2.1 How did the scientific revolution affect Europe?
CLASSWORK: Take notes in outline format
HOMEWORK: Answer the following by including as many facts and details from the lesson as possible:
1. Why do you think that people have said, "It's true the apple fell on Newton's head but it was Copernicus who planted the tree?”
2. Why was this period of time known as a revolution? What was so revolutionary?
The Scientific Revolution
For many centuries, scientists had accepted the writings of ancient scholars and the teachings of religious leaders about science and nature. Early in the Renaissance, scientists began to use new methods to study nature. Conclusions based on observation and experimentation became the basis for scientific theories. Statements put forth as facts were accepted as truth only after they had been tested in experiments. These tests and their results were written down so that other scientists could repeat them. Gradually, the scientific method of observation, experimentation, and drawing conclusions came into common use. This method made such major changes in the study and understanding of nature that it was said to have caused a scientific revolution.
The Renaissance Affects Methods of Science
Renaissance scientists changed their ideas of what the heavens were like. The new understanding of the universe came about as the result of applying the scientific method to observations and theories. People of the Middle Ages had gained their understanding of the world through Christian teachings. Christian theologians believed that the biblical account of creation was literally true: 1) that God’s realm was the most important part of the universe, 2) it was somewhere beyond and above the solar system, and 3) the Earth, as the home of human beings created by God, was the focus of God’s attention and therefore at the center of the solar system. This theory of the universe was known as the geocentric theory. A geocentric solar system is one in which the sun and all the planets revolve around the earth, which does not move.
Interestingly enough, the first person who challenged this view of the solar system was a devout clergyman from Poland called Nicolaus Copernicus in the early 16th century. In his astronomical studies, he had read the theories of the astronomer Ptolemy, who lived during the 2nd century CE in Egypt. Ptolemy developed rules based on the geocentric model of the solar system. These rules were so complicated and sometimes so inaccurate that Copernicus began to feel that God could not have made a geocentric solar system. Copernicus turned to another theory proposed by a Greek. This was the heliocentric model in which the earth and all the other planets revolved around the sun. For nearly forty years, Copernicus studied and tested the heliocentric theory and published a book, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Bodies. This book outraged religious leaders. Not only did it contradict the Bible, but it also gave human beings an insignificant place in the universe.
Another key figure at this time was Galileo Galilei, a professor of mathematics in Italy. Galileo also accepted the heliocentric theory. He, too, realized that only the heliocentric model made logical sense. A newly invented device, the forerunner of the modern telescope, provided Galileo with visual evidence that supported Copernicus.
Sir Francis Bacon, an English philosopher, writer and public official, felt scientists should use inductive reasoning to develop general explanations. Inductive reasoning is a process in which repeated experimentation allows a scientist to gather information that is then used to develop a general explanation. This explanation could be further tested through other experiments. A French scientist, Renee Descartes, believed that deductive reasoning, or observation of basic truths and principles, was an acceptable way to determine natural laws. He is most famous for the declaration: “I think, therefore I am.” Furthermore, Descartes is remembered for emphasizing the importance of questioning all established ideas.
European scholars soon realized that combining the two methods of Bacon and Descartes provided the most powerful means of investigation. The combination of logical deductive reasoning from self-evident principles, and inductive reasoning from the collection and observation of data through repeatable experiments, is what we now call the scientific method.
Another scientist who made important discoveries was a mathematician from England, Sir Isaac Newton. He created the advanced system of calculus, a type of mathematics used to describe and measure motion. Newton also developed the law of universal gravitation, which explained the operational force of gravity. Newton used this law to explain how gravity keeps planets in orbit around the sun and how objects fall to the earth.