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During the sixteenth century and even into the seventeenth century, scientific discoveries and new empirical ways of thinking began to emerge. This period of history is commonly referred to as the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution challenged past authorities by challenging church teachings, philosophy, and traditionally held views of humanity’s place in the cosmos. Previous to the Scientific Revolution, it had been thought that the majority of truth was already known to man and that it merely required someone to explain and understand it. However, the discoveries occurring as a result of the rise in empiricism during the Scientific Revolution demonstrated that new truths could and were being discovered. Furthermore, empiricism, inductive reasoning, and scientists slowly began to replace philosophers and deductive reasoning. Men such as Francis Bacon were behind this shift in thinking. The new wave of scientific discoveries also led to a change in the way people viewed the natural world. People increasingly began to accept the view of mechanism, which viewed the world ...

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