The Scientific Revolution
By Ethan Regan-Byrne
Nicolaus Copernicus
Developed the Heliocentric model of the solar system when he decided to challenge traditional interpretations of Ptolemy's ideas.
Tycho Brahe
Amassed a large amount of scientific data about the planets using naked eye observations.
Johannes Kepler
first proposed that planets have elliptical orbits, giving strength to the heliocentric theory.
Galileo Galilei
Observed several moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and sunspots. Made massive leaps in the spread of the Heliocentric theory, pioneered use of the telescope, often called the father of modern astronomy.
Isaac Newton
Justified Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion through his discovery of the three laws of Newtonian physics.
The most important of these scientists was Isaac Newton, since he established the base for physics for the next couple centuries.
Francis Bacon
The father of empiricism, Bacon believed that only observation and interpretation based on observation could produce a reasonable scientific basis for thought. This helped to bring credibility to new arguments about the universe, such as Newton's. While he could prove his work mathematically, it also made sense in the real world.
This scientific revolution was a complete change in how people viewed the nature of knowledge. Before, people believed that there was no new knowledge left in the universe to discover. The birth of new ideas and new interpretations of old systems was a serious culture shock to Europe. This complete revision of scientific thought has prevailed to this day, much longer than Cromwell's revolution.
John Locke
Locke viewed people as fundamentally good, and that soverigns taking the rights away from their subjects was the cause of unrest and political instability. He thought that government should exist to protect and serve its citizens.
Thomas Hobbes
Hobbes believed that humans were fundamentally evil and greedy. He thought that if anyone had any shot at getting money or power, they would take it. To prevent total anarchy, he advocated for a strong government that was concerned more with ruling than serving.
Women in science
Many women were unable to actively pursue the sciences as a career. The lives of noblewomen were often taken up with ritual, and had little freetime or freedom. Craftswomen had more freedom, since they could continue their husbands business after his death, and oftentimes worked with court scientists. Many other women, while discouraged from university work, often used their husbands to advance their own ideas. Rich women were also able to give patronage to scientists in their own courts, and aid the sciences through their resources.
Galileo's trial
Galileo was put on trial twice for ideas that interpreted the Bible in a different way than the Church. In 1616, they reached an unspecified agreement, but Galileo broke it by continuing to spread his beliefs. The church put him in house arrest in his second trial in 1633. This shed a shadow over the church and its treatment of scientific ventures.
Pascal
Blaise Pascal was a Christian philosopher who sought a religious middle ground between extremism and atheism. He proposed the famous Pascal's wager, claiming it was statistically better to believe in God, as illustrated on the left. Argued that belief required more than reason, and believing in God required a leap of faith.
Divine watchmaker theory
Some Christian Scientists were able to reconcile science with their religion by saying that the greatest way to glorify god is to discover the ways that the universe he created works.
Witch hunts were essentially the growing pains of the scientific revolution. The reformation contributed to them since it made Religious minorities and dissidents even more stigmatized in society. They occurred because of local fear over unexplained phenomena, which is why most "witches" were social outcasts or very dangerous careers like midwives.