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The Impacts of the Scientific Revolution
The Impact Of Scientific Revolution On Human Society
The Impacts of the Scientific Revolution
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Over the course of the years, society has been reformed by new ideas of science. We learn more and more about global warming, outer space, and technology. However, this pattern of gaining knowledge did not pick up significantly until the Scientific Revolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Scientific Revolution started, which concerned the fields of astronomy, mechanics, and medicine. These new scientists used math and observations strongly contradicting religious thought at the time, which was dependent on the Aristotelian-Ptolemy theory. However, astronomers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton accepted the heliocentric theory. Astronomical findings of the Scientific Revolution disproved the fact that humans were the center of everything, ultimately causing people to question theology’s role in science and sparking the idea that people were capable of reasoning for themselves.
The cosmological views of the Late Middle Ages revolved around the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic theory. This theory was adapted by the Church to explain the universe, as a result, many people believed the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic theory was perfect because the pope believed it, and he was infallible. The Church took many ideas from the Bible. One example would be that they believed that the universe was six thousand years old. Another major idea was that the universe was made up of a series of concentric spheres with a motionless earth at the center. Planets, commonly referred to as “heavenly bodies”, were made up of crystalline substance and moved in circular orbits. Stars are attached to these planets and are “pushed by angels”.
The view of humanity during the Late Middle Ages was that humans did not know everything and were not sup...
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...pted by people of the Late Middle Ages. More importantly, it brought out the idea that the Bible could not be interpreted for science, instead, people were to experiment or observe for themselves. The strongly supported heliocentric theory no refuted the favorable idea of humanity being in the center. The Scientific Revolution revealed the fact that the sun was in the universe, at the same time, it encouraged people to become innovators, thinkers, and experimenters instead of being dependent on theology. The Scientific Revolution was a big step forward for humanity. It showed that everyone was capable of thinking logically. In our society today, people can freely debate, read, and discover for themselves. Without the Scientific Revolution, the modernization of science may have been delayed, and our present ideas of the universe and humanity may have been different.
The Scientific Revolution, during the 16th and 18th centuries, was a time of conflict. It was not a hand-to-hand martial conflict. It was a conflict of advancement, similar to the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union. However, it was between the thinkers of the Scientific Revolution, such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, and the Roman Catholic Church. At the time, the Catholic Church was the most powerful religious body in Europe. It controlled everything from education to faith to finances. Thinkers like Galileo took the risk and went against the church. This is shown through the documents below. Those documents tell the story of Galileo and how he was forced to revoke his support of heliocentrism by the church. The documents below also show the struggle between faith and reason that existed during this era of advancement by hindering the flourishment of the sciences by stating that it did not agree with the Bible and naming these early scientists as heretics.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth century a Scientific Revolution swept over Europe. The start of this Scientific Revolution has been atributed to Nicolaus Copernicus and his Heliocentric Model of the Universe.
Galileo Galilei and the religious authorities represent the clash between the new ideas and old ideas of the 17th century. Galileo Galilei represents the new ideas with his heliocentric theory, and the religious authorities represent the old ideas while demanding that Galileo Galilei’s ideas are false because the Bible says that the earth is the center of the universe. Galileo Galilei said, “They know that as to the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way.”(3:1) This provides infor...
The scientific revolution consisted of the old paradigm and the Geocentric Model as seen in the Geocentric vs. Heliocentric Solar System picture. This paradox of the Earth being the center of the universe was the box of truths that everyone sat on and believed in. Philosophers such as Aristotle and the Aristotelian way of thinking proved this paradigm. Along with Aristotle supporting this theory, so did the Catholic Church. If the Church supported the Geocentric Model, then anything that goes against it and says its wrong, is going against the church. The revolutionary aspect of this piece is the New paradox that challenged the old paradigm. The one scientist to thank for this challenge of the paradigm is Nicolaus Copernicus, the creator of the Heliocentric Model. The idea of the Sun being the center of the Universe instead of the Earth blew everyones minds and completely kicked them off of their box of truths. Science created many changes that Philosophers and Scientists all had to answer. Thus making the scientific revolution a big part of why the renaissance was revolutionary.
Another important figure of the Scientific Revolution is Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). He was the first to use the telescope to observe the stars and come up with the idea that the universe is completely subject to mathematical laws, and he was an ardent supporter of this novel concept. The heavens before the Scientific Revolution had been considered as the most mysterious part of the universe. With the heavens explained, people started to believe that it would be easy to understand humans as well. They felt that science...
The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was an intellectual and cultural movement in the 17th and 18th centuries. It concentrated on reason, logic, and freedom over blind faith. During this time more and more people reject absolute authority of the church and state. The driving force of the enlightenment across Europe and England came from a small group of thinkers and writers that are known today as “philosophes.” The English Enlightenment differed from other European countries, like France. England had many discoveries in manufacturing, literature, plays, and landscaping, but the advances in sciences were probably one of the important. This period of time was coined as the Scientific Revolution. The most
The Scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries changed the way that people views the world. Scientific philosophers such as Galileo and Descartes threw out the old teachings of the church and challenged them with new ways of thinking. These men sought to prove that rational thought could prove the existence of God. They also challenged that it was an understanding of a series of rational thoughts, not faith, would bring understanding of how the world worked. Traditional ways of thinking were ultimately challenged by logical and sensible rationale.
When comparing the views presented by both Aristotle and Copernicus, one must consider the circumstances under which these men lived to understand the differences. The most obvious of these is the time in history. Aristotle came almost 2000 years earlier in the astronomy field. While Copernicus had set out to glorify the great religion of his time, Aristotle's views came 200 years before Christ was even born! Although the book gives the impression nothing of significance in astronomy happened in the time between Aristotle and Copernicus, professional astronomy was a developing institution during that time. For nearly 2000 years astronomers had been tracking and organizing and refining the prevailing thoughts in astronomy so that Copernicus could look at them and make his judgment. This touches on perhaps the largest difference between Copernicus and Aristotle; while Aristotle was a pioneer in his field and was bringing a whole new theory about to explain the world to the people, Copernicus was merely evaluating and analyzing other people's theories. In fact, some would say there is no such thing as the Copernican theory, but merely a theory Copernicus believed. The major point where Copernicus disagreed with Aristotelian theory—that the Sun was the center of the universe—was taken from the Greeks. Even after deviating from the Aristotelian view, Copernicus did not question any of the other elements, such as celestial spheres and divine circular motion. While Aristotle and his views revolutionized the thinking of mankind for nearly 2000 years, Copernicus was so timid he did not even publish his works until the year of his death. Finally, while the Aristotelian theory was embrace...
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were known as the Scientific Revolution. During these centuries, science was starting to answer many questions about the earth. Scientists all around the world were making their assumptions on how the universe worked. Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer that also had a theory. The Copernican Theory changed many views and had a great effect on society.
The modern science view as well as the Scientific Revolution can be argued that it began with Copernicus’ heliocentric theory; his staunch questioning of the prior geocentric worldview led to the proposal of a new idea that the Earth is not in fact the center of the solar system, but simply revolving around the Sun. Although this is accepted as common sense today, the period in which Copernicus proposed this idea was ground-breaking, controversial, and frankly, world-changing. The Church had an immense amount of power, and was a force to be reckoned with; in the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, new scientific proposals and ideas were discouraged in many cases by the Church. A quote from Galileo’s Children does an excellent job summing up the conflict: “The struggle of Galileo against Church dogma concerning the nature of the cosmos epitomized the great, inevitable and continuing clash between religion and reason.” If evidence goes against scripture, the scientist is considered a heretic and is, like in Galileo’s case, forbidden to discuss the ideas any further. Galileo Galilei, who proposed solid evidence and theory supporting the heliocentric model, was forced to go back on his beliefs in front of several high officials, and distance himself from the Copernican model. This, luckily, allowed him to not be killed as a heretic, which was the next level of punishment for the crimes he was charged with, had he not went back on his beliefs. Incredible support was given through the young developing academies with a sense of community for scientists and academics; “Renaissance science academies represent a late manifestation of the humanist academy movement.” Since the Church was grounded traditionally evidence that went agains...
With the invention of newer technology, scholars were able to make closer observations for how different concepts of the science worked. With these scientific breakthroughs scholars and philosophers, who were mainly Christian, of this time of the Scientific Revolution made a pathway for a more efficient way of life. Natural Philosophy was used in the early 1500s by Enlightenment thinkers. It can be defined as the “study of the nature of the universe, its purpose, and how it functioned” (McKay, 504) All belief about the universe and its structure was based on Aristotle’s hypothesis. He believed the Earth was the center of the universe. Though he worked for Christian belief, natural philosophy in the early 1500s was based off of Aristotle’s model of the universe and his ideas of the planetary motion. This hypothesis was the center of natural philosophy until the Copernican Theory came into discovery. Aristotle believed that the world was flawed and that the planets in the universe represented the heavenly bodies. His theory was that there were ten spheres in the universe: water, air, fire, the moon, the sun, and the five planets. Aristotle declared that beyond the tenth sphere was heaven and this model was proved by Christian theologists to fit into the beliefs of Christians. The Christians
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, radical and controversial ideas were created in what would become a time period of great advances. The Scientific Revolution began with a spark of inspiration that spread a wild fire of ideas through Europe and America. The new radical ideas affected everything that had been established and proven through religious views. "The scientific revolution was more radical and innovative than any of the political revolutions of the seventeenth century."1 All of the advances that were made during this revolutionary time can be attributed to the founders of the Scientific Revolution.
In conclusion, the scientific revolution brought dramatic change in the way people lived their lives, and it certainly influenced eighteenth century free-thinking. The scientific method was comprehensively utilized during the eighteenth century to study human behavior and societies. It enabled scientist and scholars alike to exercise their freedom of rationality so they could come to their own conclusions about religion and humanity as a whole. They could finally do so without having to defer to the dictates of established authorities.
The changes produced during the Scientific Revolution were not rapid but developed slowly and in an experimental way. Although its effects were highly influential, the forerunners Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Rene Descartes only had a few hundred followers. Each pioneered unique ideas that challenged the current views of human beingsí relationship with nature. With the backing of empirical observation and mathematical proof, these ideas slowly gained acceptance. As a result, the operation of society, along with prior grounds for faith were reconsidered. Their ideas promoted change and reform for humansí well-being on earth.
The relationship between science and religion has been debated for many years. With strong personal opinions and beliefs, it is not surprising that no progress has been made in this argument. In my opinion, I feel as though religion and science have to be related in some way. There is no possible way people can separate two things that attempt to prove the same facts. My belief is that a metaphorical bridge has to be formed to connect the two. Personally, I feel as though science can be a compliment to religion, and that the scientific discoveries can and should be used to prove that God exists, not disprove it. If science did this, then the relationship between science and religion could be a friendly one. If that happened, people could stop debating and fighting over the two, allowing priests and scientists to talk and work together peacefully.