Revolutionary Thinking - The Birth of Modern Science WHAP/Napp

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“For many years the split between the mathematical astronomers and the Church continued rather quietly, with the mathematicians generally winning out among educated audiences. Then, in 1609, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the Italian astronomer, turned the newly invented telescope skyward and changed forever what we know about the heavens, how we know it, and its significance in the eyes of the non-specialist, general public. Galileo added new empirical evidence and new technology to the toolkit of astronomy, opening new avenues of knowledge and popularizing them. The telescope had been created in the Netherlands; Galileo was the first to turn it toward the skies, and he made one discovery after another: The Milky Way is not just a dull glow in the sky but a gigantic collection of stars; the moon’s surface is irregular, covered with craters and hills; the moon’s radiant light is a reflection from the sun; the sun has imperfections, dark spots which appear and disappear across it surface, the earth is not the only planet with moons – Galileo observed four satellites circling Jupiter.

Galileo wrote, ‘We shall prove the earth to be a wandering body [in orbit around the sun]…This we shall support by an infinitude of arguments drawn from nature” (Galileo, p. 45). Over and over Galileo stressed the validity of his own empirical observations. ‘With the aid of the telescope this has been scrutinized so directly and with such ocular certainty that all disputes which have vexed the philosophers through so many ages have been resolved, and we are at last freed from wordy debates about it.’ ‘One may learn with all the certainty of sense evidence’; ‘All these facts were discovered and observed by me not many days ago with the aid of a spyglass which I devised, after first being illuminated by divine grace’; ‘our own eyes show us.’ Galileo’s appeal to sense evidence, to direct observation, to empirically based information, and to its complete accessibility to anyone who looks through a telescope, found enormous resonance. He wrote for the general audience, not for university scholars; he wrote in Italian, not in Latin. The publication of Galileo’s discoveries increased public interest in astronomy, and that public interest gradually turned into general acceptance.

The Catholic Church, deeply enmeshed in its cold war with Protestantism, finally turned against him. In 1633 Galileo was tried by the Inquisition and found guilty of having taught his doctrines against the orders of the Church. Under threat of torture, the sixty-nine-year-old scientist recanted his beliefs and was sentenced to house arrest in his villa near Florence for the rest of his life. (In 1992, 359 years later, Pope John Paul II officially and publicly spoke of the ruling of the Inquisition as a ‘sad misunderstanding which now belongs to the past,’ and suggested that there is no incompatibility between ‘the spirit of science and its rules of research on the one hand, and the Christian faith on the other.’

~ The World’s History

1-How did Galileo’s telescope change world history? ______

2-How did Galileo differ from previous scientific scholars? ______

3-What happened to Galileo in 1633? ______

  1. The Birth of Modern Science
  1. Between the mid-sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries
  2. Careful observations, controlled experiments, formulation of general laws
  3. Copernicus from Poland, Galileo from Italy, Descartes from France, and Newton from England: departed from older ways of thinking
  4. Challenged the teachings and authority of the Catholic Church
  5. But why did the Scientific Revolution occur first in Europe
  6. Islamic world had generated most advanced science during 800s and 1400s
  7. China’s elite culture of Confucianism was sophisticated and secular
  1. Why Europe?
  1. By 1215, University of Paris: “corporation of masters and scholars,” could admit and expel students, establish course instruction, and grant a “license”
  2. Universities in Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, and Salamanca became “neutral zones of intellectual autonomy”
  3. In Islamic world, movement towards colleges known as madrassas where Quranic studies and religious law held a central place
  4. And Chinese education focused on preparing for a rigidly defined set of civil service examinationsbased on moral texts of Confucianism
  1. Scientists
  1. In 1543, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres was published
  2. Nicolaus Copernicus argued that “at the middle of all things lies the sun” or heliocentric model of universe
  3. Johannes Kepler showed that the planets follow elliptical orbits, undermining the ancient belief that they moved in perfect circles
  4. Galileo Galilei, an Italian, developed an improved telescope, with which he observed sunspots, or blemishes, moving across face of sun
  5. Culmination of Scientific Revolution: work of Sir Isaac Newton
  6. Formulated modern laws of motion and mechanics as well as gravity
  7. Knowledge of universe could be obtained through human reason alone
  8. Like the physical universe, human body also lost some of its mystery
  9. Careful dissections of cadavers and animals
  10. Scientists faced strenuous opposition from Catholic Church
  11. Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, proclaiming an infinite universe and many worlds, was burned at stake in 1600
  1. Applying Scientific Thinking to Human Affairs
  1. Thinkers began to apply human reason, skepticism of authority
  2. Adam Smith (1723-1790): laws accounting for operation of economy
1. Smith spoke of the laws of supply and demand
  1. Many believed the outcome of scientific development would be “enlightenment”
  2. Philosophers took aim at arbitrary governments, “divine right of kings”
  3. John Locke (1632-1704): constitutional government, contract between rulers and ruled, opposed divine right
  4. Voltaire (1694-1778) advocated religious tolerance
  5. Central theme of Enlightenment (Age of Reason) was progress
  6. Inspired American, French, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions

1-Identify the dates of the Scientific Revolution. ______

2-What was the Scientific Revolution? ______

3-Identify significant scientists of the Scientific Revolution. ______

4-What did the scientists of the Scientific Revolution challenge? ______

5-Why is it surprising that the Scientific Revolution began in Western Europe? ______

6-How did the establishment of universities in medieval Europe affect Europeans? ______

7-What are madrassas and how does a madrassa differ from a European university? ______

8-What prevented the Chinese during this period from advancing in science? ______

9-Who was Copernicus and why was he significant? ______

10-Who was Kepler and why was he significant? ______

11-Who was Galileo and why was he significant? ______

12-Who was Newton and why was he significant? ______

13-How did the Scientific Revolution fundamentally change human understanding? ______

14-How did dissections change human understanding? ______

15-Why was Giordano Bruno burned at the stake? ______

16-How did the Scientific Revolution affect political understanding? ______

17-Who was Adam Smith and why was he significant? ______

18-What was the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason? ______

19-Identify the century of the Age of Reason or Enlightenment. ______

20-What did Enlightenment philosophers begin to question? ______

21-Who was John Locke and what did he believe? ______

22-Who was Voltaire and what did he believe? ______

23-What did the ideas of the Enlightenment inspire? ______

  1. Which of the following scientists, in On the Revolution of Heavenly Bodies, reasserted the Greek and Chinese theories that the universe was heliocentric?
(A)Nicolaus Copernicus
(B)Johannes Kepler
(C)Galileo Galilei
(D)René Descartes
(E)Isaac Newton
  1. Galileo ran afoul of church authorities when he promoted the idea that
(A)Observation and reason were superior to other scientific methods.
(B)Direct observation of the natural world was the only source of human knowledge.
(C)Ptolemy, and not Copernicus, had the correct heliocentric model.
(D)Earth was not the center of God’s creation.
(E)All of the above.
  1. Which movement from the following list established a tradition of seeking answers to questions about nature through the application of reason and methodical investigation of the world?
(A)Phenomenology
(B)Scientific Revolution
(C)Protestant Reformation
(D)Enlightenment
(E)Renaissance /
  1. Which of the following movements applied reason to the problems of human affairs and can be understood as an extension of the Scientific Revolution into the field of politics?
(A)Renaissance
(B)Green Revolution
(C)Enlightenment
(D)Protestant Reformation
(E)Bolshevik Revolution
  1. Who is credited with bringing awareness of the heliocentric nature of the solar system into Western civilization?
(A)Aristotle
(B)Galileo
(C)Columbus
(D)Copernicus
(E)Descartes
  1. Which of the following thinkers established the principles of objects in motion and defined the forces of gravity?
(A)Descartes
(B)Rousseau
(C)Newton
(D)Bacon
(E)Galileo

Thesis Practice: Change over Time

Analyze continuities and changes in European intellectual thought from 500 to 1800 C.E.

______