Note
Studied by 2 peopleAPEH unit 6: Scientific Revolution
Prior to the Scientific Revolution, knowledge of the natural world came from Ancient Greece. Aristotle thought that the center of the universe was the earth surrounded by concentric crystal spheres which other planets and stars were embedded into. The Church promoted this because it made sense with Genesis I.
Causes of the Revolution
Universities: Greek scholarship was the foundation of medieval university material thanks to scholars from Islam that amended the works of Aristotle. In the 14th and 15th century, European universities established new departments of mathematics and astronomy.
Renaissance: The wealthy that patronized the arts also patronized the studies of the natural world.
Printing Press: made it possible to circulate ideas and new findings about the natural world. More people were thinking
Astronomy
Heliocentric Conception: Sun is at the center, earth along with other planets (heavenly bodies) revolve around it
Geocentric Conception Earth is the center of universe, while other planets rotate around it.
Nicolaus Copernicus: complex math and challenges the geocentric view, makes the Heliocentic model. Earth spins on an axis
Johannes Kepler: three laws of planetary motion
Planets orbit the sun in ellipses
Planets move faster when they are closer to the sun and slower when farther away
Time a planet takes to orbit the sun is related to its distance from the sun
Galileo Galilei: uses the telescope, observes the moons of different planets. Proves the heliocentric model. tried for heresy, and put on house arrest
The works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo are on the Church’s index of prohibited books.
By 1640, the heliocentric model is accepted by the scientific community
Isaac Newton: Law of Universal Gravitation, theory of Gravity
Medicine and Anatomy
Studies of Greek Galen were being overturned by newer and accurate understandings
Galen: Humoral Theory which said the body is composed of four substances, yellow bile, blood, black bile, and phlegm. According to Galen, if these fluids were in balance, the body was healthy.
Paracelsus: claimed it was a chemical imbalance that led to disease. developed chemical remedies to help sick people, rather than messing with the amount of blood, phlegm, or bile in their body.
Andreas Vesalius: author of On the Fabric of the Human Body about dissection of the human body, revolutionizes the understanding of the body
William Harvey: disproves Galen’s understanding of circulation (there are two different systems that never interact with each other) by figuring out the circulatory system: blood is pumped from the heart, through the body, and returned to the heart.
Reasoning
Francis Bacon: Empiricism (pursuit of knowledge through inductive thinking or understanding the world by observing the smallest parts of it an then generalizing those findings to the largest parts)
Rene Descartes: Deductive reasoning (doubt everything and then once you find something hat is undoubtable, dig deeper)
People still held on to beliefs in alchemy (base metals can turn into gold and silver) and astrology (the position of the stars and planets affect the outcome of human life)