Module 3.

INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFEINED SOCIETY

LESSON PROPER

SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

The scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early
modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy,
biology (including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about
nature. The scientific revolution began in Europe toward the end of the
Renaissance period, and continued through the late 18th century, influencing the
intellectual social movement known as the Enlightenment. While its dates are disputed,
the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium
coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is often cited as marking the
beginning of the scientific revolution.

The scientific revolution was built upon the foundation of ancient Greek learning
and science in the Middle Ages, as it had been elaborated and further developed by
Roman/Byzantine science and medieval Islamic science. The Aristotelian tradition was
still an important intellectual framework in the 17th century, although by that time natural
philosophers had moved away from much of it. Key scientific ideas dating back to
classical antiquity had changed drastically over the years, and in many cases had been
discredited. The ideas that remained were transformed fundamentally during the scientific
revolution.

The change to the medieval idea of science occurred for four reasons:
1. Seventeenth century scientists and philosophers were able to collaborate with
members of the mathematical and astronomical communities to effect advances in all
fields.
2. Scientists realized the inadequacy of medieval experimental methods for their work
and so felt the need to devise new methods (some of which we use today).
3. Academics had access to a legacy of European, Greek, and Middle Eastern scientific
philosophy that they could use as a starting point (either by disproving or building on the
theorems).
4. institutions (for example, the British Royal Society) helped validate science as a field
by providing an outlet for the publication of scientists’ work.
New Methods

Under the scientific method that was defined and applied in the 17th century,
natural and artificial circumstances were abandoned, and a research tradition of
systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community.
The philosophy of using an inductive approach to nature (to abandon assumption and to
attempt to simply observe with an open mind) was in strict contrast with the earlier,
Aristotelian approach of deduction, by which analysis of known facts produced further
understanding. In practice, many scientists and philosophers believed that a healthy mix
of both was needed—the willingness to both question assumptions, and to interpret
observations assumed to have some degree of validity.

During the scientific revolution, changing perceptions about the role of the scientist
in respect to nature, the value of evidence, experimental or observed, led towards a
scientific methodology in which empiricism played a large, but not absolute, role. The term
British empiricism came into use to describe philosophical differences perceived between
two of its founders—Francis Bacon, described as empiricist, and René Descartes, who
was described as a rationalist. Bacon’s works established and popularized
inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or
sometimes simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of
investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical
framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology
today. Correspondingly, Descartes distinguished between the knowledge that could be
attained by reason alone (rationalist approach), as, for example, in mathematics, and the
knowledge that required experience of the world, as in physics.

Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley, and David Hume were the primary exponents
of empiricism, and developed a sophisticated empirical tradition as the basis of human
knowledge. The recognized founder of the approach was John Locke, who proposed
in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) that the only true knowledge that
could be accessible to the human mind was that which was based on experience.

New Ideas
Many new ideas contributed to what is called the scientific revolution. Some of them
were revolutions in their own fields. These include:
• The heliocentric model that involved the radical displacement of the earth to an
orbit around the sun (as opposed to being seen as the center of the universe).
Copernicus’ 1543 work on the heliocentric model of the solar system tried to
demonstrate that the sun was the center of the universe. The discoveries of
Johannes Kepler and Galileo gave the theory credibility and the work culminated
 in Isaac Newton’s Principia, which formulated the laws of motion and universal
gravitation that dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next
three centuries.
• Studying human anatomy based upon the dissection of human corpses, rather
than the animal dissections, as practiced for centuries. Discovering and studying
magnetism and electricity, and thus, electric properties of various materials.
Modernization of disciplines (making them more as what they are today), including
dentistry, physiology, chemistry, or optics.
• Invention of tools that deepened the understating of sciences, including
mechanical calculator, steam digester (the forerunner of the steam engine),
refracting and reflecting telescopes, vacuum pump, or mercury barometer.

The Thinker: Nicolaus Copernicus

As mentioned earlier, the man who arguably began this revolution was the Polish
astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Born in Thorn in 1473, Copernicus studied in Krakow,
Bologna, Padua and Rome before returning to Warmia, Poland to teach and study for the
remainder of his life.
Copernicus worked on a heliocentric model - where the sun, and not the Earth,
was the center of the solar system - for nearly his entire life. Unlike previous astronomers
and mathematicians who had used heliocentric models simply to make their mathematical
calculations of the planet's orbits more accurate, Copernicus firmly believed the sun to be
at the center of the solar system. Likely due to fears of potential backlash from church
authorities, Copernicus waited to publish his theories and calculations until shortly before
his death. Regardless of errors and discrepancies in his final theory, Copernicus' greatest
achievement was the removal of the Earth from the center of the universe and solar
system.

Charles Darwin and his Theory of Evolution

Charles Robert Darwin (February 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882) is one of the most
celebrated and eminent scientists of the past few centuries, with his broadest and most
notable influence arising from his theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
Darwin’s remarkable investigations and insights obtained during his voyage on the
HMS Beagle (1831–1836) led him to theorize about concepts of evolutionary biology and
to develop revolutionary ideas related to adaptation and speciation. Although previous
scientific thinkers had laid down some of the foundations for Darwin’s work, and others
later expanded upon and more fully developed the scientific bases for his conclusions,
Darwin set forth and formulated the controversial but coherent ideas about organic
evolution that have impacted the world at large. His groundbreaking “On the Origin of
Species” was originally published in 1859. Later, in 1871, Darwin argued in “The Descent
of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex” that humans had evolved just as other
organisms had, creating a storm of controversy that continues today.

Darwin’s core insights regarding natural selection have proven inspirational and
profound. In the process of natural selection, organisms often tend to produce more
progeny than the environment will allow to subsist. In the struggle for existence that
ensues, progeny with favorable variations in their traits will survive and leave more
offspring than others do; the favorable variations accumulate through subsequent
generations, and descendants with a set of adaptations to their environment eventually
diverge from their less adapted ancestors. Working from this basic foundation of evolution
through natural selection, modern scientists and investigators have been able to
formulate more specific principles and ideas relating to many topics.

CRADLES OF EARLY SCIENCE

Mesoamerica
The founding culture of Mesoamerica appeared along the southwestern curve of
the Gulf of Mexico, near the present city of Veracruz. The Olmecs (the “rubber people”)
culture lasted from about 1400 BCE to 100 BCE. It produced nearly imperishable art,
notably large carved heads of volcanic rock, the largest weighing some 20 tons and
standing about 10 feet tall. Monumental sculptures or tombs are typically indicative of a
civilization with powerful leaders. The Maya organized themselves into small city-states
instead of one big empire. They developed the most elaborate and sophisticated writing
system of the several different ones used in Mesoamerica. Mayan writing included both
pictographs and symbols for syllables.

Maya shaman/priests worked out remarkable systems of cosmology and

mathematics. They devised three kinds of calendars. A calendar of the solar year of 365
days governed the agricultural cycle and a calendar of the ritual year of 260 days dictated
daily affairs; these two calendars coincided every 52 years. A third calendar, called the
Long Count calendar, extended back to the date August 13, 3114 BCE (on the Gregorian
calendar), to record the large-scale passage of time. The Maya calculated a solar year as
365.242 days, about 17 seconds shorter than the figures of modern astronomers. They
also introduced the concept of zero; the first evidence of zero as a number dates from
357 BCE, but it may go back further, to Olmec times. In Afro-Eurasia, Hindu scholars first
represented zero in the 800s CE.

Asia
Early evidence for Chinese millet agriculture is dated to around 7000 BCE, with
the earliest evidence of cultivated rice found at Chengtoushan near the Yangtze River,
dated to 6500 BCE. Chengtoushan may also be the site of the first walled city in China.
This Neolithic Revolution gave rise to the Jiahu culture (7000 to 5800 BCE). Some
scholars have suggested that the Jiahu symbols (6600 BCE) are the earliest form of
proto-writing in China.
Chinese civilization begins during the second phase of the Erlitou period (1900 to
1500 BCE), with Erlitou considered the first state level society of East Asia. Erlitou saw
an increase in bronze metallurgy and urbanization and was a rapidly growing regional
center with palatial complexes that provide evidence for social stratification. The earliest
traditional Chinese dynasty for which there is both archeological and written evidence is
the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1046 BCE). Shang sites have yielded the earliest known
body of Chinese writing, the oracle bone script, mostly divinations inscribed on bones.
These inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, and
religious practices to the art and medicine of this early stage of Chinese civilization.
The Sanxingdui culture is another Chinese Bronze Age society, contemporaneous to the
Shang dynasty, however they developed a different method of bronze-making from the
Shang.

Middle East
The capital of this empire, Baghdad, was established on the Tigris River. Its
location made it a natural crossroads, the place where East and West could meet.
Baghdad quickly became a major cultural centre. Important Greek and Indian
mathematical books were translated and studied, leading to a new era of scientific
creativity that was to last until the 14th century.
One of the earliest and most distinguished of the Arabic mathematicians was the
9th century scholar Abu Ja'far Mohammed ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, an astronomer to the
caliph at Baghdad. His full name can be translated as "Father of Ja'far, Mohammed, son
of Moses, native of the town of Al-Khwarizmi". Al-Khwarizmi wrote several enormously
influential books. One, in particular, describes how to write numbers and compute with
them using the place-value decimal system we use today, which had been developed in
India some time before 600 AD. This book would, when translated into Latin 300 years
later, prove a major source for Europeans who wanted to learn the new system. Today,
we know it as the Hindu-Arabic system. It is taught to schoolchildren worldwide.

Africa
The Lebombo Bone discovered between South Africa and Swaziland is dated
back to about 37,000 years before the present era. According to scientists, it could be a
lunar calendar, specifying the number of days in a lunar month, similar in principle to the
notches calendar used today by the San people in Namibia. This is the first visible sign
of the emergence of mathematical calculations in the history of humanity, as
reflected by the Anglo-Saxon researcher Richard Mankiewicz in his book L’histoire des
mathématiques – Paris, Seuil, 2001. The first certain trace of the existence and the
mastery of agriculture comes from Nubia (Sudan). The work of Professor Fred Wendorf
admitted today that at least 14,000 years ago, the African man was the first to master
agriculture and techniques.

References:

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II. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/the-scientific-
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Brush, S. G., Spencer, J. B., & Osler, M. J. (2019, May 3). Scientific Revolution |
Definition, History, scientists, inventions, & Facts. Encyclopedia
Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/Scientific-Revolution

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). What did the Scientific Revolution lead
to? Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/question/What-did-the-
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