Deconstructing Early Modern Science Descriptions: • Rene Descartes: Demonstrated how skepticism could be used to produce certainty. Said “I think therefore I am” • Paracelsus: A Swiss alchemist who proposes that all matter is composed of the “three principles—sulfur, salt, and mercury.” He believed that illness was caused by specific factors that could be diagnosed and treated. • Andreas Vesalius: The doctor to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V whose intricate drawings set the standard for future anatomical research. • Marcello Malphigi: In studying frogs, this Italian determined that the a series of tiny blood vessels called capillaries carried blood from arteries to the veins. • Materialism: The universe is contained in the realization the universe is composed of matter in motion. • Copernicus: The Polish astronomer whose scholarship led him to the publican of “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres” which put forward the “Heliocentric Solar System”. • Robert Boyle: Matter consists of “little particles of all sizes and shapes.” Helped found the basis of chemistry. • Rembrandt van Rijn: His painting Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolas Tulp showed just how far Europe had come in the areas of science and learning, as it showed the taboo subject of a human dissection. • Francis Bacon: Proposed a scientific method through inductive empirical experimentation. • Tycho Brahe: The Danish astronomer whose discoveries of a Nova and a comet dismembered the crystalline ring theory of Aristotle. • Johannes Kepler: The German philosopher whose hypotheses led to the synthesis of the mathematical system of elliptical orbits. • William Harvey: The English natural scientist whose work drew the conclusion that the heart pumped blood throughout the body and to the organs. • Aristotileanism: The benchmark of scientific wisdom, the ancient belief system that welded with Christianity and had forged a strong following. • Newtonian Universe: The universe is governed by scientific laws which mankind can decipher through an understanding of mathematics and science. • Isaac Newton: The first to understand the composition of light, the first to develop a calculus and the first to build a reflecting telescope. • Galileo: The Italian natural philosopher whose legacy included developing a telescope to magnify the heavens and to prove the Copernican theory. His later inquisition at the hands of the church slowed scientific inquiry. • Isaac Newton: Made stunning contributions to optics, physics, astronomy, and mathematics • Antony von Leeuwenhoek: Discovered bacteria by using the plaque between his own teeth. Wrote that he had found an “unbelievably great company of living animalcules”. • Hermeticists: Believed in a universal spirit that was present in all objects and that spontaneously revealed itself.