations in numerous other aspects of life and change the way people viewed everything about their world. The idea that the mechanical working of the universe could be explained by careful observation and mathematical precision was quickly transferred to other scientific explorations. The methods used were embraced by Thomas Sprat, an English clergyman who would become very powerful in the church and who opened the way for scientific investigation to move forward. He did this by pointing out the way science has removed much of the fear of godless creatures that had been felt by the general public: “The course of things goes quietly along, in its own true channel of causes and effects. For this we are beholden to experiments, which though they have not yet completed the discovery of the true world, yet they have already vanquished those wild inhabitants of the false world” (Sprat, 1702 cited in Levack, 2004: 530). Experiments that would have been deemed utterly sacrilegious in earlier times, such as the dissection of the human body painted in 1735, were now made possible by an insatiable thirst for knowledge based on observation rather than legend. During the medieval period (15-17th centuries), European ships traveled around the world and compounded the available maps thanks to great improvements in navigation, cartography and shipbuilding development. Many new trade routes were established, further pushing the development of natural science. The most significant travelers and explorers of this period are Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, John Cabot, Henry the Navigator and Ferdinand Magellan. As the son of Portuguese King John I, Henry the Navigator was able to gather together navigators, shipbuilders and other specialists to discover and explore new lands from the scientific point of view. This same spirit of investigation drove Luke Howard, the pioneer of meteorology, who was first a businessman and manufacturer of chemicals in the first half of the 19th century. His works on meteorological processes greatly increased our knowledge of weather events. The advances of science that took place in the sixteenth century, with the changing ideas of the centrality of the universe, the invention of the telescope and the opening of new methods of investigation such as the dissection, attitudes were slowly being changed within the academic circles. Although Galileo was put on trial for publishing his observations, forced to retract some of his statements (Levack, 2004: 533), by the seventeenth century it could be seen that a definite change had come over the way people thought about things. Francis Bacon, for example, was quoted as saying “The subtlety of nature greatly exceeds that of sense and understanding; so that those fine meditations, speculations and fabrications of mankind are unsound, but there is no one to stand by and point it out. And just as the sciences we now have are useless for making discoveries of practical use, so the present logic is useless for the discovery of the sciences” (Hall, 1954: 34). The lessons learned from the blindness of observers necessarily involved in the processes being observed that were illustrated in the misconception of an earth-centered universe have led to the development of a structured approach to scientific investigation that continues today. In addition, the troubles faced by scientists attempting to make their work known to the world, shown in the troubles experienced by Galileo in supporting the heliocentric universe, developed into an organized manner of sharing studies, observations, experiments and conclusions. According to Hall (1954), today’s academic society and the journals in which the activities of this society are reported had their earliest foundations in the Scientific Revolution. “From the end of the seventeenth century the majority of active men of science were members of some active scientific group; publication in one of the ever more numerous journals gradually became the recognized manner of announcing the results of investigation; and the national scientific society was accepted as the vehicle for the state’s concern in scientific matters” (Hall, 1954: 186). The theory of evolution was challenged by religion when first publicly demonstrated by Charles Darwin in the mid-Nineteenth Century. The exact method by which evolution occurred and continues to occur is argued among scientists. Some scientists suggest that mutations are responsible for evolution. An animal is born with a specialized new trait that happens to be beneficial for its survival such as a longer neck, larger teeth, thicker fur, higher developed senses, etc. This animal thrives and produces offspring that carries the same inherited trait therefore live longer and produce more offspring than others of its species. Eventually the new type ‘wins out’ over the original species and a new species has born. Darwin proposed that animals adapt to a new environment over long periods of time, millions of years, which he named natural selection. On his famous trip to the Galapagos Islands in the mid-1800’s, Darwin witnessed tangible evidence for his theory regarding the origin of all species. The 13 islands are relatively close in proximity but are vastly different geographically, some had desert-like conditions, others more tropical, some sandy, some rocky for example. Darwin noticed the variations of the same species which had adapted to the different conditions on different islands over time and eventually evolved into a new species. His conclusions were based on evidence and reason plus have been the subject of scientific scrutiny for more than a century and a half in a highly technological period in history. (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2000). Science observes the forces of nature then processes and analyzes information based on evidence. It develops an initial hypothesis then attempts to disprove assumptions, procedure that continues as new evidence is introduced. Some might say the sky, earth and everything on it is evidence of God’s creation but for evidence to be considered credible by scientific standards, it must be verifiable and offer more than simple conjecture and wishful thinking. Through this investigation, it has been shown that the Scientific Revolution took the world from a knowledge based on legends and myth to one based on direct observation and organized scientific study. Using just a few examples, it has been shown how the world turned from concepts of magic and invisible spirits to one of cause and effect, even when the specific mechanisms were not yet directly observable. Since then, science has continued to evolve, developing stronger tools and investigating ever deeper into the workings of the universe. In completing this investigation, I have realized how one single idea can have long-lasting and profound impacts on the world, sometimes changing the way we think altogether. The progress in all these sciences concerning the Earth led to the improving of new technologies which led to further development of the sciences. People now have numerous scientific instruments for observing different phenomena, and our knowledge is constantly improving, thanks to the early thinkers that started asking questions. Works Cited Hall, A.R. The Scientific Revolution, 1500-1800: The Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude. London: Longman Publishing, 1954. Levack, Brian P. et al. “Two Views of the Ptolemaic or Pre-Copernican Universe.” The West – Encounters & Transformations. London: Longman Publishing, 2004. “(A) Very Short History of the Telescope.” Telescopes. (April 23, 2007). April 1, 2008 < http://www.omni-optical.com/telescope/ut104.htm> WGBH Educational Foundation. “Frequently Asked Questions About Evolution.” Public Broadcasting Systems. (2001). April 1, 2008 < http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat09.html> Read More