The Scientific Revolution

Using the Classics Against the Classics

• One of the ideas reborn in European society during the Renaissance was a little concept know as Greco-Roman Logic

• With this style brought intellectuals rediscovered the idea skepticism: to doubt and question things that accepted as ‘true’

• One of the ways this concept was applied was to question the knowledge established by the ancient Greeks and Romans themselves

• One of the reasons for this development was because by the 16th century, new inventions, technologies, and math provided a way to effectively test these ideas
  telescopes, microscopes, vacuum pump, and thermometers

Challenging the Classics

• The three primary thinkers who were brought into question were

  Ptolemy’s idea of the universe
  Galen’s work on human anatomy
  Aristotle’s idea gravity and pretty much everything else

• One of the first and biggest questioning of the classics came from Copernicus in the 15th century

• Using math to prove his point, Copernicus asserted that the Earth was not the center of the universe-and that we, in fact, orbited the sun

• This new model challenged Ptolemy’s geocentric model, replacing it with a new, heliocentric model of the solar system

Old Ideas Overturned

• Unfortunately for Copernicus, his heliocentric model was dismissed by the Church as heretical and went unknown by most people

• However, by the late 16th century, a man named Galileo had invented the telescope, and after months of observation, he was able to confirm Copernicus’ theory

• another large idea that was disproven by Galileo via experiment was Aristotle’s theory that heavy objects fall faster than lighter objects

• In anatomy. once Vesalius began dissecting cadavers, they found that Galen’s theories on anatomy were completely wrong

• All of these new ideas caused an uproar in science and the Church-if these classic authors and the Church were wrong for so many years, how do we know whats right?

The Scientific Method

• The new focus for obtaining knowledge became known as the scientific method (Sir Francis Bacon): something is only true if it can be tested, observed, and repeated

• It was a combination of skepticism and proof: that you should doubt or not believe anything that could not be proven by mathematics or testing

• This change in thought is what was known as The Scientific Revolution-

  a new process of proving what is true, and using new inventions to help accomplish that

• Thinkers such as Isaac Newton took this idea even further, and established a set of laws for the universe based on testing/mathematics known as Newtonian Physics

• Not only did Newton define universal laws, but he designed and developed calculus which has allowed mathematicians to solve far more complex problems

Knowing Without Knowing

• Inductive reasoning (Francis Bacon): using evidence, patterns, and observations supply strong evidence for the truth

Example: population in 1950= 1 Million, 1975= 1.5 Million 2000= 2 Million

• Deductive reasoning (Rene Descartes): using logical deduction to make a certain, logical conclusion

Example: All men are mortal. Harold is a man. Therefore, Harold is mortal.

• In addition to the ideas of Bacon, Newton, and Descartes, monarchs and governments begane to publicly fund scientists to ‘figure out’ the universe

• They began forming Royal Societies of scientists whose job and lives were dedicated to questioning, developing, and testing new ideas (Royal Society of London)