When
Renaissance
(Petrarch) 1450ish to1527
Scientific Revolution
1450 to 1648
The Scientific Revolution
Daniel In the Lion’s Den
- Ruben
What is the Scientific
Revolution?
• It is the beginning of a great intellectual
transformation that leads to the modern world
• concurrent with other major events
– Copernicus is making discoveries at the time of the
religious wars are breaking out in Europe
– by the end of the Revolution Europe is about to embark
on the Enlightenment, a cultural movement that largely
rejected religion.
I. Before the Scientific Revolution
• Scientists seek to understand HOW things
happen
– intent is to use science to “prove” God exists
– earliest Scientists are usually priests/monks
– earliest Scientists are astronomers
• easy access
• spiritually significant
How things stood
• Aristotle
– dominates how world is thought to work
• world at rest, motion caused by angels
• Ptolemy
– astronomy based on Aristotle
Ptolemy
– astronomy with
perfect circles for
planetary motion
• cycles and
epicycles
– crystalline spheres
fix each planet’s
movement
– earth at center &
sun orbits earth
Ptolemy’s Geocentric System
Witchcraft
• Middle Ages convicted witches do heavy
penance since they were misguided
• View changes over time
– By Renaissance people began to believe that
witches actually flew and ate babies
– witches must have committed a pact with the devil
of their own free will
Popular Images of witches (1600s)
Departing for the Sabbath
An Assembly of Witches
Witchcraft
• Major witch hunts occur during the century from
1560 to 1660 (slowly peters out after)
– Crosses the Atlantic to Salem Massachusetts in 1692
• Witch hunts arise in areas experiencing religious
conflict
– Occurs in areas both Protestant and Catholic.
Witchcraft
• Between 1450-1660
– approximately 110,000 went to trial
– approximately 60,000 were executed
– this is only for Church or government officiated trials many instances are recorded of communities acting on
their own
• Women comprise 75% of those executed.
Examination of a Witch
Magical Thought
• Belief in magic was widespread
• While most educated people professed not to believe,
many still held charms, like Queen Elizabeth’s magic ring
to ward off the plague
• Magic was viewed as being either good (tied to the church)
or bad
– alternative was natural magic
• astrology
• alchemy.
The Alchemist
- Jan Van der Straet
II. Causes of the Scientific Revolution
• Trade and Expansion of Trade
– navigational problems generated research
• Medieval Universities
– study of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and
Democritus were essential
• The Renaissance
– value of mathematics
– Humanism.
III. Principles of the Revolution
• Logic over faith: religion no longer the only
possible explanation for events
• Observe, experiment & publish
• Verifiable: Use of mathematics to prove a point
• Money: Patronage
• Questioning: discrepancy between observation
and expectations springboards into a search for
truth
Other Scientific Advances
Medical firsts:
- First accurate and detailed study of
human anatomy
- First use of stitches
- First description of the circulatory
system
- First microscope
Other Scientific Advances
The Scientific Revolution led to the Age of
Enlightenment and a growing belief in human
progress
VI. Effects of Revolution
• Social impact
– rich get richer
– not much immediate direct change for peasants
– widens intellectual gap
• effect on navigation, map making and artillery
• Science has innumerable social effects over time: new
guns, bigger armies, more taxes, social discontent
– guns lead to European colonialism (more accurate cannon
fire)
• new way of observing the world.
IV. Main Scientists
• Astronomers: Copernicus, Kepler, Galilei
• Scientific Method: Bacon, Descartes
• Synthesis: Newton
Nicholas Copernicus
(1473-1543)
• Polish priest studied in Italy
• returns to Poland and works on
Astronomy
• writes De Revolutionibus Orbitum
Coelestitum (On the Revolutions of
Heavenly Spheres)
• Earth is just another planet with a 24
hour rotation
• retains circular planetary motion
(perfection of the sphere).
Johannes Kepler
(1571-1630)
• Student of mathematics and astronomy
• studied with Tycho Brahe
• tested hypothesis after hypothesis until he
determined that planets move in ellipses
• Three Laws of Planetary Motion
1 planets move in ellipses with sun as one focus
2 velocity of a planet is not uniform
3 equal area of the plane is covered in equal time
by the planets.
Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642)
• Astronomy
– used a telescope, proved the heavens are not perfect (craters on moon)
– supported Heliocentric system
• Laws of Motion
– dropping weights from the Tower of Pisa
– imagined motion without constraint!!!!
– Thought of inertia
• Problems with the church
– argues for separation of science and theology because we are endowed with
reason
– 1633 banned by Church and house arrest
– must recant heliocentric system to save neck.
Reactions to Galileo
• Italy and Spain
• More freedom in France, England and Holland
• University of Padua was under Venice, the most anticlerical state in Europe; Copernicus, Galileo and Harvey
studied there
• Protestants as hostile as Catholics on Biblical grounds, less
state control in Protestant nations and in the end Protestant
nations become more liberal than at first.
Methodology in Science
• Some thinkers were concerned with the Scientific
Method
• Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes were
significant, both decided that all previous beliefs
(outside religion) had to be ignored.
Isaac Newton
(1642-1727)
• Possibly the greatest scientist who ever
lived - born on the day Galileo died
• math/physics/astronomy
• author of Principia Mathematica in 1687
– bringing together Galileo’s discoveries
about motion on Earth and Kepler’s
discoveries in the heavens
– to do so he had to develop calculus
• explained heavenly motion that was tied
to observed motion on Earth.
Isaac Newton
• Provided a
synthesis
superior to
Aristotle
• notion of inertia
- only have to
explain change
• Three Laws of
Motion
1 Bodies move in
straight lines unless
impeded (inertia)
2 Every action has an
equal and opposite
action
3 every body attracts
every other body
with a force
proportional to the
distance between
Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night
God said, “Let Newton be.” and all was light
- Pope.
Newton ties it all together
Newton’s work led to a new branch of
mathematics called calculus
Newton ties it all together
Newton made the connection between
gravity and the planets’ movement
According to legend, Isaac
Newton discovered gravity
when he saw an apple fall
from a tree
III. Newton ties it all together
Newton believed gravity kept the planets in
their orbits around the sun
Francis Bacon
(1561-1626)
• Proposed INDUCTION
– make a lot of observations then generalize rules of
nature - this leads to scientific observation as a method
• Promoted the modern idea of progress because he
wanted application of science
• Problem of Induction
– there is no logical reason to go argue from any amount
of experience to a general law.
Rene Descartes
(1596-1650)
• Great mathematician - showed that any algebraic
equation could be plotted on a graph
• In this manner he linked Greek with Hindu and Arabic
knowledge
• Also looked at DEDUCTION - go from a theory to the
facts
• Only wants what is absolute “Cogito ergo sum” I think
therefore I am
• leads to proof of God.
Andreas Vesalius
(1514-1564)
• Founder of modern day Anatomy
• Published The Structure of the Human Body
in 1543
Biology: The
Circulation of Blood
• In biology, William
Harvey (1578-1657)
accurately
demonstrated how
blood circulates
through the human
body.
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V. Other Scientific Advances
Significant advances occurred in chemistry
and medicine
Alchemy
The Four
Humors
Galen
Sight
- Jan Brueghel
Effects of the Scientific Revolution
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Skepticism and Independent Reasoning: For example, Descartes reached the extreme of
skepticism by doubting his own existence. Then, he realized that his own act of thinking
proved his own existence (I think, therefore, I am.)
Challenges to Religion: The idea that the universe worked like a machine according to natural
laws and without the intervention of God challenged established religious ideas. This position
was adopted by the Deists in the 18th century.
Decline in Belief in Magic, Demons, and Witchcraft: By the 18th century, the educated
classes denied the existence of demons and the power of witchcraft. The skeptical views of
the educated classes were not shared by the common people for whom religion remained
important. The result was a divide between learned and popular culture.
Questions about Humanity's Role in the Universe: By making humans the inhabitants of a tiny
planet circling the sun, the Copernican Universe reduced the importance of humanity. It led
people to begin to question the place of humanity in creation.
Gave Humanity Control of Nature: Some philosophers argued that by gaining knowledge of
the laws of nature, people could control nature. Through science and technology, they could
improve human life. This belief in progress became an integral part of Western culture.
Challenges to Established Views of Women: The new scientific ideas challenged the ancient
and medieval beliefs about the physical and mental inferiority of women by concluding that
both men and women made equal contribution to reproduction. Nevertheless, traditional
notions about women continued to dominate
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