European 18th century: Christian faith was the answer to most basic questions

• Some began to embrace rational inquiry and pursue the new science

Western science increased the political and military powers of Europeans

Joseph Banks (president of the Royal Society) linked scientific inquiry to real-world applications and economic purposes

Intellectual debate divided thinkers

• Ancients: authority of Aristotle and other classical authors as the foundation of knowledge in fields such as medicine, math, and astronomy.

• Modern: rejected classical authority & Christian theology, human reason as the key to knowledge, contradicted traditional Christian conceptions

Deductive reasoning: arguing from general principles to specific truth

Rene Descartes

• Axioms of true philosophy had to be firmly grounded in the human capacity to reason

• Logic could result in a unified system of truth

• Systematic doubt as key to knowledge

• Ability to reason as proof of existence

Modern science based on experimentation and observations of the natural world

Sir English Bacon:

• Main proponents of an inductive approach to science

• Controlled observations to larger truth

Tycho Brahe:

• Using only the naked eye to observe

• Challenged Aristotelian concept of an eternally unchanging celestial sphere

• Demonstrated that a bright supernova had emerged beyond the Earth's atmosphere

Johannes Kepler:

• Applied Brahe's data to analyze the orbit of the planet Mars

• Showed that planetary motion was elliptical rather than circular

• Challenged Aristotle and Christian teaching that all celestial motion was circular (perfect movement for perfect heavenly domain) and reinforced Galileo

Identical laws prevail throughout the universe and those laws can be described using math

New ideas caused discomfort in the early 17th century. A century later, science was on the rise and more Europeans began to reason and use their senses to observe nature.

Isaac Newton

• Used deductive thinking to establish general principles

• Used Bacon's inductive approach to experimental science

• The universal law of gravitation: All matter exerts gravitational attraction in inverse proportion to mass and distance

• Inventors of differential calculus

Tension between science and faith began to ease starting the early 18th century.

Scientists began to systematically collect and organize a catalogue of the world's flora

Carl Linnaeus

• Pioneering figure in modern botany

• Gathered plants specimens, restored botanical gardens, send his students around the world to gather specimens for study

• Published his classification of living things

  • The Linnaean system orders species into hierarchical categories: genus/order/class/kingdom

• Developed the binomial system of Latin names of organism

  • World's plants already had names but fit not consistent network of classification

  • Created a single knowledge system

Joseph Banks

• Adept at deriving practical economic lessons from Carl Linnaeus's works

• Leading figure in the drive for improvement: using scientific methods to increase the productivity of existing land and bring new land under cultivation

• Bring insights gained from natural science to agriculture

• Improve soil by sowing clover and turnips in fields

• Selective breeding of livestock to boost the production of wool, meat, and milk

• Wealthy gentle famer, invested in water engineering tech

• Experimented with crop rotation and crossbreeding farm animals

Agriculture revolution led to more arable land for planting and greater efficiency in production

• Increased food supplies supported urbanization during the industrial revolution

Agriculture led to greater inequality

• Village society was oriented toward stability and security; common access to pasture and woodlands

• New law allowed the English gentry to accumulate larger landholdings; allowing them to enclose common lands as private property

• Food security matter less than productivity and profitable crops sales

• Rural families could no longer sustain themselves; they drift to cities and coal mines for employment

• "One person's improvement, therefore, could be another's ticket to unemployment."

• Interests of the gentry was well represented in the Parliament and in the courts, those of the poor were not.

Joseph Banks advocated for improvement on the imperial stage

• Globalizing the practical application of science through his advocacy of economic botany

• Developed a experimental facility at Kew Gardens

  • Scientists brought new plant specimens from around the world to be examined, catalogued, and cultivated

  • Biological diffusion

    • British Navy needed secure supplies of timber, English botanists identified South Asian mahogany as a supplement to British and North American oak

• Use of science to justify the dominance of the British elite at home and abroad

  • Believed that they would ultimately benefit from scientifically rational agriculture.

British colonization in Ireland

• Claimed that the Irish were not using land efficiently, legally seized to make it more civil.

Australia

• Regarded as empty land because its aboriginal inhabitants had not improved it

Justified their empire by claiming it created the best possible life for locals